RELIABLE REVIEW: Democratic-led Senate energy appropriators will start weighing in on the future of the U.S. nuclear weapons regime June 26 when the Senate Appropriations energy subcommittee is scheduled to mark up its fiscal 2008 spending bill.
The Pentagon is unable to keep track of how often it has awarded special speedy contracts that allow work to begin before the details are ironed out, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says. Called undefinitized contract actions (UCA), the awards authorize contractors to begin work before reaching a final agreement on contract terms. "The contractor has little incentive to control costs during this period, creating a potential for wasted taxpayer dollars," GAO says.
RAID ON: Raytheon said June 25 that the U.S. Army awarded it $10.4 million for whole-life engineering support for the company's Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment (RAID) systems. The support award alone is worth a little bit more than just the last RAID order from the Army for 16 systems, but the services contract will cover more than 150 potential RAID systems (DAILY, May 21). The persistent-surveillance systems were designed for Iraq and Afghanistan combat operations in particular, although the Army two years ago bought 15 systems for peacekeeping use in Kosovo, Serbia.
The Lockheed Martin/Northrop Grumman Transformational Satellite Communications (TSAT) space segment team has reached Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL-6) - a key milestone for the TSAT program, the team announced July 25. The Pentagon considers TSAT to be its most vital future communications network. The laser-linked orbital router is meant to provide worldwide connectivity for platforms and people across the services.
DEADLY FISH: The U.S. Navy is completing MH-60S helicopter integration testing of its Airborne Mine Neutralization System (AMNS) and program officials expect to reach Milestone C by the end of the summer. Officials have scheduled developmental testing for September with operational and live-fire testing planned for July 2008. At the same time, the Navy is looking for further uses for the system's Archerfish, a 41-by-5 inch, 35 pound expendable unmanned vehicle that seeks out mines and fires a shaped-charge warhead to destroy them.
Once the International Space Station (ISS) is up and running after 2010 with a six-person crew, as much as half of the experiment space and other resources on-board could be available to commercial users at essentially no charge.
Raytheon is challenging the U.S. Army's award of the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) program to a team led by L-3 Communications, Alenia North America and Boeing, putting the June 13 contract on hold possibly through September. Raytheon filed the protest June 22 with the congressional Government Accountability Office, triggering a review period lasting as long as 100 days. The company, which was teamed with EADS, has not commented yet on why it protested the award.
LISA PATHFINDER: Under an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA will supply the Disturbance Reduction System Package that will be part of ESA's Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) Pathfinder, set for launch in 2010 to demonstrate the technologies that the LISA spacecraft will use to measure gravity waves. Essentially it is a highly sensitive thruster system designed to counteract drag on the spacecraft from solar wind and other forces so true gravity measurements can be made.
ARMY R&D: Only 25 percent of the U.S. Army's budget goes to research, development and acquisition, compared with 38 percent in the Navy and 43 percent in the Air Force, Army boosters tell legislative aides. Senate Armed Services Committee staff say they are told this is because the Army is manpower intensive and personnel costs eat up a large part of its budget. Furthermore, the Army's overall share of Pentagon investment dollars is only 17 percent versus 33 and 35 percent for the Navy and Air Force, respectively.
The European Space Agency has contracted with the Russian Space Agency to acquire the first four Soyuz rockets for the new launch pad under construction at the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The launch vehicles will be built by Samara and operated by Arianespace. ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain says he hopes to have the vehicles and the pad ready for an initial launch by early 2009.
QUICK RESOLUTION: Negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic over U.S. plans to base ground-based midcourse ballistic missile interceptors and a high-powered radar site on their respective territories should not take years to finalize, says John Rood, U.S. assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation. "There doesn't appear to be any instrumental obstacles," he says. Poland has sent a delegation to Washington this week for a second round of talks. The countries will continue their discussions even as Russian and U.S.
GREEN SPACE: Pete Geren, the acting U.S. Army secretary who is on his way to Senate confirmation for the full position, says he is not satisfied that current Defense Department management structures adequately support Army space interests. "There are opportunities for improvement," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing June 19.
EDWARDS LANDING: The STS-117 crew piloted shuttle Atlantis to a 12:49 p.m. PDT landing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on June 22 after poor weather at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) forced the cancellation of a landing attempt there for the second straight day. The landing at Runway 22 brought to a close a 5.8-million mile orbital mission that continued assembly of the International Space Station. NASA plans to return the orbiter to KSC by early July, carried piggyback on a Boeing 747.
ORS EARMARKS: Lawmakers seem intent on forcing the Pentagon to produce so-called operationally responsive space (ORS) platforms and services. The House last month passed a bill that said lawmakers there still believe a majority of the Defense Department's space-related request goes to acquisition of existing space systems -- not the low-cost, rapid-reaction payloads, busses, spacelift and launch control capabilities that Congress has sought for years.
DEEPWATER REDUX: Talks between the U.S. Coast Guard and Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS), a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman that has been leading the Deepwater recapitalization effort, are supposed to wrap up this week. The Coast Guard plans to take on lead-systems integration responsibilities and cut back ICGS work, although the transition will take at least 18 months if not longer. ICGS will receive a 43-month contract for work that could have amounted to $3 billion under previous estimates for the second phase of Deepwater.
INSAT 4G: Arianespace will launch the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Insat 4G communications satellite in late 2008 aboard an Ariane 5 launched from the company's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The announcement, made at the Paris Air Show June 22, comes three months after Arianespace launched Insat 4B for ISRO. Starting with the Apple experimental satellite on Flight L03 in 1981, Arianespace has orbited 13 Indian satellites, which will make Insat 4G the 14th.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected] June 25 - 28 -- Live Fire Test & Evaluation Conference, SPAWAR Systems Center Charleston -- Naval Weapons STation, Goose Creek, S.C. For more information call (703) 522-1820, fax: (703) 522-1885 or go to www. ndia.org. June 26 - 28 -- 20th Annual Solid State and Diode Laser Technology Review, Sponsored by Directed Energy Professional Society, Albuquerque, N.M. For more information call (505) 998-4910, fax: (505) 998-4917, www. deps.org.
HUNTER FRUSTRATED: One of former House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter's (R-Calif.) continuing "frustrations" about the Defense Department is that warfighters in the field still must become "supplicants" to higher-ranking acquisition officials to get what they need for the field.
The Bush administration and that of outgoing U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair are signing -- and still hammering out details of -- a U.S.-U.K. treaty that would eliminate the need for export licenses between the countries over certain defense and counter-terrorism trade.
A National Reconnaissance Office imaging satellite program thought to be called Misty was recently cancelled after drawing major criticism from key lawmakers. Mike McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, cancelled the Lockheed Martin program after protracted technology problems and cost issues, according to an industry consultant. Lawmakers have quietly criticized it for years, with leading intelligence Democrat Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) venting frustration in late 2004.
