The release of a study on U.S. Air Force tanker modernization options has been delayed again, according to a congressional source. The Defense Department had planned to brief Capitol Hill in mid- to late-January on the results of the analysis of alternatives (AOA), which RAND Corp. conducted for DOD. But a congressional source told The DAILY Jan. 13 that the briefings have been moved to February because the Pentagon needs more time to determine whether the AOA is adequate.
NETWORK CAPACITY: A subsidiary of broadband satellite products provider Hughes Network Systems Inc. of Germantown, Md., has launched a new 500,000 euro ($663,554) dedicated Network Operations Center (NOC) at its European teleport in Griesheim, Germany, the company said. Hughes Network Systems Europe's NOC will support additional satellite transponder capacity made available in December to satisfy growing demand for satellite broadband services. The NOC will support broadband access, LAN interconnection, and IP multicasting, the company said.
Despite the fact that Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne already has won the $10 million Ansari X Prize, several of the 25 other teams that registered for the competition are pressing on with plans to fly their own private suborbital space vehicles, according to X Prize Chairman Peter Diamandis. "We had 26 teams in seven countries, and amazingly, we had literally 26 different designs," Diamandis said at a Jan. 13 luncheon in Washington sponsored by the Washington Space Business Roundtable. "None of these looked like anything on the drawing board elsewhere."
RECON PODS: The U.S. Navy has awarded Raytheon Co. an $8 million contract to acquire parts for the F/A-18 Shared Reconnaissance Pod (SHARP) systems, the company said Jan. 13. Raytheon Technical Services Co. LLC will acquire and integrate key subsystems and components for six SHARP systems. The Navy will receive the systems in 2006. They will be made in Indianapolis. The Naval Air Systems Command awarded the contract. SHARP provides Navy carrier-based air wings with high-resolution, digital tactical air reconnaissance.
The Boeing EA-18G electronic attack jet under development for the U.S. Navy is nearing completion of wind-tunnel testing, according to a company spokeswoman. The tests began in June 2004 and are expected to wrap up by early February, the spokeswoman said Jan. 13. Several facilities are being used to verify that the aircraft's design is aerodynamic. The EA-18G, a derivative of the F/A-18F Super Hornet strike fighter, underwent a preliminary design review in October (DAILY, Oct. 25, 2004). The Navy has not yet announced the results.
Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who heads the Corps' combat development command, said Jan. 12 that the Navy's Sea Basing concept must include protection of the deployed land forces as well as the naval staging area, meaning the Sea Shield concept must be equally developed. "The ashore piece has to be as protected as the afloat piece," he said.
In observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not publish on Jan. 17. The next issue will be dated Jan. 18.
EXTENDED: Thailand's air force has extended its contract with Environmental Tectonics Corp. for maintenance support of its three PC-9 aircraft simulators, the Southampton, Pa.-based company said Jan. 12. ETC provided the simulators to Thailand in the mid-1980s. The maintenance support work, which will be extended through calendar 2005 under the new contract extension, is being handled by ETC's International Logistics Support/Contracted Operations and Maintenance Service division.
U.S. Air Force acquisition chief Marvin Sambur said Jan. 12 that he recently testified before the Government Accountability Office, which is weighing a protest over the service's Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) competition. Lockheed Martin Corp., which lost the competition to the Boeing Co., filed a protest with the GAO in November after former Air Force acquisition official Darleen Druyun admitted she had given preferential treatment to Boeing on several other contracts.
Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have expressed interest in possibly buying the CH-47F, the newest version of the Boeing Co.'s Chinook helicopter, a company official said Jan. 12. Several other countries, including Egypt, Greece and Spain, are also seen as potential candidates to purchase the CH-47F, said Jack Dougherty, director of Chinook programs at Boeing, who spoke at an Army-sponsored press briefing at the Pentagon.
Nordic Satellite AB (NSAB) has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to build its next geostationary direct broadcast satellite, Sirius 4, Lockheed Martin announced Jan. 12. Set to launch in 2007, Sirius 4 will take over for the Sirius 3 and 3 satellites in the Nordic and Baltic markets, providing direct-to-home broadcast and interactive services. It also will enhance coverage in Eastern Europe and Russia and complement coverage of sub-Saharan Africa.
The Navy's vision for its future sea basing concept, the Marine Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future), or MPF(F), is on schedule, although the first ship of the family is not scheduled for procurement until later in the Future Years Defense Plan, service officials said Jan. 13.
A subsidiary of Dayton, Ohio-based MTC Technologies Inc. will provide Sustainment System Engineering and Acquisition Management Support Services (SSE and AMS) for the Nuclear Treaty Monitoring Directorate of the Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) under a five-year contract worth up to $15 million, the company said Jan. 12. The award was made to MTC's subsidiary, Command Technologies Inc.'s Kemerait Engineering Group (KEG).
IMPACT TROUBLE: NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft entered a preprogrammed safe mode shortly after deployment from its launch vehicle Jan. 12, apparently in response to higher-than-expected temperatures resulting from a firing of the spacecraft's thrusters, according to a NASA spokesman. All attitude and trajectory maneuvers were successful and all other systems appear normal, the spokesman said.
The U.S. Army has awarded AAI Corp. a $71.9 million contract to produce eight Shadow Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (TUAV) systems, the company said Jan. 13. AAI Corp. is a subsidiary of Hunt Valley, Md.-based United Industrial Corp.
Parsippany, N.J.-based DRS Technologies Inc. has received new orders worth about $36 million to provide 3,600 additional Applique Computer Systems to the U.S. Army's Force XXI Battle Command, Brigade and Below (FBCB2) program, the company said Jan. 13. The orders were awarded by the Army's Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) in Fort Monmouth, N.J., as part of a five-year contract won by DRS in June 2004.
REHEARSAL: Arianespace conducted a rehearsal for the requalification flight of its Ariane 5-ECA heavy-lift rocket on Jan. 12 at the company's launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, the company announced. The rehearsal included the entire launch countdown and tests of all launcher equipment and ground facilities. The actual flight is scheduled for Feb. 11, 2005. The first flight attempt for the ECA variant failed in 2002, destroying Eutelsat's $250 million Hot Bird 7 satellite and prompting a redesign of the rocket's Vulcain 2 main engine (DAILY, Dec. 13, 2002).
An enemy's relatively easy task of jamming and identifying friendly intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms flying at low and medium altitudes can be offset, but there's no single solution covering all situations and all vehicles, according to a new study from RAND Corp.
The Pentagon's top acquisition official is stressing the importance of defeating the threat of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Michael Wynne, acting undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, issued an unusual plea asking that "U.S. industry, laboratories, and inventors generate as many creative ideas as possible to counter" the devices.
AFFORDABLE RADAR: The Affordable Ground Based Radar (AGBR), produced by Raytheon Co., successfully performed air surveillance and tracking of simulated and real airborne targets during a Marine Corps test in December, the company said Jan. 13. The radar was tested while rotating at both 30 and 60 revolutions per minute. The test results bolster the idea for a battlefield sensor mounted aboard a Humvee, the company said. Further AGBR testing and evaluation are under way.
The U.S. Navy has been experimenting with a converted commercial container ship and trying out its plug-and-play modularity strategy under the Sea Basing forward basing concept, Vice Adm. David Brewer III told the Surface Navy Association's national symposium Jan. 12. The former S-class container ship, which could carry 6,000 containers in its previous commercial configuration, is called the Stockton, said Brewer, head of the Military Sealift Command. As part of its 12-month reconfiguration, command and control modular elements were built in.
San Diego-based National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. (NASSCO), a General Dynamics subsidiary, will build two more T-AKE combat logistics force ships for the U.S. Navy under a $586 million contract option, the company said Jan. 11. NASSCO has now been awarded a total of eight ships with a contract value of $2.5 billion. The T-AKE contract includes options for four more ships.
Irish Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea signed a contract for four new Bell Agusta Aerospace Co. AB 139 utility helicopters for the Irish air corps, the defense ministry said Jan. 12. The helicopters, which will be built at Agusta's facilities near Milan, Italy, will be delivered in 2006 and 2007 for 49 million euros ($65.2 million), the ministry said. Ireland also plans to buy two light utility Eurocopter EC135s, and a contract for those is expected to be signed "shortly," the ministry said. They are to be delivered later this year.
