IT’S OFFICIAL: Despite having pursued a strategy of irregular warfare (IW) for the past several years, DOD only officially codified its practices in a directive released Dec. 1. The directive outlines roles and responsibilities of each military service in the practice of IW. Pentagon spokesperson Bryan Whitman said directives take several years to issue and are an overarching guide under which official instructions and doctrinal manuals of individual services fall.
THALES STAKE: The French government and Dassault Aviation have made it clear that a bid by Dassault to acquire a 20.8 percent stake in Thales held by Alcatel-Lucent will not – at least for the foreseeable future – lead to a Thales takeover. France’s market watchdog, the AMF, ruled this week that Dassault will not have to make a tender for all remaining Thales shares, as it would normally have to do for a share purchase of this size. Such a tender would cost almost 8 billion euros ($10 billion).
JUST A TADS: Lockheed Martin has received a $16.9 million contract to begin modernization of the final portion of the U.S. Army’s Apache helicopter Modernized Target Acquisition Designation Sight (M-TADS) system. Under the three-year deal, the company will modernize the Laser Transceiver Unit in the Apache’s legacy Day Sensor Assembly (DSA) and associated electronics. The objective is to modernize the entire DSA system and increase the M-TADS/Pilot Night Vision Sensors’ ability to fully accommodate future weapons.
General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems has awarded Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors a potentially $36 million contract for development and procurement of the High Gain, High Sensitivity subsystem as part of the U.S. Navy’s Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP). A Dec. 3 Aerospace DAILY item reversed the order of the companies.
Spacecraft controllers have stopped trying to use two NASA probes orbiting Mars to contact the Mars Phoenix lander, abandoning a long-shot effort to reactivate Phoenix as sunlight dwindles with the advancing winter season at its high-latitude landing site.
MID-TERM MODS: A Boeing-led team has completed a major mission-system upgrade for the NATO Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) fleet under a $1.32 billion Mid-Term Modernization Program. Modification of the 17th and final aircraft was completed Nov. 3 by EADS, acting as a subcontractor to Boeing. Boeing also delivered two NATO AWACS mission simulators it had modified into the Mid-Term configuration.
REAL MCCOY: Raytheon is asking suppliers to review their policies and procedures to “ensure appropriate controls” are in place to protect against counterfeit material entering Raytheon’s products. In an announcement obtained by Aviation Week, Raytheon also says it will be providing suppliers with more guidance over the coming months. Meantime, the defense contractor has implemented its own new controls to guide buyers and programs through notification, justification and risk mitigation processes before buying from non-franchised distributors and brokers.
BALANCING ACT: NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer says the process of potential Georgian and Ukrainian membership in the alliance remains under way – though without indicating any timescale. Scheffer was speaking at the end of the first day of the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in Brussels on Dec. 2. “The train left the station in Bucharest [at that summit] and it will move on, it does not stop,” he told a press conference.
NEW DELHI – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged Pakistan “to cooperate and do so transparently” in the investigation of the Mumbai terror attacks amid brewing tensions between India and Pakistan. Meanwhile, the top U.S. military officer, Adm. Michael Mullen, arrived in Pakistan to address simmering tensions between the bitter, nuclear-armed rivals. Rice’s rushed trip to India was sparked by “a desire to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” Rice also will visit Pakistan.
Capitol Hill is still trying to figure out a clause in Lockheed Martin’s F-22 contract with the Pentagon that could supposedly cost taxpayers $147 million. The clause apparently would be applied if Raptor production is stopped due to certain actions by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). Some House Armed Services Committee members suggest OSD is slow-walking congressional funds for more long-lead production items so that the incoming Obama administration can decide whether to continue the program (Aerospace DAILY, Nov. 20).
GE Aviation will integrate corrosion sensing into a helicopter health and usage monitoring system (HUMS) under a two-year, $2 million research contract from the U.S. Army’s Aviation Applied Technology Directorate. The Army estimates aircraft corrosion costs it more than $1 billion a year. The goal of the integrated corrosion health monitoring system (I-CHMS) project is to eliminate inspections that impact readiness by continuously monitoring for corrosion in the same way a HUMS tracks gearbox health by monitoring vibrations.
LONDON – The British Defense Ministry is pursuing an urgent operational requirement to refit some of the British Army’s Lynx helicopter fleet with the LHTEC T800 turboshaft engine. The army’s Lynx Mk7 and Mk9 are currently fitted with the Rolls-Royce Gem 42 turboshaft engine. Whether airframes to be upgraded will be drawn from both the Mk9 and Mk7 variants is not yet clear. LHTEC (Light Helicopter Turbine Engine Company) is a partnership between Honeywell and Rolls-Royce.
Iridium Satellite announced positive third quarter financial results Dec. 3, including revenue growth in its land-based, maritime, aviation, machine-to-machine and government segments. The company had 309,000 subscribers worldwide as of Sept. 30, a 37 percent increase over last year’s 225,000 subscriber total. Net subscriber additions over the first nine months of this year increased by nearly half – 47 percent – compared to the same period in 2007.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) has scheduled two flights of its proposed DragonLab mini space station, citing demand for the missions from “multiple prospective customers.”
DALE DEPARTING: NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale will resign from NASA Jan. 17, prior to the U.S. presidential inauguration. Having served as NASA’s second-in-command under Administrator Michael Griffin since November 2005, Dale was the agency’s first female deputy administrator. “I will miss the cutting-edge missions, but most of all I will miss the incredibly talented people of NASA,” she said in a statement.
Lockheed Martin has received a $500 million contract boost to complete the first increment of the presidential helicopter program, as the first production VH-71A arrives in the United States. The first of five pilot-production helicopters, PP-1, arrived at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., from AgustaWestland’s U.K. facility via a C-17 airlifter at the beginning of this month.
The U.S. Air Force is conducting research into micro air vehicles (MAVs) for urban missions, but may not be able to use them effectively unless it can find a way to deploy and retrieve them in flight using larger aircraft. The problem is that the difference in speed between a larger unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed to loiter at altitude and a small MAV intended to fly down streets or inside buildings makes it difficult for them to dock in flight.
The U.S. Defense Department’s Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle Joint Program Office plans to issue a request for proposals (RFP) Dec. 8 for a new All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV), creating a new fleet of lighter-weight protective vehicles for operations in Afghanistan. The so-called M-ATV will require an MRAP-level threshold of survivability despite its lighter weight, and will include integral and/or removable kits for protection against both explosively formed penetrators and rocket-propelled grenades.
LATIN LIFTER: Embraer is offering its C-390 twin-turbofan tactical transport in response to a Brazilian air force request for proposals issued in October. “A contract for the development of the C-390 is expected to be signed soon,” Luiz Carlos Sigueria Aguiar, executive vice president for defense and government, told an investors conference last month. The C-390 would compete with Lockheed Martin’s C-130J. “Negotiations with potential partners and suppliers continue and major selections are planned for 2009,” he said.
MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. – Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), a powerful appropriator and chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee in the U.S. Senate, says the Bush administration’s fiscal 2009 requests for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) are likely to remain stymied.
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The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is stepping up its lobbying efforts for a full order of 100 F-35 Lightning IIs, a number that has been officially endorsed but could easily be trimmed in a defense white paper due next year. The chief of the air force, Air Marshal Mark Binskin, strongly defends the choice of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 as its next fighter, arguing that it will be part of an integrated airpower system and the country could not hope to find better.
