Two contractors have been chosen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for the first phase of the Walrus program, intended to develop and evaluate a huge airlift vehicle capable of transporting a payload of more than 500 tons to a distance of 12,000 nautical miles in less than a week. Walrus, in contrast to earlier generation airships, "will be a heavier-than-air vehicle and will generate lift through a combination of aerodynamics, thrust vectoring and gas buoyancy generation and management," DARPA said.
Israel Aircraft Industries and Elbit Systems will jointly supply unmanned aerial vehicles to Turkey's armed forces, the companies said Sept. 1. The contract for the UAVs is worth $150 million, which the Israel-based companies will split evenly as part of their Israel UAV Partnership joint venture. The UAVs will be delivered over the next three years, and will be operated by the Turkish military.
DIVIDEND: TAT Technologies Ltd. of Gedera, Israel, said Aug. 31 that it will pay shareholders a dividend of 18 cents per share on Oct. 20. The aerospace equipment maker said the dividend payout will total more than $1 million.
READY FOR LAUNCH: International Launch Services plans to launch the Anik F1R satellite for Telesat Canada on Sept. 9 from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, the company said Sept. 1. The satellite, which will carry 24 C-band and 32 Ku-band transponders, will be launched on a Proton M/Breeze M combination, ILS said.
Savi Technology has completed a series of radio frequency identification (RFID) demonstration projects with the Israeli Defense Force to evaluate the effectiveness of RFID systems in tracking military supplies, the company said Sept. 1. The projects involved tracking and managing pallets, delivery trucks, tank power units and weapons containers, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Savi said.
With the Mars Exploration Rover "Spirit" finally perched atop the summit of Husband Hill in Mars' Gusev Crater region, mission planners are taking measurements of the surrounding area to develop a route and schedule for descending the other side. Spirit's slow climb has taken well more than a year, bringing the golf cart-sized rover to a point 106 meters (348 feet) higher than the area where it first landed in January 2004.
AF RADIOS: General Dynamics C4 Systems has been awarded an $8.9 million contract to produce 1,402 AN/PRC-112G combat search and rescue radios for the U.S. Air Force, the company said Aug. 31. The radios provide terminal guidance, encrypted two-way messaging, satellite communications and Global Positioning System capabilities to find and rescue downed aircrews and other forces. The U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command awarded the contract.
The U.S. Air Force withdrew a request for information (RFI) on new refueling aircraft after lawmakers said the document was premature because a broad study of tanker modernization options has not been completed. The RFI, released in late August, asked contractors for ideas for replacing the Air Force's aging KC-135 tankers. The Air Force said the request was intended to help it plan for a potential competition for new tankers (DAILY, Aug. 31).
Two Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSMs) hit their intended target after being launched from a B-52 bomber and flying their planned routes, according to a test summary released Sept. 1 by the U.S. Air Force. "Both missiles separated from the B-52 aircraft, had nominal flights, and impacted the target as planned," the Air Force said. "Further analysis is required to score the shot accuracy." The Aug. 31 tests occurred at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.
The Czech Republic on Aug. 31 received the final two of 14 JAS-39 Gripen jet fighters it has acquired from Sweden-based Gripen International, Sweden's defense material agency said. Pilots from the Swedish Defense Material Administration (FMV) delivered the aircraft in a one-hour flight from FMV's facility outside Linkoping to the Caslav air base in the Czech Republic.
General Dynamics Corp.'s Bath Iron Works (BIW) unit has received $53 million in recent contract awards for continued development work on the DD(X) program, the U.S. Navy's planned future destroyer, according to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) "BIW plays an important role in both our national security and the economy in Maine, and this project will allow BIW's professional design workers to sustain a more stable workload," Collins said in a Sept. 1 statement.
As Northrop Grumman Corp. kept its major Gulf Coast region shipyards closed again Sept. 1, analysts said there could be a small but noticeable impact on the company's earnings and Hurricane Katrina's aftermath could even lead Congress to reassess plans for defense shipbuilding. "The wisdom of concentrating Navy ship construction in a single region may be questioned," Merrill Lynch analysts wrote in review of their investment stance. "On the other hand, it is also difficult to see Navy programs on the Gulf not being funded in the future."
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is receiving help from the National Reconnaissance Office's classified spy satellites as it scrambles to help people in areas of the Gulf Coast devastated by Hurricane Katrina. FEMA asked NRO for the assistance, according to recently appointed NRO Director Donald Kerr. "At the end of the day, there's nothing like some of our capabilities for providing people a view of things as they are, rather than as they were," Kerr said during a press briefing at the Pentagon.
RELIEF: Relief efforts continue at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where 1,000-1,500 agency employees and area residents have taken refuge in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The rocket test center fared better than the surrounding areas and is being used as a rescue staging point by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A NASA plane delivered 30 satellite phones to the center Sept. 1 and there are now 40 portable electrical generators functioning at the site.
The Pentagon plans to convene a high-level panel Sept. 26 to consider whether the Air Force's B-52 Stand-Off Jammer (SOJ) program is ready to begin its technology development phase. If the Defense Department approves the program's entry into TD, the Air Force intends to award a contract in October to one of the industry teams that are vying for the work.
