LONDON -- The British Defense Ministry on Feb. 14 down-selected to three bidders for a key naval support-ship program. AMEC, KBR, and Raytheon have been chosen to compete for the next phase of the U.K.'s $3.5 billion Military Afloat Reach and Sustainability (MARS) program to provide a new-generation support vessel fleet for the Royal Navy. One of the three will be chosen as the "integrator" for the program. The three were chosen from nine bidders, which also included BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Thales, and the VT Group.
Undersecretary of the Air Force Ronald Sega is "hopeful" that the Defense Department's formal recommendation on the proposed United Launch Alliance (ULA) merger will be given to the Federal Trade Commission within a month. FTC then will make the final decision on ULA, which would merge production of Lockheed Martin's Atlas and Boeing's Delta rocket fleets while still maintaining two distinct families of vehicles. DOD's recommendation is expected to play a crucial role in FTC's ruling.
SEA SKIMMERS: Orbital Sciences Corp. said Feb. 13 that it was now under "firm" contract to build and deliver 39 GQM-163A "Coyote" Supersonic Sea-Skimming Target missiles through early 2008, of which four vehicles have already been delivered to the U.S. Navy. The Naval Air Systems Command recently awarded Orbital the program's first full-rate production contract following a two-year development and flight-test program. Six previously delivered vehicles were launched in the test program from 2003 to 2005.
The European Space Agency will provide data from Japan's new Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) to users in Europe and Africa under an agreement approved by the ESA Council in December and awaiting signature. Data from the spacecraft will be made available to commercial distributors and the scientific community, as well as to Europe's Global Monitoring for Environment and Security Network.
ARMY AM General L.L.C., South Bend, Ind., was awarded on Feb. 2, 2006, a $42,852,720 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for the M1114 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles. The work will be performed in South Bend 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). AIR FORCE
ASSAULT SHIP: Northrop Grumman Ship Systems has been awarded a $93.8 million contract modification to perform engineering and detail design for the LHA(R) Flight 0 Amphibious Assault Ship and to buy more long lead time material for ship construction, the Defense Department said Feb. 13. The LHA(R) Flight 0 Ship will be a variant of the LHD 8 Amphibious Assault Ship now being built by NGSS and will have enhanced aviation capabilities. The work will be done in Pascagoula, Miss., and is expected to be completed by December 2006.
The House Science Committee is likely to hold a hearing on NASA's restructured aeronautics program, according to Chief of Staff David Goldston, amid concerns over the agency's shrinking aeronautics budget request. NASA's FY '07 request for aeronautics is $724 million, an 18 percent decrease from the FY '06 budget. The topline includes $447.2 million for fundamental aeronautics, $102.2 million for aviation safety, $120 million for airspace systems and $55 million to preserve the agency's wind tunnels.
Net earnings jumped 24 percent and net sales climbed 13 percent for Curtiss-Wright Corp. in the fourth quarter of 2005, the company said Feb. 9. Full-year net sales also grew 18 percent and net earnings increased 16 percent for the Roseland, N.J., based firm. Fourth-quarter '05 net earnings surged to $25.3 million, or $1.15 per share, compared to $20.4 million, or 94 cents per share, in the fourth quarter of '04. Net sales improved to $317.9 million, compared to $281.1 million in the same period of '04.
Bell Helicopter Textron is smoothing out the bumps in the Coast Guard's vertical takeoff-and-landing unmanned aerial vehicle (VUAV) program, the tiltrotor Eagle Eye, and the first production aircraft is expected next year, according to the aviation program manager for the service's Deepwater recapitalization program. "So far, so good," Capt. Matthew Sisson told the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International's unmanned systems program review in Washington. "We're finding out a few little bumps along the way that Bell's smoothing out for us."
Military units from three U.S. services and two allied nations are taking part in a simulated air war exercise over Nevada, the U.S. Air Force said. Exercise Red Flag 06-1, which runs from Feb. 6-18, involves more than 2,500 personnel and 130 aircraft in night and day missions over the Nellis Air Force Base Test and Training Range. U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps personnel are participating along with Australian and British forces.
Details of how and when the Defense Department will proceed with a U.S. Air Force tanker replacement program are still undecided, but "there is less urgency to acquiring a replacement aircraft than had previously been assumed," according to the White House. In turn, White House Office of Management and Budget officials are planning an $896 million cut due to program restructuring over the five-year defense plan, according to a new White House report, titled "Major Savings and Reforms in the President's 2007 Budget."
An emergency landing with just minutes to spare on battery power following an electrical generator failure capped the longest flight in aviation history by Steve Fossett piloting the Scaled Composites/Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer.
GETTING GERB: Eumetsat has received the first images from an experimental radiation budget instrument on Meteosat-9 that could be a forerunner of future orbital climate prediction systems. The instrument, known as "Gerb" for Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget Experiment, is designed to provide data on reflected solar radiation and thermal radiation emitted by the Earth and its atmosphere. The main instrument on Meteosat-9 (MSG-2), launched on Dec.
TRY AGAIN: The Russian Space Agency Roscosmos has given contractors an extra month to submit revised proposals for a new human-rated space transportation system to serve the International Space Station (ISS) and future space exploration programs. Roscosmos says earlier proposals that were intended to meet new competitive procurement rules did not fully meet requirements. Vehicles proposed were Energia's Clipper vehicle; a Khrunichev winged vehicle carried by the new Angara booster, and an air-launched system conceived by Molnyia.
SHIP KILLED: The Navy will not require another class of fast combat support ships for the foreseeable future and has decided to keep the existing T-AOE class of ships in service longer and operate them in conjunction with the new T-AKE dry cargo/ammunition ships, according to a White House plan. Navy officials unveiled the decision against starting a new T-AOE(X) class -- as previously planned -- when the fiscal 2007 budget was announced, but it was not known then whether the program was being terminated altogether (DAILY, Feb. 8).
The Defense Department will conduct a review of the U.S. Air Force's combat search and rescue (CSAR-X) helicopter competition in light of the DOD's related capabilities, according to the Pentagon's chief acquisition official. "What we've asked them to do is to come back and look at that overall portfolio of capability that the department has and what they seek to do and try to think through that program in that context," said Ken Krieg, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.
