Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

Ross Reynolds has been appointed head of the air mobility business.

The Bush Administration's fiscal 2006 defense budget request will be sent to Congress on Feb. 7, 2005, according to a Pentagon spokeswoman. The budget request is "in the preparation stage," so the Defense Department "will not discuss any details before then," the spokeswoman said. Action on the previous year's defense budget, which went to Capitol Hill on Feb. 2, 2004, was completed when President Bush signed the FY '05 defense authorization bill on Oct. 28. The FY '05 defense appropriations bill became law Aug. 5.

The U.S. Air Force is expected to resume flight-testing of the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) in February, according to congressional and industry sources. The Air Force still is deciding whether the tests will include early batches of the missile or be limited to later ones, a congressional source told The DAILY. Some on Capitol Hill are pushing for old and new alike to be tested to ensure both types are reliable.

Satellite service provider SES Americom has acquired Verestar of Fairfax, Va., for $18.5 million, the company announced Dec. 1. Verestar had been operating under bankruptcy protection since December 2003. SES Americom announced its intention to purchase the company in April 2004 and received final approval from the Federal Communications Commission on Nov. 19. SES Americom plans to fully integrate Verestar's operations, including its people, teleports and other assets around the world.

James H. Tate has been appointed to the board of directors. Tate is senior vice president and chief financial officer of Thermadyne Holdings Corp. of St. Louis.

JSF WING: Lockheed Martin Corp. has finished building the skeleton of the wing for the first F-35 Joint Strike Fighter flight test jet. The wing structure, which was assembled in Fort Worth, Texas, will undergo more work before being mated with the fuselage. First flight is planned for August 2006.

Brig. Gen. Daniel L. Montgomery (USA-Ret.) has been appointed corporate lead executive for the Huntsville, Ala., region. Dennis Averyt has been named vice president, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Maureen Heath has been appointed vice president, civil space. Peggy Nelson has been named vice president and project manager, Prometheus 1. David Rosener has been appointed vice president, subcontracts. Ron Smith has been named vice president, Six Sigma.

Dianna Mauer has been named director of operations for homeland security. Susan Hotsenpiller has been appointed director of legislative affairs.

Eric Dermond, founder and chairman, will retire effective Dec. 31. Max Dermond, president, will retire effective April 30, 2005. William Ochsner has been appointed Derco's next president.

Although the U.S. Marine Corps is concerned about the survivability of its Light Armored Vehicle (LAV), there currently isn't funding for upgrades to improve it, Marine Corps officials said Dec. 1. The LAVs are vulnerable to heavy machine gun fire, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), said Col. Len Blasiol, director of the Materiel Capabilities Division at Marine Corps Combat Development Command. He spoke at the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement's Light Armored Vehicles conference in Washington.

DELTA IV HEAVY: Boeing has scheduled the first launch of its Delta IV Heavy rocket for 2:31 p.m. Eastern time on Dec. 10 from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The flight is a demonstration mission for the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. Capable of lifting up to 28,950 pounds (13,130 kilograms) to geosynchronous transfer orbit, the rocket is the most powerful developed since the Saturn V, according to Boeing. It will stand 235 feet (71.7 meters) high when fully stacked.

Zora Ljoljic has been named vice president and general manager.

Herley Industries Inc. of Lancaster, Pa., has been awarded $7.2 million in contracts to provide microwave hardware for several U.S. defense programs, the company said Dec. 1. Herley has won a $1.1 million contract to produce integrated microwave assemblies for F-16 aircraft; $2.8 million in contracts to provide microwave hardware for missile test applications; and a $3.3 million contract to provide avionics system hardware for the Air Force Security Assistance Training program, the company said.

President Bush's vision for space exploration is "winning" on Capitol Hill, but is likely to progressively eat into NASA's space science budget as the years pass, according to Bob Palmer, Democratic staff director for the House Science Committee.

JSOW WORK: Raytheon Co. will provide 216 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) AGM-154A weapons, containers and related equipment under a $48 million contract modification from the U.S. Navy, the company said Nov. 30. The work is expected to be completed in July 2007. The JSOW-A variant dispenses BLU-97 bomblets and is produced for use on the F/A-18, F-16, F-15E, F-22, B-1, B-2 and B-52 aircraft.

More units are being chosen to fly the F/A-22 Raptor and Predator unmanned aerial vehicle as both aircraft are becoming more plentiful, the U.S. Air Force announced Dec. 1. The Virginia Air National Guard's 192nd Fighter Wing will pilot the Lockheed Martin-built F/A-22, joining the active-duty 1st Fighter Wing, whose Raptor role had already been announced, the Air Force said.

Soren Stark has been named managing director.

ACTUATORS: Curtiss-Wright Corp. will provide aircraft canopy actuators for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to the Boeing Co., the company said Dec. 1. The work could be worth up to $7.2 million over five years. The actuators will allow some commonality of parts on the E single-seat and F dual-seat versions of the aircraft, Curtiss-Wright said.

MTC Technologies Inc. of Dayton, Ohio, will try to improve the systems interface between F-15 aircraft Fighter Data Link (FDL) and Tactical Air Navigation (TACAN) transmission signals, the company said Nov. 30. ARINC of Annapolis, Md., and Sensor Systems Inc. of Chatsworth, Calif., will support the work, which is being done under an Air Force task order that could be worth up to $6 million, MTC said.

London-based Rolls-Royce and Lufthansa Technik of Hamburg, Germany, will locate their 100 million euro aero engine overhaul facility in Thuringia, Germany, the companies said Nov. 29. The plant eventually will employ about 500 people. Construction is set to start in late 2005 and be finished in late 2006.

As part of the U.S. Marine Corps' logistics modernization program, the service plans to put out a request for proposals for an information technology systems integrator for logistics "any day now," said Col. Bob Ruark (USMC), head of logistics enterprise integration. The systems integration work is for the Global Combat Support System (GCSS), the modernization's key technology enabler, he told The DAILY. The IT integration contractor will be selected in early 2005, he told The DAILY. Oracle Corp. was chosen as the GCSS software supplier this fall.

NASA and Northrop Grumman will spend the next few weeks refining the details of their codesigned Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) spacecraft, before turning their attention early next year to devising firm cost estimates for the ambitious mission in anticipation of its first major program review.

Armored vehicle maker Force Protection Inc. of Ladson, S.C., has been awarded an $11.8 million contract by the U.S. Army to provide 15 Buffalo mine-clearance vehicles for use in Iraq, the company said Nov. 29. The Buffalo can clear anti-tank mines and smaller anti-personnel mines and can be repaired quickly in the field, the company said. The Army Corps of Engineers already is using the Buffalo in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. commanders want the number of armored utility vehicles in Iraq doubled to 8,000 to help defeat the insurgency, the company said.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) has reached an all-time high of 30 operational satellites following the checkout of GPS IIR-13, which launched on Nov. 6 from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The constellation now includes 18 Boeing-built Block II and IIA spacecraft and 12 new-generation Block IIR spacecraft built by Lockheed Martin. GPS requires a minimum of 24 satellites.