Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a critical voice on Capitol Hill overseeing defense procurement, will lead a Senate Armed Services airland subcommittee hearing Nov. 15 on defense acquisition issues related to tactical aviation and Army programs. McCain will call for opinions from John Hamre of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Gene Porter of the Institute for Defense Analyses, Frank Anderson Jr. of the Defense Acquisition University and auditor Katherine Schinasi of the Government Accountability Office.
A plan to help South Korea obtain military goods quickly in case of war is being discussed with the United States, South Korea's defense ministry said Nov. 8.
CONTRACT WINNER: Technest Holdings Inc. said Nov. 8 that it has won a U.S. Navy Small Business Innovation Research contract to develop a compact pan-tilt-zoom optical sensor for unmanned combat aerial vehicles. The newly designed optical sensor, called OmniBird, will be used by the Navy for close-range machine vision applications, specifically aircraft carrier flight deck operations and autonomous air-to-air refueling, the company said.
AMENDMENT: The Senate late Nov. 8 was expected to vote on a Democratic proposal to shift $50 million from missile defense funds into Cooperative Threat Reduction efforts. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee, said subcontractors working on ground-base interceptors would be hurt by the manufacturing delay caused by the move and would have to be recertified later. Democrats said the money should be used to fight weapons proliferation, a more immediate threat.
Deliveries of F-16 night vision kits to South Korea and power conditioning units to the U.S. Navy's Tactical Tomahawk missiles program helped Astronics Corp.'s sales to more than double in the third quarter of 2005, the company said Nov. 8. The East Aurora, N.Y.-based company, which manufactures lighting, electronics and electrical power systems, said its third-quarter military sales were $8.3 million, a 94% increase over the same period the year before. The company also reported a $1.1 million jump in total net income.
The Defense Department's future TacSat small satellites still are awaiting a decision from the Air Force about how they will be launched, although an answer is expected shortly, according to Lloyd Feldman, assistant director of the Pentagon's Office of Force Transformation.
Lockheed Martin has delivered the second modernized Global Positioning System Block IIR satellite to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., the company said Nov. 8. The GPS-IIR is scheduled for launch in January. Lockheed Martin is modernizing eight GPS satellites to improve military and civilian navigation worldwide. The first modernized GPS-IIR satellite was launched in September from Cape Canaveral (DAILY, Sept. 27) and is performing normally after a series of precision maneuvers and deployment of its spacecraft systems, the company said.
The strike by Boeing workers that has put Delta rocket launches at Vandenberg Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral on hold has entered its second week with no new negotiations between the parties currently planned. Roughly half of Boeing's Delta work force went on strike just after midnight on Nov. 2, following the recent expiration of a three-year contract between the company and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 725. Best offer
Defense electronics company Orbit International said Nov. 8 that its net sales, earnings, net income and backlog all increased for the third quarter of 2005 and for the first nine months of the year. Hauppauge, N.Y.-based Orbit reported that net sales for the quarter were up 43.3 percent to $6.5 million; earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) zoomed up 110 percent to $1.1 million; net income increased to $772,000 from $604,000 in the same period the year before; and backlog went up 4.4 percent to $13.1 million.
The U.S. Navy's EA-18G program is considering pursuing a next-generation jammer and other upgrades that could be fielded on the electronic attack jet after it enters service in a few years, a government program official said Nov. 8. While the ALQ-99 radar jamming system has done "a great job" on other Navy aircraft and initially will be adequate for the EA-18G, it might eventually have to be replaced due to high support costs and the need to keep up with changing threats, said Capt. Steve Kochman, the Navy's EA-18G program manager.
Following an October announcement by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), congressional negotiators working out the fiscal 2006 Department of Energy spending measure did not include previously requested funds for the proposed nuclear bunker-buster. "The conference agreement provides no funds for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) feasibility study," they said in their conference report, available Nov. 8.
Lockheed Martin, prime contractor for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, has finished installing landing gear on its first flight-test jet and is about to begin putting on the tails. Installation of the vertical tails is expected to start within a week, and horizontal tail installation is set to begin in early December, according to a Lockheed Martin spokesman. BAE Systems built the horizontal and vertical tails. Other future steps include adding a Pratt & Whitney F135 engine in February 2006. Key steps
Lockheed Martin said Nov. 8 that it has been awarded an $89 million contract by the U.S. Air Force to provide Pakistan with six long-range AN/TPS-77 transportable mobile radar systems. The company also will furnish support equipment, spare and repair parts, publications and technical data, personnel training and equipment and logistical support services under the Foreign Military Sales contract.
L-3 Communications announced Nov. 8 that its L-3 Titan Aviation and Maritime division has been awarded a five-year, $105 million contract to provide training program management, curriculum development, instructors and other administrative support personnel to the U.S. Coast Guard's major training centers.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are concerned that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency doesn't have enough available aircraft, or access to other U.S. aircraft such as from the Defense Department, to stop large drug shipments bound for the United States. Conferees to an agreement on the fiscal 2006 Science, Commerce and Justice appropriations measure said in a report accompanying the deal, released Nov. 8, that the problem is most acute in key transit countries, which they did not identify.
Congress is set to provide more money for the Bush administration's plans to return U.S. astronauts to the moon and beyond, as well as furnish more money than the White House requested for NASA's aeronautics research and several space and science missions.
Essex Corp., which develops optical technology for the intelligence and defense community, said Nov. 7 that it expects third-quarter 2005 revenue to more than double and net income to more than triple. The Columbia, Md., firm said preliminary, unaudited results show third-quarter 2005 revenue of about $42.7 million, compared with $16.7 million in the same period of 2004. Third-quarter 2005 net income will be about $2.2 million, or 10 cents per share, compared with $589,000, or 4 cents per share, for the same period in 2004.
Defense electronics and propulsion company DRS Technologies said Nov. 4 that revenue grew 14 percent and net earnings climbed 35.7 percent in the second quarter of 2006. The Parsippany, N.J., company also posted a 15 percent revenue jump for the first six months of fiscal 2006 and a 32 percent increase in earnings.
A Senate Democratic attempt to transfer $50 million from the budget authorization for ground-based missile defense interceptors in fiscal 2006 would later cost $270 million to restart the interceptor production line, Senate Republican opponents of the move claimed.
General Dynamics Land Systems will get U.S. Army Stryker combat vehicles ready to return to combat under a $69 million "reset" contract, the company said Nov. 7. The company will service, repair and modify 265 Stryker vehicles returning from Iraq, restore them to a like-new condition and get them ready for the next deployment. The vehicles to be serviced under the contract have been in Iraq since October 2003, supporting two Stryker Brigade Combat Teams.
