The Defense Department's Inspector General Office has notified the White House and Congress that Virginia and local municipal governments in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake have not met all the requirements of the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) law regarding Naval Air Station (NAS) Oceana, Va. Florida, under the 2005 BRAC law, now has an opportunity to meet conditions that would allow realignment by the Navy from NAS Oceana to Cecil Field, Fla.
Boeing's Spectrolab division believes it is making headway in its attempt to convince the U.S. government to take its space-qualified solar cells off the State Department's munitions list and put them back under Commerce Department control. "I've been at Washington, D.C., and talked to the Department of State a number of times and we're hoping everything is going to come under Department of Commerce jurisdiction shortly," Spectrolab President David Lillington told The DAILY.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), who could become the next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, predicted May 25 that missile defense programs will become the "bill payer" as budgets tighten and Washington deals with the "train wreck" of defense acquisition.
DHS FUNDS: The House moved May 25 to pass its fiscal 2007 Homeland Security Department appropriations bill. At the press time, the chamber was set to vote on and pass the bill. House appropriators sliced $41.6 million from the Coast Guard's $934 million Deepwater recapitalization request and approved $373.2 million for operations, maintenance, and procurement by Customs and Border Protection's Air and Marine division.
W2M AWARD: Eutelsat has awarded Arianespace a contract to launch its W2M spacecraft, ordered earlier this year. The launch, the fifth won by the company this year, is set for 2008.
A new study from Forecast International predicts that the U.S. commercial remote sensing industry is entering a period of stability following the acquisition of Space Imaging by Orbimage, which has reduced the number of major U.S. industry players to two and will take pressure off the government to prop up the industrial base.
As the Defense Department prepares to implement a new incremental development approach for the Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT) program, officials still face gaps in knowledge that could hamper its success, according to the Government Accountability Office.
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.
