HELP WANTED: The Professional Services Council (PSC), a prominent Washington-area trade association for government contractors, will announce “several immediate and longer-term recommendations” for the federal acquisition work force on Feb. 24. The effort comes as the trade and lobby group voices concerns with the government’s ability to manage the almost $790 billion economic stimulus bill just enacted.
BIOMETRIC BRIEFING: The Pentagon is unveiling the Next Generation Automated Biometric Identification System (NG-ABIS), which will include “multimodal capabilities and advanced functionality.” NG-ABIS has been developed and will officially be in place on Feb. 24 when officials from the Biometrics Task Force, Project Manager Biometrics, Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Army Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems brief reporters in Arlington, Va.
The Estonian government is reducing defense spending by around 14 percent due to the country’s declining economy. The actions by the coalition government have forced the defense ministry to give back 667 million Estonian kroons ($54 million), bringing the top-line down to 4.23 billion kroons ($345 million).
FEDERAL STIMULUS: The new U.S. Customs and Border Protection Unmanned Aircraft Operations Center in Grand Forks, N.D., will rely on and help promote local aviation infrastructure and the academic community there, federal officials said this week in formally opening the center.
The U.S. Navy is dusting off its interest in improving its probe-and-drogue aerial refueling method, with plans to demonstrate an actively stabilized drogue for use with unmanned aircraft. The Navy investigated controllable drogues under fiscal 2007 small business innovation research (SBIR) contracts with Arizona Paradrogue Systems and Nielsen Engineering & Research, but did not proceed beyond Phase 1 studies.
Sukhoi is reporting its Su-35 multirole fighter test program is on schedule, with 87 flights performed by two prototypes during the first year of testing. The flights allowed officials to adjust and check the aircraft’s complex control system and avionics package. Handling characteristics of the aircraft also were validated. This year a third aircraft will join flight-tests, enabling officials to bring the number of flights up to 160 by year’s end.
BIG BURST: NASA’s Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope has imaged a gamma-ray burst with the greatest total energy ever witnessed. The explosion, designated GRB 080916C, took place at 7:13 p.m. EDT on Sept. 15, 2008, in the constellation Carina. Working in tandem, Fermi’s Large Area Telescope and Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor instruments provided a view of the blast’s initial emission from energies between 3,000 to more than 5 billion times that of visible light.
GPS OCX: Northrop Grumman announced it has completed a system design review for the Global Positioning System (GPS) Next Generation Operational Control Segment (OCX) program, the final major milestone under the Phase A contract, in preparation to bid for a Phase B contract. The U.S. Air Force is expected to select either Northrop or competitor Raytheon for Phase B, which will include system development, deployment and sustainment.
PARIS – French legislators say that despite deep misgivings about President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to rejoin NATO’s integrated command structure, they are unlikely to block it. Members of the ruling UMP party complain that NATO commitments to give France leadership of the Allied Command Transformation office in Norfolk, Va., and a NATO regional command in Portugal do not constitute sufficient payback for giving up France’s military independence.
Kepler, NASA’s wide-field, planet-hunting orbiting observatory, was moved to Pad 17 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Feb. 19 in preparation for a March 5 liftoff on a United Launch Alliance Delta II booster. High winds prevented mounting the 2,320-pound spacecraft, which is due for a 10:48 p.m. EDT launch. Launch will be into a solar orbit trailing Earth by about 9 million miles, from which it will take a “planetary census” by staring at a field of 100,000 target stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the Milky Way.
BUSHMASTERING: A ”number” of countries are showing “keen” interest in Australian-built Protected Mobility Vehicles like the Bushmaster, claims Greg Combet, Australian parliamentary secretary for defense procurement. Meanwhile, Dutch defense officials are visiting Thales Bendigo this week to review production progress under their country’s existing Bushmaster contract. Besides the Netherlands, Bushmasters have also been exported to the United Kingdom.
TRAINING, SIMULATION: The U.S. Army has awarded Northrop Grumman a contract to provide simulation and training products to U.S. and coalition forces. Northrop’s award is part of the larger Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Omnibus Contract II, a multiple-award contract with a ceiling value of $17.5 billion over 10 years.
Space Shuttle Flights and ISS Assembly Sequence Space Shuttle Flights and ISS Assembly Sequence Launch Target AssemblyFlight Launch Vehicle Element(s) No earlier than Feb.
NOW HIRING: The Australian parliamentary secretary for defense procurement, Greg Combet, says the government is looking for a “commercial director” for the Defense Materiel Organization (DMO), a new position to manage strategic commercial issues and acquisition strategy for a more “businesslike focus” throughout DMO. “With a significant reform program to be put in place in the coming years, and over $110 billion to be spent on procurement and sustainment over the next decade, the successful applicant will have their hands full,” Combet says.
Australian Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said Feb. 19 that retirement of the air force’s remaining 13 DHC-4 Caribou airlifters will be moved forward to December, a plight he blamed on the conservative predecessor government. “The government has been left with little choice but to retire the Caribou and has reluctantly agreed to do so despite the fact that poor planning by the former government has denied us the opportunity to produce a replacement aircraft before 2013,” Fitzgibbon asserted.
RAILGUN PROTOTYPE: The U.S. Office of Naval Research has awarded BAE Systems a $21 million contract to develop an advanced electromagnetic railgun for the U.S. Navy. The 30-month contract is for the detailed design and delivery of an Innovative Naval Prototype (INP) Railgun. BAE Systems will develop railgun technologies, including a composite launcher (barrel) that will be demonstrated in 2011. The INP program is part of the Navy’s science and technology investments focused on developing new technologies to support Navy and Marine Corps needs.
Despite some uncertainty about the future of defense spending in its core U.S. and U.K. markets, BAE Systems is “quietly positive” about the company’s prospects in 2009 and beyond, Chief Executive Ian King said in releasing 2008 annual results.
Clyde Space, a Glasgow-based firm specializing in components for cubesats and other small spacecraft, is at work on a constellation of tiny satellites that can give emergency services personnel worldwide quick notice of a blooming wildfire before it erupts into a conflagration like the one that has ravaged southern Australia. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers on NASA’s Earth-Observing System satellites have been monitoring the deadly fires in the mountains east of Melbourne. But those large satellites cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
March 11 - 12, 2009 National Press Club Washington, DC Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., Chief of Staff of the United States Army Gen. William M. Fraser, III, Vice Chief of Staff for the Air Force LTG Raymond Johns, USAF Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Plans & Programs MG Jay H. Lindell, Director, Global Power Programs, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition
The U.S. Navy recently awarded General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company a $3.5 million contract for the first phase of design for the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) program. The MLP is being developed to provide a surface interface between other ships and connectors in the squadron and sea base. It will provide the vehicle transfer system that permits transferring personnel and equipment between Large, Medium-Speed Roll-on/Roll-off Ships (LMSR) to the MLP and smaller craft.
STEAMING AHEAD: Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Navy said the industry team has completed the builder’s sea trials of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77). The carrier’s design has been 70 percent “updated” since January 2001, when the detailed design and construction contract was awarded. Next the ship will undergo acceptance trials with the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey to test and evaluate its systems and performance.
AERIAL TARGETS: The U.S. Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman a $49 million contract modification to a previously awarded contract for procurement of 160 BQM-74E Aerial Targets and associated technical data. The BQM-74E is a high-fidelity, subsonic, jet-powered aerial target capable of being launched from land-based, shipboard or airborne platforms. It is used to replicate enemy cruise missiles and aircraft for fleet training, and to test and evaluate anti-ship and anti-aircraft defensive weapons systems. The work is expected to be completed by May 2011.
