Only hours after President-elect Barack Obama announced plans to renominate the defense secretary to join his new cabinet, Robert Gates said he plans to focus on cleaning up the department’s procurement system in the months ahead. Gates says there is a need to balance the force between high-technology systems aimed at defeating near-peer nations and less expensive systems that are geared to fight today’s counterinsurgency battles in Iraq and Afghanistan and, perhaps, with nonstate affiliated enemies.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems will build the next generation of geostationary weather satellites under a contract potentially worth $1.09 billion. NASA, which manages weather-satellite procurement for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), awarded the Denver-based company the contract for two R-series Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES-R), with two one-spacecraft options. Boeing and Northrop Grumman were the losing bidders in the competition.
The Swedish government is about to kick off a competition to provide a new training system for its air defense regiment at Halmstad. The goal is to have the program, called CTC-GBAD IV, on contract by December 2009. The effort is aimed at replacing the STA-Lv training system.
ECONOMIC DRIVERS: The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), one of the largest trade groups in Washington, is launching an outreach campaign aimed at the incoming Obama administration and new Congress to encourage leaders to see the sector as an important economic driver. The aerospace industry exported $97 billion in 2007 and posted a $61 billion surplus, the largest of any manufacturing sector, AIA says. Aerospace and defense work can help ensure strong national security, maintain global leadership in space and create advanced, innovative technology, AIA asserts.
NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy will cooperate on a spaceborne mission to perform highly accurate measurements of distant galaxies and supernovae in an effort to gain a better understanding of the mysterious force astrophysicists call dark energy, for want of a better term.
LOS ANGELES – RocketShip Tours, a Phoenix, Ariz.-based travel company, will sell rides to the edge of space for $95,000 aboard XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx suborbital vehicle under a partnership deal announced here Dec. 2. The first passenger for the space tourism venture will be Danish investment banker Per Wimmer, a self-acknowledged “space enthusiast” who recently made the first tandem skydive over Mt. Everest. Initial passenger flights are expected to start in late 2011, following first flight in 2010.
NASA will pay $47 million a seat to send three astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on Russian Soyuz vehicles under the first contract extension covering missions after the space shuttle fleet’s scheduled retirement at the end of 2010.
ACES WIN: Morocco has selected Raytheon’s ACES integrated electronic warfare (EW) system for 24 Lockheed Martin F-16s on order. Deliveries will begin in December 2009. Morocco is the launch customer for the company’s latest F-16 self-protection suite, which integrates the ALR-69A digital radar-warning receiver, ALQ-187(V)2 digital jammer and ALE-47 chaff/flare dispenser. Northrop Grumman is a supplier on the program. Raytheon previously supplied the ASPIS integrated EW suite for Greece’s F-16s.
HEAVY ARMOR: The U.S. Army’s Tank-automotive and Armaments Command has awarded Oshkosh Defense a $51 million contract for more than 660 armor B-kits for the A4 version of the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT). The contract includes a recent $15 million armor kit contract modification. The B-kit is an add-on armor appliqué separate from the integral composite armor already built into the HEMTT A4. The kit can be installed by a two-soldier crew with no special tools, officials say.
EVERYBODY OUT: U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he expects his political-level staff will turn over with the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama next month. Some incumbents may stay longer if requested. Gates – who Obama has asked to stay on – says new selections will be made in collaboration with Obama’s staff. Moments after Gates finished a Dec. 2 press briefing, Deputy Secretary Gordon England announced his departure. England said he would stay on past Jan. 20, if asked, to assure a smooth transition for his successor.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has failed to follow its own procedures for monitoring the cost, scheduling and performance problems of its multimillion dollar programs, according to a congressional study.
VUAS SIMULCAST: Northrop Grumman announced it has demonstrated simultaneous radar and electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) video capability on its MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned rotorcraft. Fire Scout successfully downlinked simultaneous digital video from both a Telephonics RDR-1700B multimode maritime radar and a FLIR Systems Star SAFIRE III EO/IR sensor using its tactical common datalink developed by Cubic Defense Applications.
SEWIP TEAM: Lockheed Martin and ITT Corp. have paired up for the U.S. Navy’s Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program Block 2 (SEWIP). The companies performed at-sea demonstrations this past summer that validated the enterprise approach the team has taken in developing sensor systems for Navy ships, Lockheed says. BAE and General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems (which did the integration on SEWIP Block 1) also are competing for Block 2, which is expected to be awarded in mid-2009.
The Dutch government is looking at ways to provide its coast guard operating in the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba with new helicopter capacity. The Netherlands defense ministry is the acquisition authority, although a detailed procurement plan hasn’t been fixed yet. The helicopters would be based mainly at Coast Guard Air Station Hato at Curacao; the St. Maarten airport would be a second operating location. Operations would focus on the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, as well as St. Maarten, Saba and St. Eustatius.
GLASS ACT: CMC Electronics has teamed exclusively with Finland’s Patria to market its glass-cockpit upgrade for BAE Systems Hawk Mk 50/60 and 100-series advanced jet trainers. Patria is installing CMC’s Cockpit 4000 in 15 Finnish air force Hawk Mk51s, completing the upgrade’s first flight in October. Patria has teamed with the Finnish air force to offer foreign military customers training on the upgraded Hawks at the Nordic Pilot Training Center to be established at Kauhava AB.
VIIRS ON COURSE: Northrop Grumman announced Dec. 1 that Ambient Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI) testing was completed on Raytheon’s Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Sensor (VIIRS) for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). The testing verified the VIIRS flight unit operates in a space-like configuration without emitting or being susceptible to EM signals that could interfere with the spacecraft or other sensors’ operations, the company said.
Boeing and its Airborne Laser (ABL) teammates are studying potential missions beyond shooting down boost-phase ballistic missiles in a bid to increase the weapon’s military utility and bolster its case for continued funding.
CYBER PRIORITY: Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he has directed the service secretaries to make staffing at their cyberwarfare training facilities a top priority. Threats in the cyber domain are “one of the most significant concerns that we have now,” Gates says, but the military needs more specialists in this field. Gates emphasized that cyber capabilities are one of a few inexpensive methods that would-be adversaries could use to counter the United States.
COMMUNICATIONS SECURITY: Boeing has received a $3.7 million contract from Northrop Grumman to evaluate enhancements to communications security and replacements for data-storage media for the U.S. Air Force’s Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) system. The contract is the second phase of risk-reduction work done in advance of a major ICBM modification program planned for 2010.
When it comes to U.S. Army aviation accidents and incidents, engine problems rank the highest in number of mishaps caused and total costs, according to an Aerospace DAILY analysis of service data going back to roughly the mid-1980s. The service identified engine problems in 20,000 of the incidents or accidents – more than a third of the total number of aviation mishaps it reported between March 1986 and September 2007, according to the analysis. (See charts pp. 6-7.)
LONDON – The United Kingdom has deployed the Sentinel R1 airborne stand-off radar aircraft to support combat operations in Afghanistan. The aircraft was officially accepted into service Dec. 1. Two aircraft are thought to have been sent to theater in November for a trial deployment. The Sentinel R1 will form a core element of the U.K. military’s intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance capability when it becomes fully operational, expected within two years.
MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. – Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he has “doubts” about the technical feasibility of a Russian threat to jam U.S. missile defenses slated for installation in Poland and the Czech Republic.
President-elect Barack Obama unveiled his national security team Dec. 1 with a pledge to use “all elements of American power,” including diplomacy, intelligence and law enforcement, as well as military force. Heading the team is Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), Obama’s choice to be secretary of state, and current Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has agreed to stay on at the Pentagon in the next administration.
