The market for U.S. Navy unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) is heating up as Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Accurate Automation Corp. is under a technology demonstration contract to provide five boats, including a so-called "go-fast" craft capable of speeds up to 100 miles per hour.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition (RD&A) Delores Etter has signed into effect a new policy that will try to "curb" contractors' and program managers' "optimism" - and thus, overruns - in software projects. The policy requires Navy software contractors to show their "maturity and the discipline and the experience" to predict software development costs and schedules, she told a Navy Opportunity Forum in Washington on June 5.
Britain-based Marshall Aerospace has been awarded a 1.52 billion pound ($1.94 billion) contract to provide support for the British air force's Hercules transport aircraft, the U.K. defense ministry said June 2. Marshall Aerospace will work with partners Lockheed Martin, Rolls-Royce, and the Defense Logistics Organization on the Hercules Integrated Operational Support program.
ARMORED VEHICLES: BAE Systems will produce 378 Iraqi Light Armored Vehicles under a $180 million Foreign Military Sales contract, the company said June 5. Prime contractor BAE Systems and subcontractors Spartan Chassis Inc. of Charlotte, Mich., and Force Protection Inc. of Ladson, S.C., will build, test and provide logistics support. If all options are exercised, the contract could be worth up to $445.4 million with 1,050 vehicles being produced, BAE Systems said. The contract was awarded by the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command.
ESCAPE ROUTE: The Air Force has approved a fix to the canopy actuator system of its premier F-22 fighter devised after an incident in April, in which a pilot had to be cut free of the aircraft using chainsaws. The cause of the malfunction was a screw that vibrated loose, blocking the canopy actuator system. The fix involves a longer screw, epoxy and regular inspection, according to the Air Force. F-22s have begun receiving the modification, and installations will continue through fiscal 2007.
A June 1 letter report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to the leadership of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces sounds a note of cautious optimism that the U.S. Air Force may be making progress in reforming its much-maligned space acquisition process.
THE QUEEN LIKES HIM: Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley, whose uncommunicative ways make him no friends among reporters trying to cover the air campaign in Iraq and USAF issues since then, gets high marks from the chief U.S. ally in the war, the U.K. Like a fellow Texan, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who directed the overall Iraq invasion, Moseley was knighted during a ceremony at the British embassy in Washington, receiving the honorary title of Knight Commander of the British Empire and member of the Order of the British Empire.
ISS RIDE: Malaysia has bought a ride to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz vehicle next year as part of a planned $1 billion order for Su-30 MKM fighters, according to the Itar-Tass news agency. A primary and backup Malaysian astronaut will be picked to begin training for the flight in the extra "taxi seat" on a Soyuz mission scheduled for September 2007.
The French government appears to be moving closer to the U.K. on potential cooperation in the Watchkeeper unmanned aircraft project, although overtures to Germany are also under way. Government and industry officials indicate French plans for the cooperative European medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) system that was to be based on the Eagle-2 air vehicle, derived from the Israeli Aircraft Industries' Heron, are in flux as requirements have changed and Paris realizes it may not have the money for the so-called EuroMALE initiative.
H-1 UPGRADES: U.S. Navy and Office of the Secretary of defense spokespeople won't confirm or deny, but Reuters has reported that Defense Acquisitions Board officials have decided to let Bell Helicopter Textron keep its $8 billion H-1 helicopter upgrade contract, finding that Bell has taken the necessary steps to better manage progress and costs. The DAB hosted a meeting May 31 to discuss the troubled program, but OSD only said an acquisition decision memorandum would be forthcoming.
PACKBOT ORDERS: On the heels of a similar award to Foster-Miller Inc., the U.S. Navy has ordered $64.3 million worth of iRobot Corp.'s Packbot robots, parts and training for the Robotic Systems Joint Project Office. Joint Robotics repair facilities and imbedded repair teams are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but iRobot will work in its Burlington, Mass., facility. Foster-Miller and iRobot provide the Defense Department robots under the Navy's Man-Transportable Robotic Systems program (DAILY, May 24).
The Russian space agency is moving ahead with development of the first Russian robotic mission to the moon in 30 years. The new "Luna-Glob" mission is now a formal part of the Russian space plan with launch set for 2012, says Nikolay F. Moiseev, deputy director of the Russian space agency. With the new lunar flight plan, Russia joins the U.S., China, India, Japan and Europe in planning for renewed exploration of the moon.
NASA may use some 40-year-old facilities left over from its last moon program to test vehicles under development for the next one, but computing advances over those 40 years will give engineers a leg up on their predecessors. ATK Launch Systems, for example, has just bought an advanced supercomputer to help with the design of the planned Crew Launch Vehicle's first stage. The Linux Network device will deliver 2.24 trillion floating-point operations with 110 nodes, with special displays for large-scale aerospace analysis models.
GUAM GROWING: The Joint Guam Military Master Plan calls for $10 billion to $15 billion in infrastructure improvements in Guam over the next 15 years to transform the U.S. territory from a military logistics hub to the "tip of the spear," defense officials say. The plan, being fine-tuned for delivery next month to Navy Adm. William Fallon, head of U.S. Pacific Command, will usher in a construction boom that's expected to top $1 billion a year.
Looking to focus on its more profitable divisions, primarily aerospace and defense, Textron Inc. announced June 1 that it will sell its Fastening Systems business to Platinum Equity, a private equity investment firm, for $630 million in cash and assumption of debt. Cash proceeds after taxes and transaction costs are expected to be about $670 million, Textron said. The deal, which is subject to certain closing adjustments, is expected to close during the third quarter.
REPOSITIONING RLEP: NASA field centers get official word this week on the work packages they will handle as President Bush's exploration program moves ahead. Administrator Michael Griffin and Scott Horowitz, chief of the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, will brief agency staff and reporters separately June 5 on the changes, which feature a shift of two key lunar exploration efforts to Marshall Space Flight Center. Rep.
USAF SERVICES: Large, flexible service contracts are representing an increasingly large chunk of U.S. Air Force acquisition, according to Lt. Gen. Donald Hoffman, military deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition. "Of my 44 programs that are over a billion dollars, 17 of them are services contracts," he says. "This is really a shift we're having now.
GOLDEN OLDIE: Boeing's rivals in the $11 billion Air Force Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR-X) aircraft competition are taking its HH-47 entry seriously, even though it's based on the 1960s-vintage Chinook cargo helicopter. Stephen Moss, CEO of AgustaWestland North America, ranks Boeing's heavy lifter offering at No. 2 behind his group's US101 entry and ahead of Sikorsky's smaller HH-92. AgustaWestland is teamed with Lockheed Martin and Bell Helicopter to produce the US101, a variant of which won the VXX presidential helicopter replacement competition last year.
ANOTHER STEP: Crews are preparing Europe's Columbus International Space Station module for checkout at Kennedy Space Center, where it will remain until its planned launch late next year. An Airbus Beluga outsize-cargo transport delivered the 1 billion euro ($1.3 billion) laboratory module to the Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC on May 30. First up on the preflight test agenda is four months of pressure testing, followed by systems power-up seven months before launch, which is currently scheduled for September 2007.
The U.S. Navy on June 1 awarded Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Ship Systems unit a contract for construction of two Amphibious Transport Dock Ships, LPD 22 and 23, as well as material and associated labor for LPD 24. Northrop Grumman asserted that the expected, $2.49 billion award demonstrated the Navy's confidence in its shipbuilding. The company, one of two remaining large U.S. warship builders, has been criticized recently for problems in some programs such as the LPD 17, Virginia-class submarine and Advanced SEAL Delivery System.
