Armor Holdings Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla., has been awarded a five-year, $291 million contract to supply the U.S. Army with combat helmets, the company said Aug. 25. The contract was awarded by the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, Natick, Mass., on behalf of the Army's Program Executive Office Soldier at Fort Belvoir, Va.
Air Force Col. John Insprucker, system program director for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, hopes the proposed merger of Atlas and Delta rocket operations will make the vehicles more competitive on the commercial market and take pressure off the service as it continues its "assured access" policy of maintaining two distinct launch fleets.
The Naval Air Systems Command has given Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. of Stratford, Conn., $43.3 million more to draft requirements definition and engineering studies for the Marine Corps' Heavy Lift Replacement Program by April 2006. The latest contract addition - the second such delivery order since December - comes as the Corps faces a heavy lift crunch due to wear and tear from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and is de-mothballing older helicopters.
JASSM TEST: The U.S. Air Force is tentatively slated to conduct the next flight test of the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) the week of Aug. 29-Sept. 2. The Lockheed Martin-built stealthy cruise missile has been successful in seven of nine tests conducted so far this year (DAILY, Aug. 4).
Boosted in part by its tactical vehicle systems segment, Stewart & Stevenson Services Inc. of Houston said Aug. 25 that it posted sharp gains in sales and net earnings in the second quarter of fiscal year 2005.
NEW FACES: With a slew of decisions last week over the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment process by the independent commission reviewing the Defense Department's proposals, the lineup of senators opposing and supporting the process likely will change. Gone could be loud BRAC opponents like Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) after the commission saved Ellsworth Air Force Base in his state. Meanwhile, the newly angered include Sen.
SDB TESTS: Four Small Diameter Bombs (SDBs) hit their ground targets Aug. 25 after being released from two separate carriages on a U.S. Air Force F-15E, according to the Boeing Co., SDB's prime contractor. The drops wrapped up developmental testing of the small smart weapon, which is due to begin operational testing in October 2005 and be fielded starting in October 2006 on the F-15E.
TESTING, TESTING: The European Space Agency is testing the first Galileo satellites, part of the Galileo System Test Bed. The payload of the GTSB-V2/B satellite, being developed by Galileo Industries, is being subjected to a space-like environment to demonstrate the performance of its payload, which includes an extremely accurate atomic clock.
WARNING SYSTEM: EADS Defence Electronics has installed the Helicopter Laser Radar (HELLAS) obstacle warning system on two Thailand air force helicopters used to transport VIPs, the company said Aug. 25. The work was done on a pair of Bell 412 EP helicopters at Lop Buri air force base north of Bangkok, where pilots and mechanics were also trained and test flights performed. Each helicopter was equipped with an additional liquid crystal display screen in the cockpit and a video camera was fitted to the sensor.
INDIA SALES: Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kohler, head of the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, plans to lead a delegation of American government and industry representatives to India in early September to discuss the South Asian nation's interest in possibly buying a multirole fighter jet and Lockheed Martin's Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor. The Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon and the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet are among the fighters being considered by India.
Kimberly Johnson, Airports editor for our sister publication Aviation Daily, has embedded in Iraq with the 2nd Marine Division for three months. She is reporting for The DAILY from there, covering the performance of specific weapon systems, the realities of warfare in Iraq and other topics important to our readers. She also writes and takes photographs for "Mother of All Blogs," a Web journal about her experiences. It is located at http://www.moab-iraq.blogspot.com.
The first RQ-4B Global Hawk, which Northrop Grumman Corp. is building in Palmdale, Calif., is starting to look like a finished product, a company official said Aug. 26. The high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicle is "about 70 percent assembled," with the engine, landing gear, tail section and wings all installed, said Ed Walby, director of business development for HALE systems at Northrop Grumman.
The Defense Information Systems Agency will re-examine its Net-Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) program in order to better explain the nine technology services that the effort provides for the Global Information Grid (GIG), according to Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Croom, DISA's new director.
The U.S. Navy's research office has turned to Alaska Ship and Drydock Inc. of Ketchikan, Alaska, to build a prototype vessel to test various technologies for their usefulness in potential naval ship designs in a deal worth up to $30 million. The Office of Naval Research awarded Alaska Ship an initial $9.7 million contract in response to a broad agency announcement, the Navy said late Aug. 25. The company will build its prototype in Ketchikan by October 2007, or 2010 with contract options.
The independent Base Closure and Realignment panel reviewing the Defense Department's recommendations to alter domestic military facilities has decided against the Pentagon's proposal to move several defense research offices out of Arlington, Va. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Office of Naval Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Army Research Office will remain in Arlington, also home to the Pentagon.
UUV PROPULSION: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, R.I., are soliciting industry and academia to assist in an ongoing effort to develop Hybrid Aluminum Combustor systems for submarines, torpedoes and unmanned undersea vehicles. Partners are being sought to assess the feasibility of manufacturing HAC systems as well as the underwater propulsion systems that would incorporate them. Proposals are due by Oct. 12, with roughly $400,000 in contracts to be awarded in November.
The first operational flight for Boeing's Delta IV Heavy Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle has slipped to January 2006 as a result of recent technical problems with the Delta rocket family, according to the Air Force. "Boeing has had ... various technical issues they've had to solve on other Delta rockets this summer, which has kind of delayed the whole manifest," EELV System Program Director Col. John Insprucker told The DAILY.
Alliant Techsystems said Aug. 25 that it has received contracts worth $126 million to manage and modernize the Radford Army Ammunition Plant and to produce various medium-caliber ammunition and rocket propellants. The contracts' total value with options could reach about $427 million. Minneapolis-based ATK's contract to manage the Radford AAP in Virginia is a five-year deal worth $23.3 million in its first year. An additional $29.6 million was provided to modernize the facility, and future awards could reach $55 million, the company said.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker says he's confident that the restructured Future Combat Systems program has enough leeway built in to compensate for unforeseen developmental problems. "We have some insurance here in terms of where there may be risk," Schoomaker said during a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington Aug. 25. "I'm very comfortable that the way we restructured it gives us a heck of a lot better chance of accomplishing it."
ViaSat Inc. will provide an avionics testing simulator for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program under a $19.8 million contract from Lockheed Martin, the company said Aug. 24. The company's Communication Navigation and Identification Function Stimulator will produce simultaneous signals, allowing the program to test the individual aircraft systems and see how they interact. The new system will be added to Lockheed Martin's Mission System Integration Lab in Fort Worth, Texas.
Osprey No. 21, an MV-22 attached to the Integrated Test Team based at Patuxent River, Md., conducts the first phase of in-flight refueling developmental testing using a KC-135. The V-22's refueling probe is plugged into the KC-135's basket. The testing is to determine the basic flight characteristics of the V-22 behind the KC-135, as well as describe the initial operating envelope. Later tests could include sending fuel from the KC-135 to the V-22 (DAILY, Aug. 25).
Thanks mostly to shipments to defense customers, sales and net earnings for electronics products provider LaBarge Inc. of St. Louis rose sharply in fiscal year 2005, the company said Aug. 25. Net sales soared 39% in FY '05, climbing to $182.2 million compared with $131.5 million the year before. Net earnings increased 58% percent, from $6.8 million the year before to $10.8 million.
