Northrop Grumman Corp. said Oct. 13 that it is making final arrangements to provide temporary housing for more than 1,000 shipyard workers returning to New Orleans and Pascagoula, Miss., following Hurricane Katrina.
The U.S. Army has briefly extended the deadline for contractors to submit proposals for the Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) program, following a request for more time from one of the competitors. The Army originally asked for all contractors proposals to be turned in by Oct. 12, but it recently agreed to delay the cutoff by eight days, to Oct. 20, after MD Helicopters requested an extension. MD Helicopters revealed Oct. 6 that it was parting ways with its major teammate, Lockheed Martin, for economic reasons.
A major Pentagon review of the B-52 Stand-Off Jammer (SOJ) program has been delayed more than a month to give the Air Force more time to prepare for the high-level meeting. The Defense Department had planned to convene a Defense Acquisition Board session in late September to determine whether the B-52 SOJ program is ready to begin its technology development (TD) phase. But an Air Force spokesman said late Oct. 12 that the Air Force and DOD are trying to reschedule the DAB meeting for sometime in November.
C-130 SUPPORT: Hamilton Sundstrand of Windsor Locks, Conn., has been awarded a $374 million indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract to provide support services for C-130 aircraft, the U.S. Defense Department said Oct. 12. The contract is the first option in a 12-year deal consisting of a three-year base agreement and three three-year options. The work is expected to be finished by October 2008. The contract was awarded by the Defense Supply Center Richmond, Richmond, Va.
U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Hawaii are testing an infrared sensor system that helps locate enemy snipers in urban environments so GIs can quickly and accurately return fire, the U.S. Army says. The Overwatch system is designed to detect, classify and locate weapons fired in a complex, urban terrain. It can detect hostile fire, collect photographic evidence and provide situational awareness to ground forces, the Army said.
AIRCRAFT PARTS: The U.S. Navy's proposed five-year "FastTrack" program, which would find or reverse-engineer increasingly obsolete parts and systems on legacy aircraft across the Defense Department, could be worth up to $700 million, according to an update from the Naval Air Systems Command. A contract award had been envisioned for Oct. 10, but Navair has extended its solicitation response deadline to Nov. 3.
The acting chief procurement policymaker in the White House Office of Management and Budget, Rob Burton, has said competitive sourcing, strategic sourcing and a re-examination of interagency contracting will be priorities for the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP). The Defense Department is responsible for more than 70 percent of federal procurement spending, he said.
L. Dale Crandall, Adm. Paul David Miller (USN Ret.), and David Peterschmidt have been elected to the board of directors. Crandall most recently served as president and chief operating officer of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals. Miller was most recently chairman of the board of directors of Alliant Techsystems. Peterschmidt is president and CEO of Openwave Systems Inc.
NASA has awarded GASL Inc. of Ronkonkoma, N.Y., a follow-on contract for hypersonic propulsion development and testing to support the Hypersonic Air Breathing Propulsion Branch at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
The Bush administration has quietly told Congress that it wants to sell 80 new and used F-16 Fighting Falcons to Pakistan, a number considerably higher than expected, The DAILY has learned. Under the proposed deal, Pakistan would receive 55 new Lockheed Martin-built jets and 25 used ones, a congressional aide said Oct. 12. The used aircraft would come from European members of the NATO alliance.
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.
