The U.S. Air Force's reaction to the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) decision to sustain the second round of protests against the service's combat, search and rescue (CSAR-X) contract award could decide how future Air Force acquisition programs fare with federal lawmakers, analysts say. GAO sustained the protests by Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky Aircraft lodged against the Air Force contract award to Boeing worth between $10 billion and $15 billion to build more than 140 CSAR-X helicopters (DAILY, Aug. 31).
PRAISING JAPAN: A group of House legislators is pushing a non-binding resolution praising Japan for being a strong U.S. ally, as well as buttressing cooperation - and sharing - over ballistic missile defense (BMD) efforts. Defense Department officials and industry representatives assert that despite a recent security breach at the Japanese naval academy concerning Aegis radar technology, Japan is known to keep defense secrets better than almost any other ally.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected] Sept. 1 - 3 -- 2007 Cleveland National Air Show. For more information call (216) 781-0747 or go to www.clevelandairshow.com. Sept. 10 - 31 -- 2007 Joint Undersea Warfare Technology Fall Conference, "Maintaining the Competitive Advantage," Naval Base New London Groton, Conn. For more information go to www.ndia.org/meeting/7240.
PACIFIC TOUR: Guam "will be the tip of the national security spear for our country here in the Pacific," the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee told local residents after visiting on a trip that included unprecedented access to Chinese military facilities. The delegation was the first group from Congress, and the second of U.S. officials, to visit China's Second Artillery division, which controls both China's nuclear and conventional missile force.
Boeing's winning proposal to produce the upper stage of NASA's Ares I rocket prevailed because of its "significantly" lower projected cost, despite rival ATK's proposal rating higher on technical merits, according to a NASA source selection document. NASA announced Boeing's win of the up to $1.125 billion contract last week (DAILY, Aug. 29). ATK's final proposal received a technical rating of "excellent," whereas Boeing's received a final rating of "very good." Both teams were rated excellent in past performance history.
Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and former Sen. Sam Nunn visited nuclear storage facilities in Russia last week and also spoke at a conference in Moscow on the 15th anniversary of the Nunn-Lugar program that has helped the U.S. and Russia cooperate on securing nuclear materials and dismantling weapons.
SAASM GBU-28: Raytheon will add the Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module (SAASM) to 279 Laser Guided Bomb Units (GBU-28) and modify 279 Air Foil Groups to fit the BLU-113 Warhead. The requirement stems from the need to have the future production of Enhanced Paveway III be compliant with SAASM, according to a Defense Department contract announcement. The $10.3 million Air Force award is a firm-fixed price supplemental agreement to the GBU-28 C/B production contract, the Pentagon said Aug. 30.
LOCKHEED SUPPORT: Work will begin on Oct. 5 for Lockheed Martin to provide U.S. Joint Forces Command with information technology services under a new Information Systems Support Services (ISSS) contract totaling $186 million over the next five years. The first-year ceiling has been established at $35.3 million, and the next four years are year-long option periods. The ISSS contract was designed to provide Joint Forces Command with mission support including network operations and systems and database development and administration.
HOMEWORK DEFERRAL: With Congress facing fewer than two-dozen legislative days before the end of fiscal 2007, the prospects for a continuing resolution (CR) for most - if not all - of the federal government are rising. When lawmakers reconvene after Labor Day, the Senate will have 19 legislative days until the end of the fiscal year to pass 11 of 12 spending bills and then conference all of them with the House.
Ronald Sega held one last media roundtable the day before he is scheduled to step down as under secretary of the U.S. Air Force on Aug. 31, providing a rundown of the programs of which he is proudest and saying today's Air Force comprises three elements: "air, space and cyberspace."
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has sustained the second round of protests against Boeing's win of the U.S. Air Force's Combat, Search and Rescue replacement (CSAR-X) helicopter program. Losing bidders Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky have twice protested the choice of Boeing's HH-47 Chinook variant in a program to build more than 140 helicopters for an estimated price of $10 billion to $15 billion (DAILY, Aug. 20).
ZHUKOVSKY AIR BASE - Russia's Tactical Missile Corp. has revealed the basic configuration of its Kh-38M, a modular guided-weapons design which will succeed its Kh-25 (AS-10 Karen/AS-12 Kegler) type of tactical air-to-surface weapons. A mock-up of the missile was unveiled at the recent Moscow Air Show, though the Kh-38M program has been in development for more than a decade, with the requirement for a successor to the Kh-25 family probably originating no later than the early 1990s.
International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 15 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineers Clay Anderson and Oleg Kotov used the station's Canadian-built robotic arm Aug. 30 to move a pressurized mating adaptor (PMA-3) from the port side of the U.S. Unity node to a hatch on the nadir side of the node.
SAIC MRO: The U.S. Defense Logistics Agency is awarding Science Applications International Corp. a $500 million deal for maintenance, repair and operations supplies for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and other unidentified civilian agencies, the Pentagon announced Aug. 30. The original proposal for the fixed-price-with-economic-price-adjustment, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract was solicited via the Web with seven responses, according the statement.
Russia is carrying out flight trials of an active towed radar-decoy using a MiG-31 Foxhound as a test bed for the program. The system, known locally as Blesna (Lure), also is being offered for export as part of the President-S defensive aids suite. The decoy is intended to counter radar-guided missiles by spoofing the missile to target Blesna rather than the aircraft.
JCSAT-11: International Launch Services (ILS) will orbit Japan's JCSAT-11 spacecraft on a Proton M rocket with a Breeze M upper stage from launch pad 39 at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on Sept. 6 (6:43 p.m. Sept. 5 EDT). The roughly 4,000-kilogram (8,800-pound) spacecraft carries 30 active Ku-band transponders and 12 active C-band transponders. Based on Lockheed Martin's A2100 AX satellite bus, the multipurpose communications satellite has a design life of 15 years.
The U.S. Navy's program executive office for littoral and mine warfare (PEO LMW) has announced the pending delivery of its first littoral combat ship (LCS) mission package to Panama City, Fla., Sept. 14, despite the fact that the first LCS won't be there to accept the package.
With one fell swoop, Menlo Worldwide Government Services moved up into the top ranks of logistics contractors with the recent award of a seven-year deal worth up to about $1.6 billion to handle much of the domestic Pentagon freight movements across the United States. Averaging about $228 million a year, the deal (DAILY, Aug. 22) would rank Menlo Worldwide in a strong third place for logistic service contractors, according to an Aerospace Daily analysis of data provided by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting released Aug. 17.
ATK's loss of the Ares I upper stage contract to Boeing won't impact ATK's fiscal 2008 financial guidance - which excluded the contract - but may indicate that the company isn't quite ready to fulfill its ambition to move into the prime contractor arena, according to Morgan Stanley analysts.
JFCOM SUPPORT: The U.S. Navy has chosen Lockheed Martin to provide U.S. Joint Forces Command with information systems support services under a potentially five-year, $186 million contract award announced Aug. 28. JFCOM is based in Norfolk, Va., where 99 percent of the work will occur, according to a Pentagon statement. An initial $35.3 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee, fixed-price contract runs through October 2008. The award was competitively procured through the Navy Electronic Commerce Online portal with six offers received.
EELV AWARD: The U.S. Air Force is awarding Lockheed Martin Space Systems a firm-fixed price contract for $119 million for Atlas V launch services under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program for launch of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF)-2 satellites. Already, $89.25 million has been obligated, according to the Aug. 29 contract announcement from the Defense Department.
