Hurricane Hanna’s expected arrival off the east coast of Florida is delaying the planned launch of the GeoEye-1 remote sensing spacecraft from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., until no earlier than Sept. 7.
WE SEA YOU: The U.S. Navy this month will deploy its Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) strategy to its newly established Caribbean-based 4th Fleet. The Navy achieved initial operating capability (IOC) of its MDA strategy Aug. 28 after nearly two years of work and extensive investment, Deputy Navy Undersecretary Marshall Billingslea told a group at ComDef 2008 Sept. 3. Billingslea said the service now has the ability to track hundreds of vessel types and properly apportion response to data streaming from the ships. The system is in use in U.S.
USAF BUSINESS: The U.S. Air Force’s recent internal turmoil could provide business opportunities to federal information technology vendors, according to consultancy Input. For vendors, it means a return to an emphasis on strong business processes, and a commitment to provide systems that will create future cost savings for the armed service. Input says to look for business process opportunities in supply chain management, supply rationalization and stategic sourcing, logistics management business process engineering, asset tracking and visibility and overall cost savings.
The Defense Department Inspector General (IG) says the Army has misstated its military equipment baseline values by several billion dollars. The IG assessed the effectiveness of the Property and Equipment Policy Office and Army internal controls over the valuation, rights and obligations, and the completeness of military equipment programs contained in the Army military equipment baseline. (See charts pp. 6-8.)
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles said Sept. 2 that the United States has filed a civil lawsuit against Boeing alleging that the giant defense contractor unlawfully inflated the price it charged the U.S. Air Force to manufacture the Towed Decoy System for the B-1 bomber.
The company that developed and produced the multipurpose 88mm (anti-aircraft and anti-tank) gun during World War II is now working on a multifunctional gun to equip armored vehicles operating in urban environments. But Rheinmetall cannot fund the gun entirely on its own and is seeking partners to develop it.
AIR FORCE The Air Force is modifying a contract with SRI International of Menlo Park, Calif. This action will provide Desert Owl Phase Two. The contractor will complete a turn-key effort to deploy the PenRad 7 radar systems and modified King Air 200T aircraft for a 90-day deployment. The location of performance is Iraq. The contract modification is not to exceed $6,999,875. At this time, $3,429,939 has been obligated. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8620-08-C-3008).
LONDON – Following its signing of the “Cluster Munitions Convention” earlier this year, the United Kingdom is now looking for someone to dispose of 56,000 Extended Range Bomblet Shells (ERBS). The ERBS L20A1 shells were purchased for use primarily with the AS90 self-propelled howitzer, with a number of orders placed with Israel Military Industries since 1992. A total of 59,364 were purchased. The aim is for disposal to be carried out over a two-year period.
Discussions are under way to ensure the Spanish navy’s new S-80 submarine will be able to fire Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles. U.S. Naval Air Systems Command, which manages the Tomahawk program, is in talks with Lockheed Martin to perform a requirements study to ensure nothing is designed into the S-80 to stop it from using the Raytheon cruise missile. Lockheed Martin is the supplier of the combat management system for the S-80.
Space shuttle program managers have postponed the rollout of Atlantis to Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida as they eye Tropical Storm Hanna. The move had been scheduled for Sept. 2. KSC is under Hurricane Condition Four, the lowest hurricane alert level. Atlantis could be rolled to the pad as early as Sept. 4, depending on the path and strength of Hanna. NASA and U.S. Air Force weather officials also are watching Tropical Storm Ike. Hubble mission
U.S. Coast Guard has unveiled its Command, Control, Communication, Computers and Information Technology (C4&IT) strategic plan for 2008 through 2012, which the service acknowledged “charts an ambitious course.”
Rheinmetall Land Systeme (RLS) and Krauss Maffei-Wegmann (KMW) have formed the Armored Multi Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) consortium to develop a vehicle in the 4-to-9.5 ton class. The 50-50 joint venture was formed following the failure of RLS’ 5.3-ton Gavial and 6-to-8 ton Caracal and KMW’s 5.3-5.4 ton Mungo to meet the requirements of the German Bundeswehr’s 5-to-10 ton Geschützte Führungsund Funktionsfahrzeuge Two (GFF-2) multipurpose vehicle program, won by General Dynamics’ Mowag’s Eagle IV, which weighs up to 9 tons.
Northrop Grumman has begun flying its company-owned MQ-8B Fire Scout demonstrator, aircraft P6, which will be used to test new payloads for the vertical-take-off-and-landing unmanned air system. P6 made a 20-minute autonomous first flight in late August at Webster Field, part of the U.S. Navy test center at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. Initially, P6 is flying with a FLIR Systems Star Safire electro-optical sensor and Telephonics RDR-1700B maritime surveillance radar. The Navy’s baseline MQ-8B carries a FLIR Brite Star II EO/IR sensor.
The chairman of a House subcommittee wants the inspector general (IG) of the top U.S. intelligence office to investigate reported problems with a program designed to upgrade the nation’s terrorist watch list database. Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), chair of the Science and Technology Committee’s investigations and oversight panel, also wants the IG to issue an unclassified report with lessons learned for other federal agencies.
ARMY ROBOTS: The U.S. Army has awarded iRobot Corp. a contract for up to $200 million in military robots, spare parts, training and repair services over the next five years. The contract comes out of the Army’s Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI), and replaces a previous contract that expired in May 2008. Previous contracts awarded to the company were specifically for purchases of iRobot PackBots. This contract, however, allows the Army to request additional products and services from iRobot as needed.
ARMY The Boeing Co., Ridley Park, Pa., was awarded on Aug. 26, 2008, a $722,713,876 firm fixed price contract. The CH-47 multiyear contract is for five years, 109 each CH-47F new build aircraft, 72 each CH-47F remanufactured aircraft, and priced options for 34 each CH-47F new build aircraft. The work will be performed in Ridley Park, Calif., with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2013. One bid was solicited and one bid was received. U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-08-C-0098).
SPACE CHIEF: Steven MacLean, Canada’s chief astronaut and one of the first six Canadian astronauts chosen, will take over the helm of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) following his appointment by Minister of Industry Jim Prentice. A physicist and two-time space shuttle astronaut, MacLean takes over from career public servant Guy Bujold, who became interim CSA president in January after former Telesat Canada CEO Laurier Boisvert left the post nine months into an expected three-year term (Aerospace DAILY, Jan. 11).
Northrop Grumman said Sept. 2 it has reached a critical milestone for Phase 3 of the U.S. military’s Joint High Power Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) program by demonstrating tactically significant power and beam quality for more than 5 minutes.
Boeing is well placed to pick up another small C-17 order after South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Committee approved a plan to buy “large transport aircraft” for about 700 billion won ($620 million). The large transport aircraft will be used for sending Korean peacekeepers or disaster relief materials overseas. South Korea’s latest peacekeeping troop deployment, an army battalion sent to southern Lebanon in July 2007, used chartered Korean Air flights.
RESEARCH PARTNERS: Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne announced Sept. 2 a new research partnership with the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The Research Collaboration Protocol agreement will cover cooperative activities and projects to strengthen the research, education, innovation and strategic missions of both organizations. The agreement also calls for the establishment of the Venture Challenge, which will evaluate Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne’s intellectual property for business opportunities.
Engineers at the University of Arizona and other Phoenix Mars lander facilities are troubleshooting a problem in the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) system designed to detect organics on Mars. They are trying to diagnose intermittent interference in the tubes that transfer gases generated by heating a soil sample into the instrument’s mass spectrometer. Vapors from all samples baked to high temperatures have reached the spectrometer, but data show that the gas flow has been erratic.
NAVY King Nutronics Inc., Woodland Hills, Calif., is being awarded a $7,251,120 firm-fixed-price requirements contract to manufacture pressure calibrators to support the general purpose electronic test equipment weapons system. The work will be performed at Woodland Hills, Calif., and is expected to be completed by August 2013. Contract funds will expire before the end of the current fiscal year. This offer was not competitively procured. The Naval Inventory Control Point is the contracting activity. AIR FORCE
