The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has rejected an Alabama Aircraft Industries (AAI) protest that the competition for the U.S. Air Force’s $1.1 billion KC-135 programmed depot maintenance (PDM) contract should be reopened because the Air Force has made significant, material changes to its original PDM requirements. In a decision issued May 2, GAO dismissed AAI’s claims concerning changed requirements, but said it still is considering AAI’s overall protest of the service’s Feb. 29 decision to award the PDM contract to Boeing.
An “independent, unbiased” analysis of alternatives (AOA) will determine whether one aircraft can meet both U.S. Army and Air Force requirements for a heavy-lift tactical transport, a senior U.S. Army officer says. Planned to begin later this year and to be completed by the end of fiscal 2009, the AOA will examine options for meeting the newly merged Joint Future Theater Lift (JFTL) requirement.
EXPLOSIVE DETECTION: The U.S. military’s Robotics System Joint Program Office has awarded a $4.8 million contract to ICx Technologies of Arlington, Va. to deliver Fido XT handheld explosives detection systems for use in Iraq and Afghanistan and train service personnel. Fido is an ultra-sensitive explosives sensor that is also being used by the Transportation Security Administration to screen air passengers’ carry-on baggage for liquid explosives.
Russian defense spending is expected to increase, but Moscow’s “strategic bandwidth” may be constrained by several defense-related economic factors, consultancy Forecast International said May 5. “Three major trends will define Russian defense spending between 2008 and 2012,” according to Matt Ritchie, an Eurasian defense economics analyst. They are “increased procurement, increased funding for strategic arms, and a relative decline in research and development.”
Lockheed Martin is protesting the U.S. Navy decision to award a $1.16 billion contract to Northrop Grumman to design and build its new Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned aerial vehicles. The company filed its protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) May 5. GAO has 100 days to rule on the protest.
HELO DEFENSE: ITT Corp. said May 5 it received an expected $57 million award for 25 AN/ALQ-211(v)6 sensor-and-self-protection systems for U.S. Army special operations MH-47 and MH-60 helicopters. The fixed-price contract, which also extends authority for full-rate production, is the first part of a $312 million indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity award made recently to ITT by the U.S. Special Operations Technology Applications Program Office.
HOT AWARD: Raytheon said April 30 it received a $3.3 million contract to tackle thermal challenges in semiconductors designed for new high-power radars and other electronic systems for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The award is for the first phase of DARPA’s three-phase Radio Frequency Thermal Ground Plane program, which could be worth $8 million if all options are fully exercised. The full program could run 45 months, ending in the fourth quarter of 2011.
NAVY BAE Systems Land & Armaments, LP, Ground Systems Division, York, Pa., is being awarded a $53,190,513 firm-fixed-priced delivery order #0008 under previously awarded contract (M67854-07-D-5025) for the purchase of 40 Category I U.S. Special Operations Command armored utility variant vehicles. The work will be performed in York, Pa., and is expected to be completed by February 2009. Contract funds will not expire by the end of the current fiscal year. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity.
NASA and its partners on the International Space Station (ISS) are in final preparations for the shift from a full-time crew of three to a crew of six on the orbiting laboratory, beginning with the STS-124 space shuttle mission upcoming in June. While the main objective of that flight of the space shuttle Discovery will be to deliver Japan’s big Kibo pressurized laboratory module, other work in the 13-day mission is directly targeted at sustaining a six-person crew to begin making full use of Kibo and the other laboratories.
COUNTERMEASURES: U.S. Army Boeing CH-47F Chinook cargo helicopters are to be equipped with BAE Systems’ Advanced Threat Infrared Countermeasures (ATIRCM) laser-based missile jammer. The Chinook will be outfitted with two laser turrets, or “jam heads”, integrated with the Common Missile Warning System. “A-kit design is beginning in the summer of 2008,” says Ray Teller, Army deputy program manager for cargo helicopters. Chinooks are already being equipped with an engine exhaust infrared suppression system produced by Ottawa-based Davis Engineering.
BOOSTER TEST: Engineers at NASA and Alliant Techsystems (ATK) will use acoustic data from the latest test of a four-segment space shuttle reusable solid rocket motor (RSRM) to design the five-segment first stage of the Ares I crew launch vehicle, after the seven-year-old RSRM apparently met all objectives in the May 1 static firing at ATK’s test site in Utah. Also included in the 32 objectives of the two-minute test was evaluation of how well aging boosters perform. At seven years, the test motor was the oldest ever fired.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicated new calendar listing.) May 5 — The 20th Annual Greater Washington Aviation Open (GWAO), “The Largest Aviation Charity Event in Washington, D.C.,” Lansdowne Golf Resort, Leesburgh, Va. For more information go to www.gwao.org
The U.S. Defense Department has not identified, let alone assessed, all global strike-related capabilities and technologies and has not explained how potential weapons systems will result in a comprehensive, prioritized investment strategy, according to congressional investigators.
SCOUT CAMP: The U.S. Navy will integrate its MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical takeoff and Landing Tactical Unmanned Aerial vehicle (VTUAV) onto an FFG-7 Oliver Hazard Perry-class ship before the Fire Scout reaches the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The Navy will conduct the Fire Scout Operational Evaluation aboard an FFG-7 in the summer of 2009. A Technical Evaluation will be performed in fall 2008, and the Fire Scout will reach Initial Operating Capability in summer 2009.
The Pentagon certified a critical need for the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) program May 2, following the program’s breach of Nunn-McCurdy acquisition law.
PARIS — The European Space Agency (ESA) says a reaction wheel glitch that marred the first phase of flight of the Giove B test bed satellite has been fixed, and the spacecraft is now performing nominally. Engineers are preparing to switch on the navigation payload on the spacecraft, which is intended to test a new passive hydrogen maser clock that has never before flown in space, and a MBOC standard signal generator representative of the operational signal.
The first V-22 Osprey squadron returned from Iraq last month, and squadron members were overwhelmingly positive about their experiences with the aircraft. Critics of the aircraft were wrong, said U.S. Marines with the Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263. Four squadron members, along with Lt. Gen. George Trautman, aviation deputy, addressed reporters at the Pentagon May 2.
AFFORDABLE ENGINE: General Electric is developing an all-new 3,000 shp-class helicopter turboshaft, the GE3000, under the U.S. Army’s Advanced Affordable Turbine Engine (AATE) program. The GE3000 will compete with the Honeywell/Pratt & Whitney HPW3000 to power U.S. Army Boeing AH-64 Apaches and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks later next decade.
BAE DISAGREES: BAE Systems would like to meet with the DOD Inspector General (IG) to “resolve what appears to be a misunderstanding of underlying facts.” The company strongly disagrees with a recent IG report that uncovered oversight issues with foreign-owned BAE Systems’ work on the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The DOD IG “explicitly found no instances of unauthorized access to classified or export control information on the JSF program,” a BAE statement countered May 1.
APACHE AIRFRAMES: The U.S. Army has decided its upgraded Block III AH-64D Apaches will have new airframes. The original plan was to remanufacture the helicopters a second time, the first being when they were modernized from AH-64As to Ds, but the wear and tear on Apaches in Irag forced the Army to take another look. “The DA [Department of the Army] has directed us to do new airframes based on the high op tempo of the current aircraft,” says Lt. Col. Robert Johnston, Apache Longbow product manager.
RETAINING TALENT: Lockheed Martin will get an additional $39.5 million to set up an employee-retention program at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, where the company builds the big space shuttle external tanks that carry cryogenic propellants during the ascent to space. Under the modification, which brings the total value of Lockheed Martin’s external tank contract to $2.967 billion since October 2000, the company will provide incentives to eligible personnel to ensure they continue on the job until the final 10 tanks needed are built and flown.
The U.S. Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command (AETC) suspended all T-38C Talon jet trainer flights on May 1 after a second fatal crash in as many weeks. Two pilots were killed on the morning of May 1 when their aircraft assigned to the 80th Flying Training Wing at Sheppard Air Force Base crashed. Names of the victims of the latest accident have not been released. The other crash occurred during takeoff of a T-38 at Columbus Air Force Base, Miss., on April 23.
