Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

The House Rules Committee has begun taking amendment proposals to the fiscal 2006 Coast Guard authorization bill and may meet this week to prepare the bill for floor consideration, Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) told colleagues Sept. 8.

AEGIS BMD: U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Kathleen Paige, program director for the Missile Defense Agency's Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system, is expected to retire in late November. She will be succeeded by Rear Adm. Alan B. "Brad" Hicks, who has been deputy director for combat systems and weapons, Surface Warfare Directorate, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.

FRIGATES SOLD: Britain's defense ministry said Sept. 7 that it has finalized the sale of three Type 23 frigates to Chile's government for GBP 135 million (USD $248 million). The agreement was signed by Lord Paul Drayson, Britain's minister for defense procurement, and Jaime Ravinet, Chile's minister of defense. Britain withdrew the former Royal Navy ships Norfolk, Grafton, and Marlborough from service as part of a force restructuring that cut its number of frigates and destroyers from 31 to 25. Chile signed a letter of intent to buy the ships in December 2004.

The U.S. Army will likely make an announcement the week of Sept. 12-16 about the fate of the Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) program, an Army spokeswoman said Sept. 9. Army officials met the week of Sept. 5-9 to deliberate over the program's future in light of prime contractor Lockheed Martin's recent revelation that the Embraer ERJ-145 regional jet that it had chosen for the intelligence-gathering program would actually be too small (DAILY, June 30).

EX-CHAIRMAN DIES: Boeing Co. said Sept. 9 that lead director and former chairman of the board Lew Platt died on Sept. 8. He was 64. Jim McNerney, Boeing chairman, president and chief executive officer, said Platt was "one of our best friends and one of Boeing's most important leaders ... I am deeply saddened by Lew's untimely death."

ASTRONAUT LEAVING: Astronaut John Herrington is leaving NASA to become a commercial test pilot. Herrington has been named vice president, director of flight systems, and chief test pilot for Rocketplane Limited Inc. in Oklahoma City, NASA said Sept. 9. Herrington is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and the first Native American to fly in space and perform a spacewalk. He became an astronaut in 1996 and flew aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-113 to the International Space Station in November 2002.

B-52 JAMMER: Although Raytheon did not submit a proposal to be the prime contractor for the U.S. Air Force's B-52 Stand-Off Jammer (SOJ), it still hopes to participate in the program as a subcontractor and is talking to the two competing teams about a potential role, a company spokesman tells The DAILY. A Boeing/BAE Systems team and Northrop Grumman both submitted proposals for the program's upcoming technology development phase. The Air Force plans to award a contract to one of the teams in October (DAILY, Aug. 18, Aug. 30, Sept. 1).

The Pentagon's top acquisition official has given the V-22 Osprey what seems to be a strong endorsement. In a Sept. 8 letter to congressional defense leaders that was obtained by The DAILY late Sept. 8 (DAILY, Sept. 9), Ken Krieg, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, said the Bell-Boeing tiltrotor aircraft has satisfied provisions of the fiscal 2002 defense authorization act that call for certain effectiveness and sustainability goals to be met before production rises above its minimum sustaining rate.

NASA BUDGET: Senate Majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) hopes to pass the fiscal 2006 Commerce/Justice/Science appropriations bill that contains NASA's budget by early this week. The $48 billion spending package includes $16.4 billion for the space agency, which is $200 million above the FY '05 level but $60 million below the Bush Administration's request. The bill also contains $250 million for servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope that was not requested by the Administration or included in the House version of the bill passed months ago.

Lockheed Martin has announced its team for the U.S. Army's $20 billion Information Technology Enterprise Solutions (ITES-2S) program. ITES-2S is a nine-year, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity program that will provide the Army with technology products and services. The Army expects to award eight contracts under the program, four to large businesses and four to small businesses with 1,500 employees or less.

The independent Base Closure and Realignment Commission late Sept. 8 sent to President Bush its review of the Pentagon's desired changes to domestic military facilities. Copies of the report were delivered to congressional members Sept. 9, as well as to the Defense Department.

LIVE-FIRE: Program officials heading the Boeing Co.'s P-8A Multimission Maritime Aircraft program for the U.S. Navy believe they are doing developmental live-fire testing early enough so that results can influence the actual design of the aircraft. Live-fire test and evaluation began in April and will finish in 2012, prior to the P-8A entering full-rate production, the Naval Air Systems Command says. Results remain classified, but Navair asserts that Boeing is working with several vendors to develop an "effective" fire-suppression system.

CERTIFIED: The Pentagon has told lawmakers that the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey has fulfilled several effectiveness and sustainability requirements it needed to meet to raise production above the current minimum sustaining rate. The conclusion was conveyed in a Sept. 8 "certification" letter to Capitol Hill. The V-22 recently underwent a series of tests designed to help measure the tiltrotor aircraft's readiness for operational service. The certification helps pave the way for a Sept.

The U.S. Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Airborne Ground Surveillance and Battle Management Systems unit in Melbourne, Fla., a $124.5 million letter contract for three low-rate initial production (LRIP) units of the AN/AES-1 Airborne Laser Mine Detection System. The AN/AES-1 is a light-detection-and-ranging airborne mine countermeasures system that finds and classifies floating and near-surface moored sea mines.

The U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command has awarded Lockheed Martin Corp. a $30 million contract to help the service boost signal processing and automation to detect, track and "localize" undersea threats and pass the information to operational decision makers faster. The first two tasks assigned to this new contract include the Command and Control Mission Planner and the Integrated Common Processor, the company said Sept. 7.

PURCHASE: Lockheed Martin Corp. said Sept. 8 that it has agreed to acquire Louisville, Colo.-based Coherent Technologies Inc., which supplies laser-based remote sensing systems. Financial terms were not disclosed. Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver will manage Coherent's business. The closing is expected later this year.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has initiated an effort to revamp the agency's aeronautics program, and to do so quickly, industry and government officials said. The plan would kill five existing efforts, create three new ones and reduce funding for another.

ARMORED CABS: The U.S. Army has awarded Stewart & Stevenson Tactical Vehicle Systems LP of Houston a $17 million contract to produce an additional 292 Low Signature Armored Cabs for its Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles, the company said Sept. 8. The contract will give the Army a total of more than 2,000 LSACs. The cabs shield occupants from enemy assault, extreme weather, and accidents. Stewart & Stevenson has produced more than 30,000 FMTVs and 1,700 LSACs since 1991 at its facility in Sealy, Texas.

Finland's navy has conducted sea-acceptance tests of EADS-provided command, control and reconnaissance systems for Finnish fast patrol boats, the company said Sept. 8. The systems, which were built and integrated by EADS Defence & Security Systems, include the Advanced Naval Combat System, the TRS-3D radar and the Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radar 2000 I.

The U.S. Army has awarded Raytheon Co. a $17 million contract to provide 15 Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment systems to help monitor weapons storage sites in Kosovo, the company said Sept. 8. Elevated on a stationary platform, the RAID infrared sensor system can detect hostile troop or equipment movement from great distances. RAID will be upgraded with a motion detection radar and command and control for the NATO-led Kosovo mission, called Operation Eagle Eye.

The U.S. Navy has boosted the number of Man-Transportable Robotic System production units it has ordered from Foster-Miller Inc. of Waltham, Mass., for an additional $96.1 million. The Naval Sea Systems Command's contract modification increases the number of units under contract from 250 to 1,200, and adjusts unit prices as stipulated in the original contract, the Navy said Sept. 7. The U.S. military had planned to buy 960 units altogether, the Navy said previously (DAILY, June 23).

Boeing has joined an international team led by the Welsh Development Agency to explore and research the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for remote sensing and monitoring in the environmental and agricultural sector. The intent to team for this initiative was announced by the WDA at a signing ceremony on Sept. 7 attended by representatives of Boeing, QinetiQ, and the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research.