AFRICAN IMAGING: South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has concluded a memorandum of understanding with Alcatel Alenia Space to collaborate in the space market. Potential areas of cooperation include geospatial data, landcover mapping, satellite broadband, navigation and astronomy. Alcatel Alenia also concluded a three-year preliminary agreement to develop broadband medical imagery applications for Africa in cooperation with Global Imaging Online, a French firm specializing in medical treatment and diagnostic imagery.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. said Feb. 2 that it will add Rockwell Collins Simulation & Training Solutions LLC and Aerospace Integration Corp. to its team competing for the U.S. Air Force's Combat Search and Rescue-X program to replace aging HH-60G helicopters. In an exclusive agreement, Rockwell Collins would be the training provider for Sikorsky's offering, the HH-92.
Net income zoomed 87 percent for Goodrich Corp. in the fourth quarter of 2005, while net sales climbed 11 percent, the company said Feb. 2. Four quarter '05 net income was $70 million, or 56 cents per share, compared to $37 million, or 30 cents per share, the year before. The gains were powered by increased sales for commercial aerospace original equipment and aftermarket products, the company said. Sales for the period grew from $1.25 billion in '04 to $1.39 billion.
QDR ON CHEM/BIO: For the next five years, beginning in fiscal 2006, the Defense Department is increasing funding for the Chemical Biological Defense Program (CBDP) by $2.1 billion, a 20 percent increase, according to the latest Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The department also plans to spend $1.5 billion over the next five years developing medical countermeasures against the threat of genetically engineered bio-terror agents, the report says.
General Dynamics Corp.'s Land Systems unit said Feb. 2 that it received a $128 million increment of a $257 million contract to provide 130 new eight-wheeled Light Armored Vehicles in various configurations for the U.S. Marine Corps. The contract has a total potential value of $307 million if a $50 million option for electric turret drives is exercised, the company said.
SETTING BOUNDARIES: So how do senior Pentagon leaders currently assess China as a military threat? "China is an emerging world superpower and we want to constructively work with them ... across a number of regional issues [and help] them along that path to making what we view is the right sort of choices," says Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Navy plans to adjust its force posture and basing to provide at least six operationally available and sustainable aircraft carriers and 60 percent of its submarines in the Pacific "to support engagement, presence and deterrence," according to the Quadrennial Defense Review.
The Bush administration will request $70 billion more this fiscal year for global military operations such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then an additional $50 billion for fiscal 2007 as part of the defense budget request on Feb. 6. One increase in supplemental funding will be for procurement - the need to replace and overhaul worn equipment, what the Defense Department refers to as recapitalization - as well as for force protection.
Washington is working with Brussels on ways to make it easier to exchange politically important but secret intelligence. Bureaucratic hurdles to giving European policy makers insight into U.S. intelligence information have traditionally been high. Washington policy makers were happy with the results last year when they provided threat information on China to their European counterparts as the European Union mulled lifting its embargo on arms sales to Beijing. But the process was cumbersome, says one Defense Department official.
Feb. 6 -- Disaster Summit, Omni Tucson National Golf Resort & Spa, Tucson, Ariz. For more information contact Dick Marchi at 202-293-3029, email [email protected] or go to www.aci-na.aero. Feb. 6 - 9 -- 25th Annual Satellite 2006 Conference & Exhibition, Washington Convention Center, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.satellite2006.com.
TEST FLIGHT TWO: NASA is still working toward a May window for the next space shuttle test flight, three years after the loss of Columbia forced development of in-orbit repair techniques for the delicate thermal protection system on the orbiter. The STS-121 mission will see spacesuited astronauts test mechanical plugs and putty-like filler on test articles in the cargo bay that later will be subjected to simulated re-entry temperatures in arc-jet tests on the ground.
GPS III: The U.S. Air Force plans to release the final request for proposals (RFP) for the Global Positioning System III satellite segment by mid-March, followed by another RFP for the GPS III control segment later in the spring. Contracts will be awarded beginning in the fall. The service is now finalizing both RFPs with the undersecretary of the Air Force for space.
GLOBAL WARMING: Congress is opening an informal probe into a key NASA scientist's charge that the agency has tried to stifle his calls for reduced greenhouse-gas emissions. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Science Committee, says "NASA is clearly doing something wrong" after James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, complained publicly that agency headquarters was showing excessive zeal in screening his public statements.
The Feb. 7 edition of Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will be sent to readers a few hours later than normal to allow for full coverage of the Bush administration's fiscal 2007 defense budget proposal, which will be unveiled on Feb. 6.
The Quadrennial Defense Review, released Feb. 3, says the Navy will "return to a steady-state production rate" of two attack submarines per year no later than 2012 while achieving an average per-hull procurement cost objective of $2 billion.
The HMS Daring, the first of the British navy's new Type 45 destroyers, was launched on Feb. 1 at the Scotstoun shipyard in Glasgow, the U.K. defense ministry said. "HMS Daring is the most powerful destroyer the U.K. has ever built. The launch of this first Type 45 is a milestone in the development of the Royal Navy of the future. It is proof that the government gives our sailors the tools they need to do their job now and in the future," John Reid, Britain's defense secretary, said in a statement.
C-130J ENGINES: Rolls-Royce said Feb. 3 it signed a $35 million, 10-year contract to support engines on C-130J aircraft operated by the U.S. Coast Guard. The aircraft, powered by four Rolls-Royce AE 2100D3 engines, are operated out of the Coast Guard Aircraft Project Office in Elizabeth City, N.C.
NASA's inspector general, Robert W. Cobb, has himself become the object of an investigation into charges he "'failed to investigate violations of safety concerns'" and retaliation against whistle-blowers.
BANG, NOT BUCKS: Many aerospace industry and military planners have been looking toward Long-Range Strike as the next major aircraft program that would make up for the major cuts now planned for the B-52 heavy bomber force. Not so fast, Quadrennial Defense Review planners are saying. The philosophy of the review is about capabilities, not numbers. Planners, despite fewer aircraft, expect to produce an "ever-increasing incline of capabilities" to do even more missions than are currently possible.
The Defense Department is expected to request $439 billion in its fiscal 2007 budget request, including $84 billion for procurement and $73 billion for research, development, testing and evaluation, informed analysts have said. The budget request, $120 billion in already planned supplementals for Iraq and Afghanistan operations in fiscal 2006 and early 2007, and the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) are seen as more friendly to industry than expected.
The Pentagon's 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) calls for a 15 percent increase in special operations forces in fiscal 2007, along with accelerated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) procurement to improve the military's persistent surveillance. This latest QDR, a congressionally mandated 20-year defense outlook, continues the Pentagon's increased emphasis on special operations forces (SOF) in the post-Cold War fight against global terrorism. The SOF budget has risen 81 percent since 2001, according to the QDR.
The Stiletto, a prototype shallow-water craft made from a tough, lightweight carbon composite material, will be "put through its paces" with Naval Special Clearance Team 1 in early May, the Defense Department said Feb. 1. Nevertheless, Navy Cmdr. Greg Glaros, a transformation strategist in the DOD's Office of Force Transformation, also said he was uncertain when the one-of-its-kind craft will be fielded.
As he prepares to step down from the helm of Loral Space and Communications after 34 years, Bernard L. Schwartz says he learned a lesson from the company's financially disastrous Globalstar satellite telephone venture. But he has no regrets about his decision a decade ago to sell off the company's military electronics units to focus on space communications. Schwartz says two milestones prompted him to announce his retirement as chairman/CEO: the company's emergence from bankruptcy protection last November and his 80th birthday the following month.
