Warning that the two upcoming X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS-D) demonstrators are not an operational design, Northrop Grumman and Navy officials say that much of the stealth technology eventually intended for them will have to wait for future iterations. The two air vehicles will be identical, so to keep costs down much of the low-observable technology has not been included. For example, a stealthy, S-shaped exhaust will not be there unless Northrop Grumman pays for its inclusion. The intake will be in its curved stealth form, however.
SCOUT SYSTEM: The U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command is signing a major award to Raytheon for Long Range Advanced Scout Surveillance Systems (LRAS). The $116.1 million firm-fixed-price contract, awarded July 25 but announced Aug. 8, is expected to be completed by Feb. 1, 2013, according to the Defense Department.
The U.S. Coast Guard has awarded a $337 million contract to Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS) to begin work on the third National Security Cutter (NSC). Northrop Grumman will receive the lion's share of the funds, $285.5 million, for ship construction. The first cutter, Bertholf, is 90 percent complete, and Waesche is approximately 30 percent complete. The new cutter will be 418 feet long with a 4,300-ton displacement at full load. ICGS partner Lockheed Martin is responsible for shipboard command and control systems aboard the NSCs.
PREDATOR UPGRADE: The U.S. Air Force is awarding General Atomics a $7.3 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for two "pre-production" YMQ-1C Block X unmanned aircraft. The contracted work should be finished in January 2009, the Pentagon said in an Aug. 6 contract announcement. According to a January article in the authorized newspaper serving Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, which contracted for the Block Xs, the "Predator upgrade" is expected to increase loiter time, payload capability, weapons capacity and reliability while reducing overall lifecycle costs.
The Northrop Grumman Fire Scout vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial vehicle (VTUAV) is drawing attention from foreign governments across Europe and Asia, according to a company official. At a briefing during the unmanned systems symposium sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International, Michael Fuqua, business development manager for Fire Scout, said Northrop Grumman has had serious discussions or "price and availability requests" from a dozen countries.
Intelsat Holdings says BC Partners has lined up $1.1 billion in cash and $5.1 billion in debt commitments to acquire a majority stake in the Bermuda-based telecom operator. The proceeds of the commitments will enable BC Partners to pay $4.6 billion in cash for 73 percent of Intelsat Holdings, instead of $5.03 billion for 76 percent of Intelsat shares, which were the terms when the deal was announced on June 20. The deal is expected to close in late 2007 or early 2008.
Foster-Miller has received $51.5 million of new orders for over 250 Talon robots and replacement parts from the Naval Air Warfare Training Systems Division's Robotic Systems Joint Program Office. The orders are part of a larger, $150 million indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract that was raised, in May, from $63 million by Naval Air Systems Command. The total dollar value of Talon orders placed so far under the contract is $115.4 million.
COMMUNICATIONS FORECAST: Forecast International projects that defense departments worldwide will spend $12.54 billion on 26 different multimission communications development, acquisition or maintenance programs - 611,513 individual product units - over the next decade. Militaries want to use communications systems that are operated using software, FI said, but spending also is being driven by the high costs and developmental delays of the Pentagon's Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS). The U.S.
The FAA has approved 36 Certificates of Authorization (COAs) for unmanned air vehicle (UAV) operations so far this year and has 29 more in the cue with a backlog building due to limited resources, an FAA official says. Meanwhile, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey has signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Defense Department to free up small UAV operations in military areas and Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England is expected to sign it in the next few days or weeks. Military UAVs
Ohio-based contractor Defense Research Associates Inc.'s (DRA) vice president of engineering, Jim Utt, says a third phase in the Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD) of sense-and-avoid (SAA) capability for unmanned aerial vehicles will soon be launched.
TRACKING PHOENIX: The European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express will track the descent and landing phase of NASA's Phoenix lander (DAILY, Aug. 7) next year as part of increased international networking in exploration missions. The 13-minute monitoring mission, which will require an orbital adjustment, will serve as a backup to a pair of NASA orbiters. With NASA's communications network taxed to near capacity, Mars Express could be charged with covering the entire 90-day Phoenix mission as well.
Economically viable technology for space solar power exists today and could be developed in fairly short order if only it could find advocates in Congress and the federal bureaucracy, some experts say. Earth's climate, the world economy and U.S. energy security could benefit from putting photovoltaic cells or other solar-energy converters into space and beaming the carbon-free renewable power they produce to the surface as microwaves or lasers, two experts in the field told a Washington roundtable sponsored by the George C. Marshall Institute Aug. 8.
The U.S. Navy's Affordable Weapon System (AWS) is reaching a critical point with the service's recent release of a broad agency announcement (BAA), but supporters must labor to keep the effort thriving amidst competing funding requests, according to contracting documents and legislation. Already, MBDA Inc. apparently has lost an effort to push back the due date for BAA responses to Aug. 30. Responses still are due Aug. 22, according to an Aug. 8 contracting document, because expiring funds act as "financial constraints."
The U.S. Air Force expects to continue fairly constant airlift operations into Iraq for the rest of the year, says an executive for a defense contractor that is part of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF). A need to transport mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) into the combat zone also could boost the demand for such commercial air cargo services, said William Flynn, president and CEO of Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, whose subsidiaries - Atlas Air and Polar Air - transport military cargo.
SHUTTLE VIEWS: NASA and Microsoft have posted interactive three-dimensional photographic displays on the Internet that let users fly around shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis at Kennedy Space Center and zoom in and out. The software, developed by Microsoft Live Labs in collaboration with the University of Washington and Sea Dragon, is called Photosynth. The images can be found at: http://labs.live.com
Eurofighter says it will offer India its standard Typhoon at the time the order is made if it wins the competition to build 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) for the Indian air force. The Indian defense ministry recently said it is poised to release the MMRCA Request for Proposals (RFP). If Eurofighter wins, it is likely that India would get the Tranche 3 aircraft, given that the order will take at least five years as the offset policy has yet to be resolved, a senior air force official told Aerospace Daily.
JAPANESE AEGIS: Lockheed Martin has won a $33 million contract to provide the Japanese navy with Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) capabilities on their destroyer, JDS Chokai. The destroyer is the second of four Kongo-class Japanese ships to be outfitted with the Aegis BMD. In July 2005, Lockheed Martin won a 3-year, $124 million contract to engineer, develop and integrate Aegis onto the first Japanese ship.
Details about stealth, unmanned concepts of operation and new missions like air-to-air refueling are emerging following the award of the U.S. Navy's Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration (UCAS-D) contract to Northrop Grumman. Building off the company's X-47B prototype, the $635.8-million, six-year contract includes landing an unmanned combat aircraft on a carrier deck by late 2011 (DAILY, Aug. 2).
Under a recently awarded $7.5 million U.S. Navy contract, Honeywell's micro air vehicle (MAV) is being used in Iraq by the U.S. multiservice Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) group in a far more specialized role than envisioned by its original sponsor, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
