NASA will continue to operate the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) through the spring of 2005, the agency announced Jan. 4. NASA already has extended TRMM four years past its original three-year mission, which ended in 2000. This latest extension follows the release of a National Academy of Sciences report strongly recommending that NASA keep TRMM operating until a decision on de-orbiting the spacecraft becomes "unavoidable."
PEO MERGER: The U.S. Army plans to merge the program executive office (PEO) for air, space and missile defense with the PEO for tactical missiles, a move designed to achieve efficiencies, a service official said Jan. 4. The new entity, the PEO for missiles and space, is scheduled to be up and running Jan. 13.
RADIO CONTRACTS: Harris Corp. of Rochester, N.Y., has won more than $30 million in contracts from the U.S. Army to provide high-frequency AN/PRC-150(C) radios and services, the company said Jan. 4. Deliveries started in late December and will end by June 2005. The service contracts run through 2005 and include onsite training, installation and maintenance.
COMPLETED: Russia's Irkut Corp. has completed delivery of the Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter aircraft that India bought in 1996, the company said Dec. 26. The company also is implementing a 2000 contract with India's Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. for licensed production of the aircraft in India, Irkut said.
Arianespace announced five new launch contracts Jan. 4, to orbit two British military satellites and three European scientific satellites. In mid-2006, the company is to launch the Corot stellar observation satellite for the French Space Agency CNES, on the first flight of the Soyuz 2-1B launch vehicle from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The Bush Administration's planned cut of $30 billion from the Department of Defense's procurement and modernization budget over the next six years marks an inevitable downswing after years of increasing defense budgets, especially in the wake of growing costs in Iraq, several defense industry analysts told The DAILY. The cuts were detailed in the Program Budget Decision (PBD) No. 753, a budget document signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on Dec. 23 (DAILY, Jan. 4).
UGS, which sells product lifecycle management software and services, will acquire Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd., which provides manufacturing process management software for the aerospace and electronics industries. UGS will pay $228 million in cash, or $17 a share. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2005, UGS said Jan. 4. The acquisition is the company's fourth technology company buy since May 2004.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) commented on its recent cancellation of the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) program in a statement released Jan. 4, saying that it "remains committed" to developing the next generation of autonomous military systems.
U.S. Special Operations Command is moving ahead with a fast-paced effort to demonstrate technology for a new airborne radar. It plans to release a request for proposals for the system development and demonstration (SDD) phase of the "Silent Knight" program in late 2005, and award up to two contracts in March 2006.
Markland Technologies Inc. is to deliver to the U.S. Army a new type of mobile scout surveillance vehicle that will use infrared and night-vision technologies to detect enemy force threats, the company said Jan. 3. The Ridgefield, Conn.-based company's EOIR Technologies Inc. subsidiary is to develop an integrated sensor platform for the Hummer-based scout vehicle, which is scheduled to be delivered to the U.S. Army in the first quarter of 2005.
Due to an editing error, a Jan. 4 DAILY story, headlined "NASA to pick systems integrator for exploration by year's end," misprinted part of a quotation. The quotation should have read: "For this particular program, the integration of all the systems - the ground, the launch, the landing systems, the Crew Exploration Vehicle, the comnav systems - is significant."
The U.S. Defense Department still seems interested in eventually developing a capability similar to the Joint Common Missile (JCM), despite a recent decision to kill the air-to-ground missile program.
PC-21 CERTIFIED: Switzerland's Federal Office for Civil Aviation has certified Pilatus Aircraft Ltd.'s new PC-21, opening the way for series production of the military training aircraft, Pilatus Aircraft said Jan. 3. Two PC-21 prototypes have logged more than 750 flight-test hours during the aircraft's development and certification phase. Pilatus Aircraft, based in Switzerland, said it will continue to work on additional systems, such as autopilot and instrument flying, to improve the aircraft's market potential.
Ideal Aerosmith, which provides test equipment for the aerospace, automotive and petroleum industries, said Jan. 4 that it has bought Carco Electronics, which builds missile flight motion simulators and inertial navigation test systems. Carco's systems are used by governments and defense contractors to simulate the "high dynamic flight environment" of missiles and missile targets, and the buy gives Ideal Aerosmith "the most complete range of motion simulation products within the industry," the company said.
NASA's 2008 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is pressing on despite having its fiscal year 2005 budget slashed by appropriators from its $70 million request to $10 million.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program believes it is close to determining the cause of a recent failed flight-test, according to an MDA spokesman. Integrated Flight Test 13C (IFT-13C) was cut short in mid-December when the interceptor missile shut down while preparing to launch (DAILY, Dec. 16, 2004). Since then, the GMD program has been trying to find the "anomaly" that prompted the interceptor to turn off automatically.
PROTECTION KITS: Simula Aerospace and Defense Group of Phoenix, Ariz., has been awarded a $19 million contract modification by the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command of Warren, Mich., to produce 602 add-on armor crew protection kits for the M915A2, M915A3, and M915A4 series of tactical vehicles, the Defense Department said Dec. 27. The work will be done in Hagalil, Israel, and is expected to be finished by Dec. 15, 2005.
Unmanned aerial vehicles showed their ability to contribute to operations in urban environments during a December experiment in Louisiana, according to the U.S Joint Forces Command (JFCOM). The experiment, called Extended Awareness 1 (EA1), included flights of UAVs from the airport at Slidell, La. The experiment was carried out in support of more than 2,000 Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit as they participated in the Marine Corps' Training in Urban Environment Exercise (TRUEX) that ran Dec. 3-17, JFCOM said Dec. 23.
Aerospace component maker TransDigm Inc. of Cleveland has completed its purchase of electromagnetic equipment manufacturer Skurka Engineering Co., TransDigm said Jan. 3. Financial terms were not disclosed. Skurka, based in Camarillo, Calif., primarily produces AC/DC electric motors and components used on a number of commercial and military aircraft, ships and ground vehicles. It has about 125 employees.
The U.S. Department of Defense's requirement for compliance with passive radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is phasing in slowly, with only two Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) depots required to conform as of Jan. 1, said Bruce Mahone, the Aerospace Industries Association's assistant vice president for technical operations. The first depots to be phased in are the Susquehanna, Pa., and San Joaquin, Calif., Defense Distribution Depots.
