SAO PAULO, Brazil - The Brazilian air force has asked Embraer not to take sides in the renewed F-X fighter competition. The service wants to pick the winning aircraft without having to worry about industrial issues. The Brazilian aircraft maker still will play an important role in the project, though. The winning contractor will have to work with Embraer to delivery the chosen aircraft to the Brazilian military, says Embraer CEO Frederico Curado.
The U.S. Army in August will award the first phase of its Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) contract, providing a prominent role in the service’s air and missile defense capability to the winning industry team.
BAMS ANNOUNCEMENT: The U.S. Navy is expected to announce the winner in its Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aerial vehicle competition this week, after delaying the announcement from April 18 to allow final approval of the paperwork at the Pentagon, according to industry sources. Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin/General Atomics and Boeing all are vying for the contract to develop and build a long-endurance maritime surveillance aircraft.
DEVELOPING RESEARCH: The Defense Department awarded Northrop Grumman a five-year contract to support research and development for the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force, with a contract value potential of $100 million over a 10-year period. The Theoretical Studies and Engineering Services (TSER) contract has an option for five additional years. Aside from R&D, the contract will support hardware manufacturing, design and analysis, field data analysis, program planning, management and reporting, administration, quality assurance and other technical support.
TSAT TARGETED: The U.S. Air Force’s troubled Transformational Satellite (TSAT) program is the Pentagon acquisition chief’s “next target” for implementing acquisition policy reforms. John J. Young Jr., undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told reporters April 18 that he was disappointed that he was unable to better address it so far. TSAT’s newfound attention would come after restructuring the Space-Based Space Surveillance program, Young noted.
PARIS – Working teams entrusted with elaborating on a plan to modernize the French armed forces have come up with an outline for streamlining support services and resolving the thorny question of on-condition maintenance. Government figures show that 60 percent of the defense personnel budget goes for support activities and only 40 percent for operations – the opposite of the situation in other allied nations, notably the U.K. The objective of the reform plan, to be announced on June 19, will be to reverse these percentages.
SECURITY OVERHAUL: The Defense Department and three other executive branch agencies are reviewing the process for granting security clearances to the employees of defense contractors. The offices of Management and Budget, Director of National Intelligence and Personnel Management are working with the Pentagon “to develop a new, more effective and timely personnel security and investigative system,” says Troy Sullivan, DOD’s acting deputy under secretary for counterintelligence and security.
FCS CONCERNS: Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), chairman of the House Armed Services Air and Land Forces subcommittee, thinks the U.S. Army needs to take a step back and do some hard thinking about its mammoth Future Combat Systems (FCS) modernization program, weighing its value against pressing readiness requirements. “With FCS, they’ve thrown themselves on that barbed wire and they’re stuck to it,” he notes. He is skeptical of large DOD modernization efforts, likening them to the blue screen technology used for visual effects in movies.
AFTER SHUTTLE: Congress will take a look this week at how NASA plans to use the International Space Station (ISS) once the space shuttle stops flying, and six-member international crews are pursuing sometimes-differing research paths in the orbiting facility. William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations, will represent the U.S.
DEFENSE MANEUVERS: Russia and Brazil have signed a wide-ranging defense aerospace cooperation agreement covering potential collaboration in combat aircraft and space launch vehicles, according to local press reports in both countries. The deal was signed by Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Brazil’s minister for strategic affairs, and Valentin Sobolev, the vice president of the Russian Security Council. Russia remains keen to secure a fighter export sale to Brazil.
The U.S. Air Force does not plan to include funding in its fiscal 2010 budget request to procure new engines for the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) intelligence aircraft, according to a service official. The JSTARS re-engining program has begun with some development work to integrate Pratt & Whitney’s JT8D-219 propulsion system onto the E-8C fleet. The Air Force and JSTARS prime contractor Northrop Grumman selected the engine last year after years of lobbying by Northrop Grumman to get the program on track.
TANKER PROTEST: In a new filing with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the U.S. Air Force is proposing that Boeing’s charges of unfairness in the selection of a European platform for the KC-45 tanker be denied. The request is in a document delivered to GAO that Air Force officials describe as thousands of pages long. It is the service’s formal response to Boeing’s claim that the Air Force unfairly changed its assumptions in judging the $35 billion refueling tanker competition mid-stream, and misunderstood the company’s 767-200LRF bid.
SHADOW ACQUISITION: After a good experience with a team of external defense officials tracking the U.S. Air Force’s recent tanker award decision, the Pentagon’s acquisition chief will expand use of so-called shadow acquisition teams to other major defense competitions. John J.
EUROPEAN SPACE: The European Space Agency has named heads of four all-new or rescoped directorates created to meet the agency’s expanding priorities in space exploration, navigation and telecommunications. The agency has appointed a new director of Human Spaceflight (D/HSF), a director of Science and Robotic Exploration (D/SRE), a director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications (D/TIA), and a director of the Galileo Program and navigation related activities (D/GAL).
The U.S. Defense Department acquisition chief expects to squeeze out some programs through the fiscal 2010 budget-building process as he tries to provide a more dependable and disciplined DOD budget plan. John J. Young Jr., undersecretary of defense for acquisition technology and logistics, told reporters at a small Pentagon roundtable April 18 that he agrees with complaints that the roughly half-trillion-dollar annual DOD budget is “over-programmed.” Young, in a free-flowing exchange, said he had no target in mind for how many programs to cut.
ATHENS OFFICE: Following in the footsteps of the Rafale fighter team, French naval systems specialist DCNS has set up a representative office in Athens, and reinforced its partnership with Greek shipyard Elefsis. Greece has expressed an interest in acquiring six new frigates, and the Franco-Italian Fremm, in which DCNS is a partner, is a prime candidate. Elefsis would be given a major role in the program, perhaps in a proposed derivative that could meet a Greek air defense requirement.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) April 21 - 22 — GNSS Signal 2008, “Third CNES-ESA workshop on GNSS signals and signal processing at Institute Aero Spatial (ISA),” Toulouse, France. For more information go to www.toulousespaceshow.eu/download/cct_signal_080219.pdf
PARIS – Thales has reshuffled its management structure to reinforce international sales and promote the growth of services and homeland security. The company appointed former international chief Jean-Paul Perrier vice chairman in charge of key customer accounts, and named three executive vice presidents to manage its three major regions of activity.
Airbus has just completed the first test of in-trail climb procedures over the North Atlantic using Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) and aims to certify the technique by 2010 so trans-Atlantic aircraft can reap substantial fuel savings and cut emissions. The use of precise GPS positioning of aircraft is expected to allow airliners and military transports to climb or descend near each other over the North Atlantic, even when starting the maneuver only 15 nautical miles in front of or behind aircraft above or below them.
DIRECT ATTACK: Boeing announced that it has delivered the first Laser Joint Direct Attack Munition (LJDAM) kits to the U.S. Air Force. The Precision Laser Guidance Set (PLGS) kits are being produced to meet Air Force and Navy requirements to engage fast-moving land targets. The First Article Acceptance Testing (FAAT) of production units, conducted by the Air Force at China Lake, Calif., was completed in March. LJDAM is expected to be operational this year.
SCINTILLATING SUCCESS: The U.S. Air Force’s Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite was launched by an Orbital Sciences Pegasus rocket at 10:02 a.m. Pacific time April 16. The Pegasus’ L-1011 carrier aircraft took off from Kwajalein Atoll in the Ralik Islands and spent about an hour climbing to launch altitude, at which point it released the Pegasus from its belly. The Pegasus booster deployed the 870-pound (395-kilogram) satellite into its targeted elliptical orbit of 205 x 385 nautical miles eight minutes later.
SLIGHT SLIP: The U.S. Air Force’s decision between Lockheed Martin and Boeing designs for the future Global Positioning System III satellite is expected next week. Officials had hoped to announce the winner April 17. The winner will build next-generation GPS spacecraft including antennas capable of projecting spot coverage 100 times the power of today’s signal – a capability designed to counter anti-GPS jamming.
Morocco is expected to sign a €500 million ($750 million) contract with France for a Fremm-type 5,000-metric-ton frigate on April 18, senior government sources in Paris say. The contract is to be formalized during the visit to Rabat by French Prime Minister Francois Fillon.
The $108 billion fiscal 2008 supplemental spending measure being considered by Congress could be the only major appropriations lawmakers send to the White House before the November elections, boosting the likelihood that what are ostensibly warfighting funds could be significantly redirected.
