NEW MANAGER: Gordon England, formerly the secretary of the Navy, has taken over the duties of the second-highest ranking official at the Defense Department. President Bush designated England as acting deputy secretary of defense, replacing Paul D. Wolfowitz, whose resignation was effective May 13 as he prepares to become president of the World Bank. England awaits formal Senate confirmation, which is expected.
Composite Engineering Inc., which has just received a contract for low-rate production of 36 Air Force Subscale Aerial Targets (DAILY, May 16), will conduct the eighth of 12 scheduled AFSAT demonstration flights on May 20, according to Jeff Herro, vice president of business development for the Sacramento, Calif., company.
BUY COMPLETED: Science Applications International Corp. has completed its acquisition of information technology provider Object Sciences Corp. of Alexandria, Va., SAIC said May 12. Financial terms were not disclosed. The purchase will add about 133 workers to SAIC's Operational Intelligence Solutions Business Unit. San Diego-based SAIC provides information technology and systems integration to commercial and government customers.
The Air Force Subscale Aerial Target (AFSAT) program took another step forward with the awarding of a $19.8 million contract to Composite Engineering Inc. of Sacramento, Calif., for low rate production of 36 of the vehicles. The Air Force plans to buy 221 AFSATs by fiscal year 2009. They will replace the aging BQM-34 and MQM-107 targets.
JOINING FORCES: Canadian Arrow, created to compete for the Ansari X Prize, is joining forces with Chirinjeev Kathuria, an American businessman who founded the commercial spaceflight company MirCorp, to form the new venture Planetspace. The goal of the company is "to make spaceflight available to the public," Canadian Arrow said in a statement. Company President Geoff Sheerin, Kathuria, and test pilots who plan to fly the Canadian Arrow on its first mission plan to hold a news conference on May 18 at the University of Chicago to discuss their plans.
BACK IN THE FOLD: The United States should take four steps to move closer to Russia, says Rep. Curt Weldon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee. First, "elevate Russia out of Jackson-Vanik," the amendment to the 1974 Trade Act that limited trade to countries that curtailed emigration rights. Russia has been found in compliance with it for more than a decade, but still finds being subject to it a "stigma," Weldon says. The U.S.
The Senate Armed Services Committee has authorized $9.1 billion for shipbuilding in fiscal 2006 for the four new ships that the Defense Department requested, as well as accelerating the CVN-78 aircraft carrier, the LHA-Replacement amphibious ship and the second DD(X) destroyer.
OK TO MERGE: BAE Systems shareholders have approved the acquisition of United Defense Industries by BAE Systems North America. The transaction also has been approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. and regulatory authorities in Sweden, Turkey, Germany and Norway, although the U.S. Justice Department still is considering whether it violates antitrust regulations. The companies expect the merger to close in the middle of this year.
TRAIN WRECK: Congress is facing a "train wreck" as it tries to meet military requirements, says Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee. "We're in the midst of the train wreck right now," as House and Senate panels have begun marking up the fiscal 2006 defense authorization, Weldon said May 11 at a breakfast sponsored by the National Defense University Foundation.
Missile defense system critics are preparing a slew of legislative efforts this year to cut into the budding missile defense system after recent test failures, so missile defense proponents should unite and prioritize program development, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) told a defense industry group recently.
AMMO HANDLING SYSTEMS: Lockheed Martin Aeronautics of Fort Worth, Texas, has awarded General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products of Charlotte, N.C., a $10.6 million contract to manufacture 26 ammunition handling systems and spares for the F/A-22 Raptor aircraft, General Dynamics said May 12. Assembly work will be done at General Dynamics' Saco, Maine, facility. Program management and system testing will take place in Burlington, Vt. The contract extends production through April 2007.
NASA's Prometheus nuclear power and propulsion program is being restructured to focus first on surface power generation for planetary exploration, and next on nuclear-thermal rockets, according to Administrator Michael Griffin.
JSF GUN: The critical design review for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter gun has been moved from late June to July 12-13 to allow for more analysis of data. Recent wind-tunnel tests for the gun produced results that differed from what was predicted, according to a spokeswoman for the Defense Department program. The brief delay in the design review is not expected to affect other program dates. The Lockheed Martin-built F-35 is to be equipped with a General Dynamics GD-425 4-barrel Gatling gun.
NEW OFFICE: NASA's upcoming Office of Plans, Analysis and Evaluation (DAILY, April 25) will assume "major responsibility for helping get our programs on track," according to Administrator Michael Griffin. The new office will assess whether programs are meeting their cost, schedule and performance goals, and make recommendations about them, Griffin says.
FORCE PROTECTION: The House Armed Services Committee is expected to maintain its emphasis on force protection efforts as it marks ups the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill (H.R. 1815). In particular, research and development funding will be redirected for efforts that can be quickly fielded to military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. "We take a hard look at funding and direction of some of our defense research and development programs, and take action to ensure that the highest priority is placed on force protection research initiatives," says Rep.
May 24 - 25 -- Military Satellites, "Ensuring Optimal Secure Satellite Communications," Hilton Silver Spring, Silver Spring, Md. For more information call 1-800-882-8684 or go to www.idga.org. May 24 - 25 -- McGraw-Hill's Homeland Security Summit, Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center, Washington, D.C. For more information go to http://www.aviationnow.com.
OFFSETS: NASA plans to delay, defer or cancel a number of far-term programs to pay for cost overruns in current programs and other pressing bills such as the shuttle's return to flight and Hubble Space Telescope servicing, the agency says. Some future Mars missions will be deferred "indefinitely," according to Administrator Michael Griffin, to help pay for the successful Mars Exploration Rovers and the upcoming Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), set to launch in August.
The U.S. Defense Department announced plans May 13 to set up a major training site for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and relocate the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). DOD also said it intends to close Naval Shipyard Portsmouth, Maine; Submarine Base New London, Conn.; Hawthorne Army Depot, Nev.; Red River Army Depot, Texas; and Army ammunition plants in California, Kansas, Mississippi and Texas (see list).
SOLID STATE: The U.S. Defense Department's Joint High-Power Solid-State Laser (JHPSSL) program, which is developing electrically driven laser demonstrators, may expand to look at how such technology could be integrated on ground vehicles and unmanned aircraft. When the program releases a request for proposals (RFP) for 100-kilowatt laboratory demonstrators within the next few weeks, it also plans to describe two possible efforts to develop weapon system concepts.
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - The National Full Scale Aerodynamics Complex at NASA's Ames Research Center in California is expected to reopen in the summer of 2006 under the management of the Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC). The largest wind tunnel in the world, the NFAC was closed by NASA in 2003 following the agency's decision to scale back its rotorcraft research. The Army had relied upon the NFAC for its full-scale rotorcraft testing, but use had declined significantly in recent years.
