The U.S. Air Force’s latest Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite was delivered to orbit early March 24 by a United Launch Alliance Delta II from Cape Canaveral, Fla. Liftoff took place at 4:34 a.m. EDT from Launch Complex 17A. One hour and eight minutes later, the rocket deployed GPS IIR-20, the seventh of eight modernized spacecraft in the GPS Block IIR-M series built by Lockheed Martin.
MISSILE LOCK: Raytheon said the U.S. Navy has awarded it a $106 million contract for production of the Joint Standoff Weapon C-1. “With this contract award, the first network-enabled weapons in the world will be produced to meet warfighter requirements,” said Cmdr. Andrew Kessler, JSOW deputy program manager in the Navy’s Precision Strike Weapons program office. The contract includes funding for fixed-price production of more than 350 weapons, container cables and test units. The award also includes $17.2 million to reorient the factory from producing earlier JSOW-Cs.
BEIJING Chinese officials are dropping more hints that they are about to announce an aircraft carrier program. Defense Minister Liang Guanglie tells his Japanese counterpart, Yasukazu Hamada, that “China cannot be without an aircraft carrier forever. China’s navy is now rather weak.” Earlier this month, Adm. Hu Yanlin told the China Daily that “China has the capability to build aircraft carriers and should do so.” They are “very necessary,” he said.
Two key leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) pressed the top combatant commander in charge of NATO and U.S. military forces in Europe March 24 on whether a compromise with Russia over a missile defense deterrent against Iran could work.
MOUNTING UP: The U.S. Army is expected to renew a contract with Textron for the rest of its planned Armored Security Vehicles (ASVs) in the next few months. Textron executives recently told Macquarie Research Equities that the company also believes international potential for the vehicle is high. Still, while Macquarie analysts note the ASV is part of the Army’s force structure and should have a future beyond current military operations, they also say it is unclear whether the ASV becomes redundant against the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV).
Northrop Grumman thinks its Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) may be the cheaper, more flexible missile defense system the Pentagon is searching for, while Boeing says its Airborne Laser (ABL) is DOD’s answer. Many attending the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics missile defense conference this week in Washington believe the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) will see cutbacks when President Barack Obama announces his revised fiscal 2010 defense budget next month.
SECOND WARNING: The U.S. Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman a $48 million follow-on contract for initial fielding and continued development of the Joint Warning and Reporting Network (JWARN). JWARN will provide the military services near real-time analysis and response to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) attacks. According to Northrop Grumman, the system will enable commanders to understand the tactical and strategic implications of a CBRN attack or hazard and provide information and communications to minimize contamination.
GAME PLAN: Raytheon sees cyber security and warfare, unmanned aircraft, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance gaining importance and funding in coming years under the Pentagon’s budget, according to Macquarie Research Equities. Financial analysts there see the company as well positioned for expected shifts in defense spending under the Obama administration, since Raytheon has less exposure to problem programs or the war-related supplemental, which is expected to shrink. “Many in the media are saying the defense industry is drinking Maalox these days.
ROBOT STRATEGY: The U.S. Army is proposing a new “Robotics Strategy” that will inform its input into the Defense Department’s next Unmanned Systems Roadmap. The robotics white paper, dated March 19 and released publicly March 24, is a collaboration between Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and the Army Tank-Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Houston The combined crews of the space shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station will say their farewells and close the hatches March 25 as the STS-119/15A ISS assembly draws to a close. After an off-duty day March 24 highlighted by a call from President Barack Obama, the crews were set to go to sleep early in preparation for what promises to be an unusually busy undocking day.
SHIP SHAPE: A group of Senators, led by Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy, is pressuring the Pentagon to make a decision on whether or not to truncate the U.S. Navy’s DDG-1000 program for good. “Despite several months of Congressional and Department of Defense requests for further analysis, the Navy has yet to provide sufficient justification” to end DDG-1000 and restart DDG-51 production, Kennedy and his colleagues wrote in a letter March 20.
MIDCOURSE CORRECTIONS: Lockheed Martin announced March 23 it will compete for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) contract for future operations and sustainment of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system and associated support facilities. In preparation for its bid, Lockheed is sending missile defense executives to GMD sites in Alaska and California, as well as command facilities in Colorado through April.
NO THANKS: Indonesia has declined a Qatari offer of 10 secondhand Dassault Mirage 2000s because it could not afford to maintain the fighters. Qatar has previously offered its Mirage 2000s to India.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Houston Astronauts Joe Acaba and Richard Arnold weren’t able to open a cargo attachment device to its full extension on the second try of the STS-119/15A International Space Station mission, leaving undone a pair of extravehicular activity (EVA) tasks that were intended to set the station up for the day when the space shuttle fleet stops flying.
While the U.S. military has improved its ability to keep track of the tens of thousands of night vision devices (NVDs) used by the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) and Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I), better oversight is still needed, the Pentagon Inspector General (IG) says.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. Most of the pieces of NASA’s Ares I-X prototype crew launch vehicle have arrived here, awaiting only the final shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope before they are stacked for the first flight-test of the post-shuttle era.
NAVIGATING KOREA: Northrop Grumman was awarded a contract by Korean military systems and vehicle manufacturer Doosan DST to deliver inertial navigation units for South Korea’s new K21 infantry fighting vehicle. The LLN-G1 units will be built by the company’s German navigation systems subsidiary, Northrop Grumman LITEF. The LLN-G1 is a hybrid land navigation system based on fiber-optic gyros and micro-electromechanical system accelerometers.
The vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said March 23 that he envisions the future mission for missile defense shifting from protecting the homeland to protecting U.S. troops deployed overseas, as well as allies and friends. Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright said the shift will be due to changing threats in the future. And that will require an architecture “that has the flexibility to address the unknown.” Cartwright says that thinking means a shift in acquisition emphasis from the weapon to the command and control sensor network.
The U.S. Air Force’s $15 billion combat, search and rescue replacement helicopter (CSAR-X) program may be saved from the Pentagon budget executioner’s blade because personnel recovery and CSAR operations were included as one of the service’s 12 “core functions,” according to government and industry sources familiar with the program and USAF CSAR operations. The Defense Department, the sources said, had targeted CSAR-X as one of the marked programs for possible cancellation for budgetary and other reasons (Aerospace DAILY, March 13).
BECOMING ONE: Britain’s two main aerospace and defense industry lobby groups will merge, with the new organization to be up and running during 2010. The Defense Manufacturers Association and the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) held general meetings March 23, where their members voted to give the go-ahead to the proposed merger. Following approval from their respective memberships, the SBAC Council and the DMA will then agree to the final terms of the merger.
AIR FORCE The Air Force is awarding an undefinitized with firm fixed price contract to Raytheon Missile Systems of Tucson, Ariz., for an amount not to exceed $23,000,000. The action provides for production quantities of 70 Maverick Missiles and one Guidance and Control Section for a Maverick Missile. At this time, $17,250,000 has been obligated. OO-ALC/LHKC, Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is the contracting activity (FA8217-09-C-0046).
