President Bush's May 15 speech calling for 6,000 National Guard troops to be sent to the southern border of the U.S. to back up the Border Patrol is likely to help speed the integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into the national airspace, according to a Pentagon UAV official. Most likely to benefit from the announcement are small UAVs such as AeroVironment's Raven, which has been used extensively by Guard troops deployed to Iraq, according to Dyke Weatherington, head of the Pentagon's Unmanned Aircraft System Task Force.
Retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro says he was "surprised" at the extent of equipment shortages within the National Guard and Reserve, where even basic items such as trucks and communications gear are wearing out. Punaro is chairman of a 13-member panel charged by Congress to study the future of the Guard and Reserve and recommend needed changes in law and policy to ensure it can continue meeting its responsibilities. Guard and Reserve forces are being deployed at unprecedented levels in support of ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
AIRSHIP AESA: The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory awarded Raytheon Systems Co. an $8 million contract to develop Lightweight, Low-Power Density Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) technology for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Integrated Sensor program, the Defense Department announced May 12. The radar to be developed is dual UHF and X-Band and would be bonded to the flexible hull material of an airship. Already, $2.5 million worth of work has been obligated, and the contract runs through April 2008.
CLEARANCES: The National Defense Industrial Association has told its members that the Defense Department is attempting to restart the contractor security clearance process, and will prioritize requests to get the most urgent clearances processed first. Meanwhile, the Senate and House government operations committees will host hearings May 17 on the matter. The Defense Security Service recently stopped processing clearance applications and doing periodic reviews of existing clearances, citing a $20 million funding cut and a growing post-Sept. 11 workload.
Aerospace Integration Corp. (AIC), a major specialty needs integrator for U.S. special operations forces (SOF) aircraft, is looking to apply its one-facility "block-modification" insertion concept for the whole Army and is banking on growing revenue next year by 60 percent.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER: Republican and Democratic aviation leaders from the House visited a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing May 9 on loosening foreign ownership rules and - to the surprise of no one - turned out to have views similar if not identical to those of Republican and Democratic aviation leaders in the Senate.
Harris Corp. has boosted its research and development spending by nearly 50 percent over the past two years to $870 million in fiscal 2005 from about $600 million in fiscal 2003. This is about 30 percent of the Melbourne, Fla., company's $3 billion in sales in fiscal 2005, according to Howard L. Lance, chairman, president and CEO. Sales have been growing about 20 percent per year over that time frame and earnings by 50 percent per year, he adds.
ARMY AM General L.L.C., South Bend, Ind., was awarded on May 10, 2006, a $42,449,318 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for M1151P1 high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles. Work will be performed in South Bend, Ind., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2007. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole source contract initiated on July 17, 2000. The U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (DAAE07-01-C-S001).
Northrop Grumman has completed a long series of tests to prove that the James Webb Space Telescope's five-layer sunshield will be able to protect the observatory's sensitive cryogenic instruments from solar heat.
Raytheon has begun flight-testing its APG-63 V(3) active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, which the company is producing for Air National Guard F-15C fighter jets. The flights began on May 5 using a Raytheon-owned test bed aircraft. There have been four flights so far. The company will continue flight-testing through the end of the month, pause to analyze data, and then resume flights in June.
Vietnam is to get its first national satellite in 2008 under a contract with Lockheed Martin signed by the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group, which has been charged with implementing high-speed broadband services for the Southeast Asian nation.
TEST SUCCESSFUL: Northrop Grumman Corp. said May 15 that it has successfully completed a static test fire of a Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile technology-demonstrator motor. The testing of thrust vector control, insulator/nozzle erosion and thrust took place earlier this month at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. It was conducted with partner Alliant Tech Systems.
'FRANKENPLANE': With an engineering feat that will create the world's only aircraft of its kind, the Finnish Air Force is constructing its newest two-seater F-18D Hornet by combining sections from a C-model and an earlier-generation B-model Hornet, the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command says. The U.S. Navy, the Boeing Co. and Patria Aviation are helping the Finns construct what project team members affectionately call the "Frankenplane," or more officially HN-413. Boeing sold Hornets to Finland in 1992, delivering them between 1995 and 2000.
BRIGHT PROSPECTS: U.S. aerospace and defense companies had a fairly strong earnings season, according to Credit Suisse analysts. Defense firms with Army exposure tend to be top picks looking ahead, they said.
AIR FORCE LAIRCM: Northrop Grumman Corp. has received a $49.5 million contract for delivery of large aircraft infrared countermeasure (LAIRCM) system hardware, support equipment and services for C-17 and C-130 aircraft. The deal includes possible foreign military sales and for other government agencies, as well as installation support for other platforms. The Air Force, according to a May 11 Defense Department announcement, already has obligated $36.7 million.
NGMTI PROJECTS: The Next Generation Manufacturing Technology Initiative, a Pentagon-sponsored public-private partnership focused on breakthrough manufacturing technologies, has identified 17 strategic investment plans. These projects involve more than 100 organizations, with a budget of $430 million over the next decade with industry funding 35 percent, on average. Examples include defense fuel cells manufacturing, digital direct manufacturing and carbon nanotube manufacturing.
WITHHOLDING: Government contractors could see 3 percent of their payments withheld under a provision in the congressional agreement over the tax reconciliation measure that was ratified by the House and Senate last week. Governments, local to federal, would deduct and withhold 3 percent from payments starting in 2011, according to the congressional conference agreement. The Congressional Budget Office said the provision would raise $7 billion from 2011 to 2015. Industry and government lobbyists are expected to try to undo the provision before it takes effect.
The U.S. Navy, and the nation as a whole, suffer "poor capability" to detect, identify, track and understand small ships in global littoral waters, including off the coasts of the United States, and there are "no clear material or nonmaterial solutions from Navy's perspective to address this capability gap," according to a draft Navy policy on maritime domain awareness (MDA).
C&SPACE, a South Korean company, claims it has built and ground tested a 20,000-pound, force-thrust, methane-fueled rocket engine, leapfrogging U.S. efforts to do the same. Company officials said the regeneratively cooled, liquid oxygen/methane power plant is ready for production, and units can be delivered nine months after receipt of an order.
