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ANNIVERSARY: Pratt & Whitney celebrated the 30th anniversary of the delivery of the first production F100 engine on Dec. 7 at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The F100 powers in-service F-15 and F-16 fighter aircraft in 21 countries. More than 6,900 engines have been produced and more than 16 million flight hours logged, the company said.
France has ordered 59 additional Rafale combat aircraft, bringing the aircraft's total to 120, Thales said Dec. 7. Thales supplies electronic systems for the Dassault Aviation-built fighter, including its navigation and attack system, electronic scanning radar, Spectra electronic warfare system, identification friend or foe system and others.
RESCHEDULED: Arianespace has rescheduled the launch of the Helios IIA spacecraft for Dec. 18, which will allow time for the replacement of a subassembly in the Ariane 5 rocket. The launch will take place at 11:26 Eastern time from the company's launch site in Kourou, French Guiana. The decision was made to postpone the launch after a similar subassembly failed during a ground test.
The U.S. Department of Defense still doesn't have total awareness and control of its $70 billion worth of spare parts and other inventory, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Dec. 7. The DOD wanted to achieve total asset visibility (TAV) by this year, but didn't make it, GAO said. "DOD did not achieve its goal because existing inventory systems continue to lack the ability to share data on a near real-time basis for all inventory segments," the report says.
Lockheed Martin is taking several steps to overcome reliability problems with its Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), a company official said Dec. 7. The company is pushing even many of its smaller suppliers to adopt more stringent quality review processes and Lockheed Martin representatives plan to follow up with regular inspections, said Randy Bigum, Lockheed Martin vice president of strike weapons.
SAAB SYSTEMS: Saab Aerosystems has bought four Silicon Graphics (SGI) Onyx 350 visualization systems to be the core hardware for its new Planning, Evaluation, Training, Rehearsal and Analysis (PETRA) simulator for the Gripen fighter, SGI said Dec. 7. SGI is to ship two Onyx 350 systems to Saab in December and two more in the third quarter of 2005. Saab expects to have the first PETRA system ready by April, SGI said. Two of the PETRAs will be sold to the Swedish Defense Material Administration, one will go to Hungary and one will go to the Czech Republic.
SUPPORT: The U.S. Air Force has awarded Technical and Management Services Corp. (TAMSCO) of Calverton, Md., a nine-month contract extension for its Technical Order Editorial and System Support (TOESS), the company said Dec. 7. Financial terms were not disclosed. Under the contract, TAMSCO will continue to support the WR-Air Logistics Center/LS technical order sustainment, production, and conversion program.
CAMERA DELIVERED: Boulder, Colo.-based Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has delivered a High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, designed to take detailed color pictures of Mars' surface, to Lockheed Martin Space Systems for installation in the Lockheed Martin-built Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Ball Aerospace said Dec. 6. The camera's cost was not disclosed. Ball Aerospace, under contract with the University of Arizona, designed, built and tested the HiRISE camera.
L-3 Communications MAS (Canada) Inc. will provide in-service support for the 28 Sikorsky H-92 Cyclone helicopters Canada plans to buy, the company said Dec. 6. The contract is expected to be worth more than C$800 million ($664 million) over two decades, L-3 said. Sikorsky won the contract to replace Canada's fleet of Sea King helicopters this summer (DAILY, Aug. 2).
EDO DIVIDEND: EDO Corp.'s board of directors has declared a cash dividend on its common stock of three cents per share. The dividend is payable on Jan. 7 to shareholders of record as of Dec. 17, the company said.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has determined that a warning device on the Airborne Laser (ABL) gave a faulty reading when it indicated there was an air pressure problem inside the aircraft during a recent flight, an MDA spokesman said Dec. 7.
Soldiers' "boots on the ground" and human intelligence are vital to win urban warfare, a Future Combat Systems engineer says. "The Army is still a soldier-centric force. If we didn't need boots on the ground, we'd be the Air Force or the Navy," Patrick Murphy, chief engineer for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's PM Unit of Action Technologies, said Dec. 7 at a conference on "Future Ground Forces in the Urban Battlefield" in Arlington, Va.
NASA is considering shifting the near-term focus of its Prometheus nuclear power and propulsion technology program away from the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission to alternative applications that might be achieved sooner. Begun as NASA's Nuclear Systems Initiative, the Prometheus program is developing space nuclear power and propulsion technology to cut interplanetary trip times and increase the power available to spacecraft.
The U.S. Air Force plans to consolidate three headquarters organizations handling information technology into a single directorate for networks and warfighting integration, the service announced Dec. 7. Warfighting Integration, Chief Information Officer and Communications Operations will be reorganized into Networks & Warfighting Integration-Chief Information Officer to "best integrate current and emerging technologies with warfighting operations," the Air Force said.
Portugal's government has rejected an appeal from Patria that it be allowed to compete in a tender for armored vehicles, the Finnish company said Dec. 6. Patria was excluded last month because of what the government said was late delivery of its best and final offer, but appealed the decision, saying it was within the time limits and that the government did not follow its own rules. Patria said it expects to be able to compete again with its Armored Modular Vehicle (AMV) if other competitors don't offer equipment that meets Portugal's needs.
Saab Aerostructures has completed the first three forward fuselages of the NH90 helicopter for Eurocopter, the company said Dec. 3. Saab is to deliver 270 forward fuselages for the program over 15 years. They will be incorporated into the NH90s at final assembly locations in Finland, Italy, Germany and France.
Northrop Grumman Corp. and United Defense Industries Inc. are teaming to provide the U.S. Army with ground-based laser defense systems to protect soldiers, the companies said Dec. 6. The agreement combines Northrop Grumman's experience in high-energy laser systems with United Defense's capability in combat vehicle and armament systems integration, rapid prototyping, and manufacturing, the companies said.
