The nomination of William J. Lynn III to be top deputy at the Defense Department was delayed Jan. 22 after the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) sought clarification on the impact of new, more stringent lobbying rules for presidential appointees.
Lockheed Martin sees greater potential for their legacy fighter and transport programs, the F-16 and C-130J, abroad, and plans to expand in new markets, such as cybersecurity and health care information technology. International sales of the two programs were in the neighborhood of $6 billion, or 14-15 percent of total sales, in 2008, Chief Financial Officer Bruce Tanner told analysts Jan. 22 during an earnings call. The outlook for 2009 will be similar in percentage, although the dollar figure could change, he said.
SPACESUIT WORK: Hamilton Sundstrand, which recently joined the winning team developing NASA’s next-generation spacesuit, will get another $86 million under a one-year extension on its contract to service the suits currently used on the U.S. agency’s space shuttle missions and on the U.S. side of the International Space Station. Work will begin in October and run through September 2010, bringing the total contract value to about $514 million.
NAVY AARGM: The U.S. Navy has awarded Alliant Techsystems (ATK) a $55 million contract to begin low-rate initial production of the AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM). The low-rate buy is for 27 missiles. This is an upgrade for the High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) system that incorporates a millimeter-wave terminal seeker and GPS/INS systems, and it was jointly developed by the U.S. Navy and Italian Air Force. The weapon is designed to destroy air defense targets and counter radio-frequency shutdown tactics.
A prototype lightweight synthetic aperture radar (SAR) supplied by NASA had generated its first data from the bottom of a permanently dark crater at one of the moon’s poles, riding India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter to test its ability to search for water ice and other volatiles that might help support a human presence.
LONDON – The British Defense Ministry’s $10.5 billion revamp of its information systems infrastructure is under fire from Parliament’s Public Accounts committee. The ministry’s Defense Information Infrastructure (DII) has suffered from “major delays” and was “badly planned in some respects.”
NEW DELHI – Time is running out for the competition over the 126-aircraft Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) as the bidders await a date for field trials from the Indian defense ministry. The Indian air force, meanwhile, has already chosen six fighter test pilots headed by an air commodore to train with the aircraft abroad before field testing begins at three locations in India. The pilots are ready to move as soon as the ministry announces the field trials date.
LAUNCH PREP: The NOAA-N Prime spacecraft, a Polar Operational Environmental Satellite (POES), is being prepared for launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket on Feb. 4. Lockheed Martin built N Prime, the final spacecraft in the Advanced TIROS-N (ATN) satellite series. All have been designed and built for NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
FRENCH EXPORTS: French Defense Minister Herve Morin says France exported 6.3 billion euros worth of military hardware last year, up from 5.5 billion euros in 2007 and the most since 2000. Morin predicted the turnaround last autumn, attributing it to streamlined export procedures put in place in 2006 and reinforced last year, along with greater and more concerted high-level political support, but final figures were not yet in.
GENOA, Italy – NATO has selected the Sicilian base of Sigonella, Italy, as the main operating base for the NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) fleet of Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Block 40 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
UNMANNED NAVIGATION: The Rockwell Collins Athena 411 Inertial Navigation, Global Positioning, Air Data, Attitude, Heading, Reference System (INIS/GPS/ADAHRS) has been selected by AeroVironment for its Global Observer. The Global Observer, a liquid hydrogen-powered unmanned aircraft, will fly at an altitude of 65,000 feet for up to seven days for the U.S. Special Operations Command as well as for other military and civilian applications.
As President Barack Obama met with top officials from his national security team Jan. 21, one of the biggest tasks awaiting his administration is continuing the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan while simultaneously making sure the military is equipped to meet future threats.
SWEDISH RADIO: Rockwell Collins, in support of a major demonstration being conducted by the Swedish Defence Material Administration (FMV), recently conducted a mobile, ad hoc networking demonstration of the Tactical Data Radio System (TDRS) Software Defined Radio (SDR). The demo is part of a program to provide SDRs to support the Swedish Armed Forces initiative to develop a Network Based Defense structure. The SDR system consists of modular, open architecture hardware and software components, and hosts a customized, high-data rate, networked waveform.
PARIS – France and Australia are poised to deploy the Tiger helicopter to Afghanistan in what would be the aircraft’s first operational use in theater. Eurocopter CEO Lutz Bertling said Jan. 20 that the French army will send an undisclosed number of Tigers to the Afghan front this spring-summer. The army has been pressing armaments agency DGA to conclude qualification of the French HAP and German UHT anti-armor variants of the Tiger to permit a deployment to central or eastern Afghanistan.
Russia’s Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems company (previously known as NPO PM) has won a turnkey contract to develop and deliver on orbit the TELKOM 3 telecommunication satellite for the Indonesian operator PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk. Launch to geostationary orbit is scheduled by mid-2011. The 1,600-kilogram satellite, with 32 C-band transponders and 10 Ku-band transponders, will be based on a Reshetnev’s medium-class “Express-1000N” platform. The TELKOM 3 payload will deliver 5.6 kW, and the spacecraft will have a targeted lifetime of 15 years.
The U.S. Army is engaged in a holistic evaluation of its modernization and procurement plans, including Future Combat Systems (FCS), its vice chief of staff asserts.
The Pentagon is not expecting to conduct a formal fiscal 2010 budget rollout, which would normally take place Feb. 2, according to a defense official. Government agencies and departments are required by law to transmit their budget plans to Congress on the first Monday in February. However, that rule was waived by the Bush administration’s White House Office of Management and Budget last April to allow time for the new administration to craft its own budget. The waiver applies to all federal agencies and departments.
MOSCOW – Sukhoi has completed deliveries of Su-30MK2 multirole dual-seat fighters to Indonesia, with the third aircraft carried aboard an Antonov-An-124 transport to the Sultan Hasanuddin air force base in Makassar, south of Sulawesi island, on Jan. 18. The fighters were manufactured at Sukhoi’s Komsomolsk-on-Amur KnAAPO plant.
In a Jan. 15 DAILY article on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the quote attributed to Ronald O’Rourke of the Congressional Research Service was a paraphrasing of the U.S. Navy’s position on LCS oversight, and not his own opinion.
ARMY Raytheon Co., Bedford, Mass., was awarded on Jan. 9, 2009, a $75,509,000 firm fixed price contract for Patriot missile system radar upgrade kits. Work will be performed in Andover, Mass., and El Paso, Texas, and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2013. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. One bid was solicited on Aug. 26, 2008. Aviation and Missile Command Contracting Center, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W31P4Q-09-G-0001). AIR FORCE
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — Northrop Grumman believes NASA’s upcoming exploitation of the Global Hawk autonomous unmanned air vehicle for science missions will pave the way for regular unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operations in controlled airspace and possibly lead to dedicated commercial applications.
Losing bidder PlanetSpace has filed a protest of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) awards to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. Under contracts awarded earlier this month totaling $3.5 billion, SpaceX of Hawthorne, Calif., and Orbital of Dulles, Va., will launch unpiloted vehicles to deliver pressurized and unpressurized cargo to the International Space Station (Aerospace DAILY, Jan. 5). Chicago-based PlanetSpace, which includes Lockheed Martin, ATK and Boeing, proposed the space shuttle-derived Athena III for station resupply.
The U.S. Navy’s formal decision to base a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Fla. has generated heated debate in Congress.
