PATH BLAZED: Northrop Grumman’s industry team leading the Kinetic Energy Interceptors (KEI) program has completed full-scale “pathfinder” ground operations in preparation for the weapon system’s booster flight-test scheduled for later this year, the company said April 14. The dry runs and rehearsals precede an actual flight-test or launch, including all aspects of vehicle preparations, ground operations and range safety systems. KEI was spotlighted in proposed changes to U.S. missile defense efforts as outlined by Defense Secretary Robert Gates this month.
Embraer has launched the KC-390 military tanker/transport with a seven-year, $1.3 billion development contract from the Brazilian air force (FAB). The all-new aircraft is scheduled to fly in 2012 and enter service in 2015.
The Pentagon needs to invest more money in nonlethal warfare – and change the way its conducts those types of missions, says a recent report by the Rand Corp. For too long, the government-sponsored think tank said, the Defense Department has given short shrift to nonlethal technologies or investment. The report comes as Defense Secretary Robert Gates has announced a significant shift in defense budgeting from mostly Cold War-type weapons and systems and toward counterinsurgency (COIN) and antiterrorism capabilities (Aerospace DAILY, April 7).
AIR FORCE The Air Force is modifying a fixed price incentive contract to Boeing Satellite Systems Inc., El Segundo, Calif., for an estimated $8,105,000. The action will provide sustaining engineering for Post-Initial Operational Capability (IOC) of the Wideband Satellite System for Wideband Global Satellite (WGS)-25. At this time, the entire amount has been obligated. Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC/MCSW), Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif. is the contracting activity (FA8808-06C-0001, P00044). NAVY
SEATTLE – Competitors for the nascent U.S. Navy EP-X, Army Aerial Common Sensor and Air Force Rivet Joint programs are beginning to define their efforts by sorting through the art of the possible.
Changes in military acquisition strategies for ground mobile radios (GMRs) and the handheld, manpack, small form factor (HMS) radios could raise concerns in Congress about the viability of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program, especially as a joint network, a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report says.
EAGLE EYE: The U.S. Navy has released video images of the Somali pirate episode taken by a small ScanEagle ship-launched unmanned aircraft capable of collecting videos and images of targets. The images showed the massive USS Bainbridge destroyer dwarfing the Maersk Alabama’s lifeboat, which was then holding four Somali pirates and the ship’s captain, Richard Phillips. The standoff in the Indian Ocean ended April 12 when Navy SEALs shot and killed three of the pirates, rescued Phillips and arrested the fourth pirate, who had surrendered earlier to Navy officials.
ARMY Harris Corp., RF Communications Division, Rochester, N.Y., was awarded on April 3, 2009, a $149,732,819 firm fixed price contract for AN/PRC-117 tactical satellite radio systems, associated spare parts, and support services. The work is to be performed in Rochester, N.Y., with an estimated completion date of April 3, 2013. Twenty seven sole source bids were solicited and one bid received. CECOM Acquisition Center, Fort Monmouth, N.J., is the contracting activity (W15P7T-09-K-K002). NAVY
Northrop Grumman’s said its Litening precision targeting and sensor targeting pod systems deployed with U.S. and allied forces logged an operational availability of 97 percent over the last two years. The system has operated more than 1 million hours to date, with just less than half occurring during deployed or combat conditions. Recipient aircraft have included AV-8B, A-10A/C, B-52H, EA-6Bs, F-15E, F-16 and F/A-18s.
NAVY Bell Helicopter Textron Inc., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $9,248,723 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for fabrication of production rate tooling in support of the UH-1Y and AH-1Z helicopters. The work will be performed in Fort Worth (70 percent) and Amarillo, Texas, (30 percent), and is expected to be completed in December 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity (N00019-09-C-0023).
U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND UV Country Inc. of Houston is being awarded a $28,390,453, not-to-exceed, firm-fixed-price, five-year indefinite delivery indefinite quantity contract for 1,625 Light Tactical All-Terrain Vehicles. The acquisition is in support of U.S. Special Operations Command. The period of performance of the contract is April 10, 2009, to April 9, 2014. The contract number is H92222-09-D-0013.
Certain supplemental requests by the U.S. Marine Corps for reset programs failed to meet requirements, a recent Inspector General (IG) report said. The Marine Corps requests were mostly in line, the report said. “However, $383.3 million in requirements, or approximately 5.6 percent of the supplemental funds requested, did not meet DOD or Marine Corps guidance for inclusion in its supplemental funds request,” said the report, “Marine Corps’ Management of the Recovery and Reset Programs,” released April 1.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) continues to vow a fight on Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ plans to halt the F-22 Raptor program at 187 of the stealth jet fighters. In an April 13 teleconference call with reporters, Chambliss said restoring the F-22, which is assembled at a Lockheed Martin plant employing about 2,000 in Marietta, Ga., was “by far, at the very, very top of my list” when he gets back from a congressional fact-finding trip to the Middle East and Afghanistan.
NAS PATUXENT RIVER, Md. – The key U.S. Navy and Marine Corps electronic jamming aircraft – the EA-6B Prowler and the EA-18G Growler – that may have to face advanced air defenses are saddled with 1970s-vintage jamming pods. The ALQ-99 jamming pods have been regularly upgraded over the decades but their limited processing, antenna arrays, electrical power and nonstealthy design have left them lacking in bandwidth coverage, range and airborne flexibility.
Force Protection has announced a modification to a contract “not to exceed” $158 million from the Marine Corps Systems Command to supply Force Protection’s Cougar MRAP vehicles with the Oshkosh Corp.’s TAK-4 Independent Suspension Kits for use in the harsh terrain in Afghanistan. The work is expected to be completed by December 2009.
Australian Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon last weekend visited with a few U.S. defense industry providers, including Northrop Grumman’s Long Island, N.Y., facility and Lockheed Martin’s Aegis Production Test Center in Philadelphia.
SEATTLE – Boeing plans to conduct a competition for an active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar for intelligence gathering if it wins the EP-X competition with a 737/P-8A variant.
PARIS – The global financial crisis is prompting France to sell off its military communications satellite network to free up funding for new hardware purchases. However, it is also forcing a reconsideration of private financing initiatives that had been earmarked for aerial tankers and other programs, perhaps putting some procurements at risk.
Prime contractor Lockheed Martin and payload integrator Northrop Grumman have submitted their proposal to the U.S. Air Force for the follow-on production phase of the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS). SBIRS is DOD’s next-generation missile warning system, and will replace the aging Defense Support Program constellation. So far, the program has delivered two payloads for classified host satellites in highly elliptical orbit (HEO), and plans to deliver the first dedicated geostationary orbit (GEO) SBIRS satellite for a launch no earlier than summer 2010.
NASA’s twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft will turn their attention away from Earth’s star as they pass through a pair of Lagrangian points this fall to look for asteroids that may hold clues to the origins of Earth’s moon. Orbiting the sun as solar-weather observatories since they were launched on Oct. 25, 2006, the two probes will pass through the L4 and L5 in September and October. Lagrangian points are gravity wells where the gravity of celestial bodies balance out, creating spaces where material can collect in space.
The Obama administration’s first off-book supplemental appropriations request includes $11.6 billion to refurbish or replace war-torn equipment, as well as $600 million to buy four F-22 Raptors to replace four legacy fighters lost due to combat operations.
CREATIVE FINANCING: Financial experts say the credit crunch is forcing more and more telecom satellite startups to resort to project financing — funding backed mainly by expected cashflow — supported by export credit agency guarantees. The export guarantees are being driven by growing aggressiveness from France’s Coface — as illustrated by a Globalstar deal inked last month — that experts say is causing the U.S. Export-Import Bank to begin to stir. One example is ABS-2, a C-/Ku-band spacecraft that Asia Broadcasting Satellite of Hong Kong wants to orbit to 75 deg. E.
