UK UAV TO AFGHANISTAN: British soldiers will soon deploy to Afghanistan with a portable Desert Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, the U.K. Ministry of Defence says. The 7-pound UAV, which has a wingspan of about 4 feet and can fly for about an hour, will accompany about 70 members of the U.K.'s 32nd Regiment Royal Artillery and soldiers from 16 Air Assault Brigade. The Desert Hawk provides aerial video reconnaissance from anywhere within a 6.2-mile radius of its ground control station.
MENTORING ALASKANS: Boeing, the prime contractor for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Seabased X-Band Radar (SBX), says it will mentor Aleut Technologies, a Native Alaskan-owned small business. Aleut Technologies furnishes the SBX with an escort vessel, refueling and other services, and will provide primary support services at the SBX's future base at Adak, Alaska. Alaskan Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, chairman of the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee, helped create the law that promotes special procurement status for some Alaskan business.
WARHEAD DELIVERED: Boeing announced June 8 that it has delivered the first Block 1A Standard Missile-3 Kinetic Warhead (SM-3 KW) to SM-3 prime contractor Raytheon. The warhead was shipped in April from Anaheim, Calif., to Raytheon facilities in Tucson, Ariz. The Block 1A upgrade provides the missile with several improvements, according to Boeing, including increased reliability and supportability. The SM-3 is designed to intercept short- to medium-range ballistic missiles as part of the Aegis sea-based midcourse missile defense system.
June 12 - 14 -- ACI-NA Marketing & Communications Conference and Jump Start, Hyatt Regency Austin, Austin, Texas, 202-293-3032, email [email protected]. June 13 - 14 -- Homeland Defense Journal Training Workshop on the Importance and Process of Obtaining Your Security Clearance, Including a Special Segment on the Convergence of Collateral and Special Compartmented Intelligence (SCI) Clearances, Market Access Training Center, Arlington, Va. For more information call (201) 592-6477 or [email protected].
UN-FEES-ABLE: The $32.08 billion Homeland Security Department spending bill passed by the House includes $6.3 billion for the Transportation Security Administration but rejects a White House-proposed $1.3 billion airline passenger security fee increase. The spending amount itself is more than $1 billion higher than President Bush's budget request for fiscal 2007. Bush wants to replace the current two-tiered security fee schedule with a single, flat fee of $5 for a one-way trip, doubling the fee for passengers flying nonstop.
P-3C PROGRAM: Lockheed Martin Aircraft and Logistics Centers of Greenville, S.C., has been awarded a $125.8 million contract modification for the U.S. Navy P-3C Orion's sustainment, modification and installation program, the Defense Department said June 9. The work will be done in Greenville, S.C., and is set to be finished in June 2007. The contract was awarded by the Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md.
SPACE COOPERATION: Italian space agency ASI plans to participate in a pair of projects aimed at reinforcing space cooperation with Argentina. The first, to be undertaken with Argentine space agency Conae and the University of Cordoba, will seek to make Earth observation data and services available to other Latin American countries.
House and Senate appropriators have agreed to a congressional compromise over the mid-year fiscal 2006 supplemental spending measure, including $65.8 billion for the Defense Department's operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the same level as the Bush administration's revised budget request. "It will enable the Defense Department to avoid absorbing incremental operating costs from within baseline programs that are critical to future readiness and home-station activities," said a Senate Appropriations Committee statement late June 8.
Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale says that NASA's ability to up the pace of shuttle flights to the rate necessary for completing the International Space Station by 2010 will be contingent not on orbiter turnaround but on how quickly it can analyze in-flight anomalies.
The U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command has extended General Dynamics Corp.'s Electric Boat shipbuilding unit $30.7 million more, via a performance incentive contract modification, for continued performance of developmental studies and design efforts on Virginia-class submarine design and design improvements. Almost all of Electric Boat's work will be performed in Groton, Conn., with 5 percent in Quonset, R.I. and a little in Newport, R.I. The modification runs through September 2007, according to a June 8 Defense Department announcement.
House defense appropriators have marked up legislation providing $377.6 billion for defense spending in fiscal 2007, plus a requested $50 billion bridge fund for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program is funded at $3 billion, about $326 million below the request but an increase of $227 million above the FY '06 level. The cut is due to development and contracting delays, according to a House Appropriations Committee statement.
GALILEO PROPOSAL: The European Commission has proposed that the Galileo Joint Undertaking responsible for managing development of the Galileo satnav system and picking a concessionaire to deploy and run the system be wound up by year's end, and its activities transferred to the Galileo Supervisory Authority. GJU officials say concessionaire negotiations are on track for an agreement by the end of December, with a contract signature expected by the second quarter of 2007.
GLOBAL HAWK BASELINE: Total program cost for the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle is now pegged at $7.7 billion in a new baseline approved by Pentagon acquisition czar Ken Krieg, according to a program source. That cost, recently reported to Congress as part of a program certification from the Pentagon, covers development of the high-flying reconnaissance drone and 54 air vehicle purchases. The former price, before cost overruns in recent years, was $5.2 billion.
TANKER RESPONSE: Northrop Grumman and EADS North America have jointly submitted their response to the U.S. Air Force's request for information (RFI) on the replacement for the aging KC-135 tanker aircraft, the companies announced June 9. The companies plan to offer the Air Force the KC-30, derived from the A330 passenger jet, which would be assembled and modified in Mobile, Ala. Rival Boeing plans to offer the service its KC-767.
Pentagon worries about the Chinese military buildup don't foretell a new Cold War-style arms race between the U.S. and China, according to a panel of Asia experts. The economies of the two nations are too intertwined to revert to the 20th century chess game of Soviet expansion and U.S. containment, speakers told a Heritage Foundation discussion of the Pentagon's latest report on People's Liberation Army expansion.
INTERIM CHIEF: L-3 Communications Corp.'s CFO will lead the company on an acting basis while it looks for a permanent successor to CEO Frank C. Lanza, who died unexpectedly on June 6. Michael T. Strianese will hold the dual positions of CFO and interim CEO while three board members lead a search for a new CEO. Strianese has been with L-3 since it was founded in 1997 and was promoted to CFO in early 2005 after co-founder and CFO Robert V. LaPenta left the company. As expected, L-3's board also appointed longtime director Robert B. Millard as its nonexecutive chairman.
Members of the House Science Committee expressed skepticism of the new plan for the scaled-back National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) during a hearing on Capitol Hill June 8, along with frustration over the Pentagon's failure to deliver detailed supporting documents to the committee on time.
