Northrop Grumman Corp. announced May 24 that it was teaming up with seven large partners, including General Dynamics, L-3 Communications Titan Group and BearingPoint, to bid on a multibillion project to build a virtual fence around U.S. borders. The program, SBInet, is a component of the wider Secure Border Initiative (SBI), unveiled by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last year. It calls for deploying more personnel, new technologies and updated infrastructure along the 6,000 miles of U.S. borderland with Canada and Mexico.
Raytheon says it will deliver the second of two payloads for the Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) in July, to support the launch of the first two STSS test satellites next year. Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for STSS, a planned constellation of satellites for tracking missiles and re-entry vehicles through the boost, midcourse and terminal phases of flight. STSS previously was known as the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) Low.
RADAR MAINTENANCE: BAE Systems of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., has been awarded a $5 million contract to provide operations and maintenance for the Air Force's solid state Phased Array Radar Systems at five global locations, the Defense Department said May 22.
PROPELLANT: Alliant Techsystems Inc. of Radford, Va., has received a $5.6 million delivery order as part of a $14.3 million contract to provide M1 multi-perforated propellant and M67 propelling charge for the Army's 105mm Recapitalization Program, the Defense Department said May 23. The work will be done in Radford, Va., and is expected to be finished by March 31, 2007. The contract was awarded by the U.S. Army Field Support Command, Rock Island, Ill.
Lockheed Martin has begun testing a new type of vehicle armor designed to protect against both improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and armor-piercing bullets that the company hopes will cost as little as 1/10th as much as current ceramic armors. U.S. troops in Iraq often experience coordinated attacks by insurgents that employ an IED blast followed by armor-piercing sniper fire or other projectiles, according to Lockheed Martin.
DHS SPENDING: The House on May 25 is slated to take up the fiscal 2007 Homeland Security Department appropriations bill. The House Appropriations Committee sliced $41.6 million from the Coast Guard's $934 million Deepwater recapitalization request, approved $373.2 million for operations, maintenance and procurement by Customs and Border Protection's Air and Marine division and withheld $6.8 million of the requested $10.3 million for the CBP Predator program (DAILY, May 18).
Congress will not complete a fiscal 2006 supplemental spending bill for the U.S. military and other federal efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere by the Memorial Day recess, a setback that will spur the Pentagon to shift funding temporarily while adding to a compressed election-year schedule on Capitol Hill. "I am disappointed that a conference agreement with the House cannot be completed this week," said Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
ARMY ACQUISITION: The Bush administration has promoted Army Maj. Gen. N. Ross Thompson III for a third star and to become military deputy/director, Army Acquisition Corps, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics and Technology). Thompson is director, Program Analysis and Evaluation, Office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff.
Pentagon acquisition chief Ken Krieg has decided not to terminate the troubled National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), although he plans to approve moving forward only with the first two satellites, according to industry and government officials.
U.S. Astronaut Jeff Williams, flight engineer on Expedition 13 to the International Space Station, may eventually get to use a laptop controller for some manual "flight" of the first of three microsat test beds to reach the station. But for now, MIT engineers are evaluating the results of the first autonomous tests May 18 and 20 of their Synchronized Position Hold, Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites (Spheres) hardware in microgravity.
