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.
The U.S. Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman a $60 million contract to begin production of the next five RQ-4B Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles. The contract covers long-lead items for the aircraft themselves, enhanced integrated sensor suites, one mission-control element and one launch-and-recovery element.
IED MEETING: Navy officials are meeting with university leaders Nov. 7 and 8 in Washington to discuss the service's "Manhattan Project" to counter improvised explosive devices. The long-term effort is focused on basic research to defeat the IED threat (DAILY, July 29).
U.S. Marines in Iraq are plagued by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) more than any other tactical threat, and the relatively low-key weapon will be the hallmark of future warfare, the commandant of the Marine Corps said Nov. 7. Gen. Michael Hagee, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, said IEDs should perhaps be renamed because they are no longer so "improvised."
BUYBACK: Northrop Grumman has entered into a $500 million accelerated share repurchase program with Credit Suisse First Boston, the defense giant said Nov. 7. The company bought more than 9 million shares at $55.15 each from CSFB. The accelerated program is part of the $1.5 billion share repurchase program the company announced late last month (DAILY, Oct. 26). The company expects to complete the buyback program in the next 12 to 18 months.
Sweden-based Kockums AB said it will upgrade two Swedish navy submarines that will be transferred to Singapore's navy. Financial terms were not disclosed. Kockums said Nov. 4 that it will modernize a pair of Vastergotland-class subs and convert them for operation in tropical waters. The contract also includes a logistics package and crew training. The training will be conducted by the Swedish navy in Karlskrona.
The Naval Air Systems Command has turned to Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Missile and Fire Control for a $65.5 million contract for qualification testing and retrofit of 5,100 laser-guided bombs with a Global Positioning System and inertial navigation system, as well as support equipment for the Dual Mode Laser Guided Bomb program. The work will be performed in Archbald, Pa., and is supposed to finish in April 2007. The contract was competitively procured and two offers were received, according to a Nov. 4 Pentagon announcement.
Pratt & Whitney is weeks away from completing the first flight-test engine for the U.S. Defense Department's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, according to a company spokesman. Work on the major pieces of the F135 engine is "well under way," and Pratt & Whitney expects to finish assembly near the end of November, company spokesman Matthew Perra told The DAILY in a recent e-mailed response to questions. Pratt & Whitney began building the system in August in Middletown, Conn. (DAILY, Aug. 24).
DynCorp International of Fort Worth, Texas, has won a $9.1 million delivery order to refurbish U.S. Army UH-1H Huey helicopters, the Defense Department said Nov. 7. The order is part of a $406 million contract. The work will be done in Panama City, Fla., and is expected to be completed by Feb. 27, 2009. The contract was awarded by the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala.
U.S. and British officials have tried to dampen speculation that financial or technical constraints could derail the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Although JSF has been mentioned as a potential candidate for termination or deep cuts due to U.S. budget constraints, an official from the United Kingdom, a key partner in the aircraft's development, downplayed such concerns.
The federal government is moving closer to buying another high-flying jet to be used for storm tracking. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) on Nov. 4 called for the government to buy a backup to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Gulfstream-4 that measures steering currents. Days earlier, the Bush administration submitted a budget request for an additional NOAA aircraft to improve observations of hurricanes as part of a $37.4 million allocation (DAILY, Nov. 3).
High-level Defense Department officials will meet for the U.S. Navy's planned DD(X) land attack destroyer milestone B review on Nov. 9, a DOD spokeswoman confirmed Nov. 7. The Milestone B will serve as a decision point between technology development and going ahead to system development and demonstration. The DD(X) has come under fire for burgeoning costs now reaching $3.3 billion for the first ship. It remains the target of a $1.7 billion, House-passed cap per ship that Navy officials have hinted could be fatal.
Ball Aerospace & Technologies will lead first-phase development of a system aimed at aiding the navigation of deep-space vehicles, the company said Nov. 3. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency selected the company for first-phase work on the X-ray Source-based Navigation for Autonomous Position Determination (X-NAV) program, which is also designed to provide a Global Positioning System backup for low-earth orbiting spacecraft.
SpaceDev announced a new modular microsatellite, the SpaceDev Modular Microsat Bus (MMB-100), which it said is a "highly capable," modular satellite bus based on "plug and play" technology. The 100-kilogram (220-pound) bus uses ethernet and universal serial bus interfaces and a Linux operating system, and should cost less than $10 million including the payload and payload integration, the company said Nov. 7.
