FT. WORTH, Texas - A tiger team consisting of Lockheed Martin executives and stakeholders from each Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) partner nation will conduct its first meeting next month to explore the particulars of a collective international buy, according to Dan Crowley, the company's F-35 vice president. Through that effort, called Lightning Strike, Lockheed Martin hopes to secure commitments for 100 aircraft through 2011 and an additional 1,300 (including 800 for the U.S. and another 500 from partner nations) thereafter.
Lockheed Martin is speaking up to protect and promote Bell Helicopter Textron's Eagle Eye vertical-takeoff-and-landing unmanned aircraft ahead of likely revisions to the U.S. Coast Guard's massive Deepwater recapitalization program. A position paper being shopped around Washington - including Capitol Hill where the Democratic-run Congress has imposed increased oversight and major changes to Deepwater - reiterates Eagle Eye's purported potential capabilities, as well as industry's own investments against programmatic risk.
NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) has discovered a new astrophysical phenomenon being displayed by the well-known red giant star Mira - a comet-like tail of ejected material stretching 13 light years that could be planting the seeds for new solar systems.
GOES-R: NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Aug. 23 announced a $92 million contract with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder to design and develop the Extreme Ultra Violet and X-Ray Irradiance Sensors (EXIS), which will help forecast solar disturbances when it flies on NOAA's next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES-R). The GOES-R prime contract will be awarded early next year, and the first spacecraft is slated to launch in December 2014.
ZUMWALT'S EARS: The U.S. Navy has given Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) approval to transition the Zumwalt-class destroyer program's undersea warfare systems, known as the acoustic sensor suite, into production, the company said Aug. 23. The modularity of the suite's design offers the potential for "widespread" use on other naval platforms. The system is supposed to cut manpower requirements for equivalent functions by a third - reflecting the Navy's major goal of cutting its ranks by modernizing and upgrading through better, yet unproven, technology.
AMPLIFIED AWARD: BAE Systems said it will build a 160-watt solid-state, gallium nitride power amplifier for U.S. military communications, electronic warfare and radar applications. The solid-state technology will replace older vacuum tubes, called travelling wave tubes, currently used to produce high-power radio frequency signals, the company said Aug. 22. The $8 million Army Communications-Electronics Command contract stems from DARPA's Disruptive Manufacturing Technology program. The high-power amplifier technology is supposed to guard U.S.
UPPER STAGE: NASA plans to announce the winner of the upper-stage contract for the Ares I crew launch vehicle at 4 p.m. EDT Aug. 28. A Boeing-led team is squaring off against a team led by ATK that also includes Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney/Rocketdyne. The value of the program to the winner has been estimated at $900 million. The Ares I will boost Lockheed Martin's Orion crew exploration vehicle to orbit.
NASA began wildfire mapping missions using its Predator-derived Ikhana unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on Aug. 16 and expects to keep flying fire missions over the western states through September.
IT ONSLAUGHT: Spending on information technology (IT) in the final months of the U.S. federal government's fiscal 2007 is expected to reach more than $20 billion - greater than 33 percent of the total 2007 federal IT amount - continuing the trend toward a fourth quarter spending spree, according to consultancy Input. The firm says the increased purchasing activity - a growing trend in the last decade - favors established vendors who have put in the up-front work of relationship building.
The French government is beginning the process of drafting a new "White Book" on defense and security, the first revision in over a decade. In the run-up to presidential elections in France this year, politicians across the political spectrum had called for a review of the country's strategic defense imperatives. One of those urging such an undertaking was Herve Morin, who has since been named defense minister.
The Pentagon's vaunted Transformational Satellite (TSAT) network is necessary for future military operations, but its future remains in doubt because of funding issues, a recently released Lexington Institute briefing says. "TSAT is arguably the single most important technology initiative the military is currently funding," says the report, "TSAT: Essential To National Security," released this month by Loren Thompson, Lexington military analyst.
New estimates for the U.S. Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), the Navy's LHA Replacement (LHA-R) amphibious warship and the Air Force's B-2 Radar Modernization Program (RMP) have helped push up the total costs of major defense acquisition programs by almost $4.3 billion to just under $1.7 trillion. According to the latest Selected Acquisition Reports (SARs) submitted to Congress for the June reporting period and released by the Defense Department Aug. 22, EFV costs have increased $4 billion, 34.2 percent, to almost $16 billion.
As concerns over the modernization of Chinese naval forces grow, Congress needs to worry about how much it should weight China's growing power in its planning for U.S. Navy capabilities, says a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.
TIME SENSITIVE: Lockheed Martin announced it has developed and delivered to the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) a software suite that cuts the time an Air Operations Center (AOC) needs to prosecute time-sensitive targets. The Time-sensitive Target Dynamic Decision Enabler, which manages the flood of data that can burden the Dynamic Target Cell Chief, supposedly trims the timeline from at least 30 minutes to two minutes or less, the company said.
The Pentagon has cut the number of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles it expects to deliver to Iraq by year's end to 1,500 from 3,500 due to transport and equipment-installation delays, rather than production issues. John Young, director of Defense Research and Engineering, said July 17 he expected "hopefully more than 3,500" MRAPs would be delivered to troops by Dec. 31.
Europe is moving to create a single European Union (EU) market for mobile satellite services. The European Commission is proposing a rule that would centralize the selection and authorization of mobile satellite services for operators at the EU level. Currently, those processes are done at the member state level, but that creates potential conflicts in terms of frequency allocation.
U.S. Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) awarded a contract with a potential value of about $1.6 billion Aug. 17 to Menlo Worldwide Government Services, LLC of San Mateo, Calif., to manage DOD freight movements in the continental U.S. (CONUS) to cut cost and improve service.
NASA's Integrated Enterprise Management Program (IEMP), launched in April 2000, has run into implementation issues, and the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) wants NASA to take steps to protect its $800 million investment.
Chief House defense appropriator John Murtha (D-Pa.) is acting on frustration over perceived Defense Department services contracting run amok and has shepherded congressional language that could grow the federal contracting work force. "Despite the growing and seemingly unconstrained reliance on contractors to accomplish DOD's mission, no system of accountability for contract service cost or performance has been established," the House Appropriations Committee said in its report accompanying that chamber's fiscal 2008 defense spending bill.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) needs better internal controls for its governmental purchases, according to a recent DOD Inspector General (IG) report. MDA acquisition officials failed to follow proper procedures in buying or providing services or equipment, especially when using Military Interdepartmental Purchase Requests (MIPRs), says the Aug. 20 report.
