British infantry troops equipped with a variety of modern high-tech equipment have successfully completed an experimental trial designed to improve their combat effectiveness, the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence said Jan. 14.
TEETS LEAVING: U.S. Air Force Undersecretary Peter Teets, who also serves as the Defense Department's space acquisition executive, is expected to leave office in or close to March, joining an exodus of top Air Force officials as the Bush Administration gears up for a second term. Secretary James Roche and acquisition chief Marvin Sambur are stepping down Jan. 20. Before Teets departs, he is expected to handle Roche and Sambur's duties in addition to his own.
ACTIVE PROTECTION: The U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems is soliciting information on Active Protection System technologies and supporting components, the Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) says. "FCS is developing a fully integrated hit avoidance suite to provide protection to the manned ground vehicles and current force vehicles," says a Jan. 14 TACOM FedBizOpps notice.
The European Space Agency's Huygens probe successfully touched down on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan on Jan. 14, marking humanity's first landing in the outer solar system. The probe began its descent at 5:13 a.m. Eastern time, sampling Titan's atmosphere and taking panoramic photos before touching down on an apparently solid surface at roughly 7:34 a.m. (DAILY, Jan. 13).
In a two-part Broad Area Announcement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is urging industry to help develop a rapid prototype of explosives detection systems for vehicle bombs and to propose longer-range "novel" technologies to detect suitcase or package bombs.
STRONG COMPETITOR: Lockheed Martin Corp. officials expect Naval Sea Systems Command will issue a request for proposals by the end of the year to be the Navy's mission module integrator. NAVSEA hosted an industry day last November on the topic. "We're considering the opportunity out there, we think we're very experienced in integration," says Brad Hines, Lockheed Martin mission package integrator capability manager. Lockheed Martin says its experience as a systems integrator on nearly 100 surface combatants globally makes it a strong competitor.
TANKER CHARGE: The "continued delay and now likely re-competition" of the U.S. Air Force's tanker program prompted Boeing to announce a $275 million pretax charge, the company said Jan. 14. Another charge, related to ending 717 production, will boost that to $615 million. Boeing's first-quarter and full-year 2004 results will be released Feb. 2.
HELP THE JPDO: The Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) that is developing the nation's next-generation air transportation system (DAILY, Jan. 11) soon will put in place a "mechanism" through which the aerospace industry can participate in the office's work, according to JPDO Deputy Director Robert Pearce. "The bottom line is, the government actually owns a very small part of the air transportation system," Pearce says. "The majority of it is owned by the private sector, so we have to have them in there as equal partners with us."
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.
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.
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.
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.
