RADAR WORK: The U.S. Office of Naval Research has chosen DRS Electronic Systems Inc. of Gaithersburg, Md., for a potentially $9 million contract for a low-cost C-band fixed active array radar technology risk reduction effort. The contract stems from an annual call for proposals by ONR for long-range Navy and Marine Corps science and technology projects.
MILESTONE: The Air Force's Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER) has completed a major testing milestone using a propulsion wind tunnel at the Arnold Engineering and Development Center in Tullahoma, Tenn., the Air Force said Oct. 12. The demonstration "provides confidence that JASSM-ER will soon be ready for open-air flight tests," Col. Jim Geurts, the Long Range Missile Systems Group Commander at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., said in a statement.
NAVAL DEFENSE: The U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center has awarded General Dynamics Corp. a $4.2 million contract for eight Small Ship Electronic Surveillance Systems, the company said Oct. 12. The new systems add electronic support capabilities, developed by the Naval Research Laboratory, as well as special signal detection, processing, network-centric and display enhancements.
POLE MODEL: Lockheed Martin has completed the first round of testing on its modular, reconfigurable full-scale pole model of the X-47B for the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) program. The model, used for radar cross section testing, is flexible enough to also serve as a design tool, the company said Oct. 12. It funded the model with its own money.
Zev Kaplan, Phillip A. McNeil and Carl J. Rickertsen have been nominated for the board of directors. Kaplan is general counsel to Cash Systems Inc., a financial services business company. McNeil is a managing partner and the chief investment officer of SPP Mezzanine Partners, the general partner of SPP Mezzanine Funding LP. Rickertsen is managing partner of Pine Creek Partners, a private equity investment firm.
Japan, South Korea and the European Community invest "significantly larger" funds in robotics research and development for their private sectors than the United States, according to a study conducted by NASA, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Moreover, industrial robots were invented and commercialized in the United States but now are made almost exclusively in Japan and Europe.
DRS Technologies Inc. will continue to produce and support launch control and power distribution subsystems for Lockheed Martin's MK 41 Vertical Launching System under a $7.6 million contract, the company said Oct. 12. The systems will be for MK 41s on Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force's DDH-class ships.
Frederick J. Harris has been appointed president of the subsidiary National Steel and Shipbuilding Co., effective Jan. 1. Harris will replace Dick Vortmann. Jeffrey Kudlac has been named a vice president.
With NASA dictating most elements of the design for its Crew Exploration Vehicle, the crux of the industry competition to build the vehicle will be the price tag and production efficiencies proposed by each team, according to Doug Young, Northrop Grumman's CEV program manager.
China's second manned spacecraft was successfully launched into Earth's orbit on Oct. 12, the China Internet Information Service said. Astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng will conduct laboratory tests aboard the Shenzhou VI over several days after transferring from the spacecraft's return module into its orbital module. The 9.2-meter (10-yard) long spacecraft took off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Gansu Province.
NASA and the X Prize Foundation plan to collaborate on two upcoming Centennial Challenges prize competitions, the agency announced. The Suborbital Payload Challenge would reward the first team that demonstrates a reusable suborbital rocket to altitudes or speeds of interest to science researchers, NASA said.
The U.S. Coast Guard has established the Coast Guard International Programs to push the service's foreign military sales, including equipment and services related to its Deepwater recapitalization effort. Under the leadership of Rear Adm. Patrick Stillman, who also is the program executive officer for Deepwater, Coast Guard International Programs is a consolidation of the FMS Division, formerly directed by the Coast Guard's International Affairs Office, and the Deepwater International Programs Office.
CDR SOON: The hull of the first Fast Response Cutter, the smallest of three classes of new cutters planned to recapitalize the U.S. Coast Guard's surface fleet under the Deepwater recapitalization program, is almost 30% complete, according to the service and the industry consortium running Deepwater. A critical design review for the 140-foot cutter - a program whose plans were accelerated by a decade under the revised Deepwater budget plan - is projected for late this year or early in 2006, they said.
