Raytheon has reached an agreement to acquire BBN Technologies, a privately-held security software company that specializes in advanced networking, speech and language technologies, information technologies, sensor systems and cybersecurity, for an undisclosed price.
AUSTRALIAN SUPPORT: The Australian minister for defense personnel, materiel and science officially opened BAE Systems’ new aircraft maintenance center at Townsville Airport in North Queensland on Aug. 27. The facility is the home of BAE’s support program for the Australian Army’s Black Hawk and Chinook helicopter fleets. “I’m proud to announce that the Black Hawk rate-of-effort for the last financial year was an 11 percent increase over the previous financial year and the highest for more than six years,” Minister Greg Combet said in praising the company.
NOT APPLICABLE: A Northrop Grumman spokesman told reporters Sept. 1 that the upcoming World Trade Organization report over a U.S. complaint about Airbus subsidies does not and should not affect the U.S. Air Force’s beleaguered KC-X acquisition. “This dispute has no relevance to and should have no impact on the Defense Department’s tanker replacement program,” spokesman Randy Belote asserted in a teleconference.
PARIS — Indonesian telecom operator PT Indosat is attempting to recover a new spacecraft needed to maintain and expand satcom service to Southeast Asia following the failure of a Long March rocket Aug. 30.
Astronauts from the space shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station (ISS) combined forces to begin eight days of docked activities late Aug. 31, plugging the Leonardo pressurized logistics module into the station’s Harmony node for unloading.
Putting the Orion crew exploration vehicle atop a new rocket would require a year or two more work to get back to its current stage of development, project managers said Sept. 1. NASA experts completed their preliminary design review (PDR) on the four-seat capsule Aug. 31, and cleared project engineers to begin work on detailed design of the intended replacement for the space shuttle as the agency’s route to space for humans.
The U.S. must increase its strategic competence, which has suffered in recent decades, to meet multifaceted security challenges facing the nation, according to a new report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA).
Some data in an Aug. 26 DAILY article on the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission was incorrect and additional data has become available. LCROSS was launched with 306 kilograms (675 pounds) of stationkeeping fuel and lost 140 kilograms when its inertial reference unit suffered an anomaly. The mission has an estimated 50 kilograms of fuel remaining (with a plus/minus error factor of 12 kilograms). The mission team needs about 26 kilograms to achieve full mission success. Both its IRU and star tracker systems are now functioning nominally.
GREENVILLE, Texas — Northrop Grumman or possibly Boeing could be added to the contractors participating in the U.S. Air Force’s Project Liberty, a program designed to deliver Hawker Beechcraft King Air 350 and 350-ERs outfitted with video and signals intelligence to Iraq and Afghanistan.
An Indian Air Force MiG-29 fighter was scrambled to intercept an Air France Airbus A340 en route from Paris to Bangkok last week that was transmitting the wrong identification code when it entered Indian airspace from Pakistan. India’s defense forces have been on heightened alert since the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November. In June, a U.S.-chartered Antonov An-124 freighter en route from Diego Garcia to Afghanistan was forced to land at Mumbai after straying into Indian airspace from Pakistan with the wrong transponder code.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates reiterated his support for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — along with his opposition to an alternative engine for the aircraft — during a tour of Lockheed Martin’s final-assembly line in Fort Worth, Texas, Aug. 31. Gates predicted the F-35 at peak production rate will be half the cost of an F-22, adding the program “seems to be on schedule for the first training squadron” in 2011. “Most of the high-risk elements are largely behind us,” he said.
OVERHAUL: The U.S. Navy awarded Northrop Grumman a roughly $2.43 billion contract for the refueling and complex overhaul of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). The once-in-a-lifetime work, usually conducted halfway through a carrier’s life, is expected to be completed by February 2013, according to the Pentagon. The “TR” is the fourth ship of the Nimitz class to undergo this major lifecycle milestone.
Boeing Integrated Defense Systems president and CEO Jim Albaugh is moving over to the company’s Commercial Airplanes unit, where he replaces Scott Carson. Carson, son a Boeing pilot and a go-to guy for selling innovative programs, has not survived the turmoil surrounding the long manufacturing and development delays in the company’s premier new airplane project, the 787. On Aug. 31, Boeing CEO James McNerney said Carson, 63, is out as president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) as of Sept. 1.
AIR FORCE General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Poway, Calif., was awarded a $10,250,000 modified contract for one-year of Contractor Logistics Support for the Italian purchase of MQ-9 Reaper aircraft under the Foreign Military Sales program. At this time $5,022,500 has been obligated. 703 AESG/SYK, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8620-05-G-3028 0058030).
GETTING SCHOOLED: Science Applications International Corp. will help create a Saudi War College (SWC) that meets the educational and administrative standards of U.S. war colleges under a potentially four-year, $11 million contract from the U.S. Military Training Mission. “SAIC will help establish a state-of-the-art educational institution, and develop and implement a flexible curriculum that will enable the SWC to adapt to future Saudi mission requirements,” the U.S. military services contractor explains.
Work on solid-fuel rockets propelled by a mixture of powdered aluminum and water ice may lead to in-situ production on the moon and Mars, following a successful flight-test using the environmentally friendly propellant. Engineers from NASA and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research used the ice-based aluminum propellant — dubbed Alice — to send a 9-foot-long rocket to an altitude of 1,300 feet in a test at Purdue University’s Scholer Farm in Indiana earlier this month.
NEW DELHI — The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has terminated the Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission after losing contact with the spacecraft. ISRO’s Deep Space Network at Byalalu near Bengaluru (Bangalore) received its last message from Chandrayaan-1 on Aug. 29.
The combined crews of the space shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station will begin transferring scientific equipment and supplies from the Italian-built pressurized logistics module “Leonardo,” after shifting it from the orbiter’s payload bay to the nadir port of the station’s Harmony node.
NAVY Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn., is being awarded a $6,526,019 modification to a previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N00019-07-D-0004) to exercise an option for the VH-3D Executive Helicopter special progressive aircraft rework. The work will be performed in Stratford and is expected to be completed in April 2010. Contract funds in the amount of $6,526,019 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md. is the contracting activity.
ASSESSMENT IN: Defense Secretary Robert Gates expects to read U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s assessment of Afghanistan this week. “While there is a lot of gloom and doom going around, I think General McChrystal’s assessment will be a realistic one and set forth the challenges we have in front of us,” Gates said. “At the same time, we have some assets in place and some developments that hold promise.” All-terrain, mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles should be deploying to the country in October, according to DOD.
