Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Aug. 23 that he has no immediate plans to concentrate the Defense Department's cruise missile defense efforts in a single agency, even though the idea recently surfaced as a possibility.
MINE COUNTERMEASURES SHIPS: Anteon International Corp. of Fairfax, Va., said Aug. 23 that the U.S. Navy's Naval Sea Systems Command awarded it a five-year, $25.7 million contract to support mine countermeasures ships based in Ingleside, Texas, and forward-deployed to Bahrain and Japan. Last September, congressional auditors sided with competitor Gulf Copper Ship Repair Inc. over an award to Anteon and another company for the repair and maintenance of mine countermeasures and coastal minehunter ships (DAILY, June 21).
DELIVERED: EADS Defence & Security Systems Ltd. of the United Kingdom and its Kiel, Germany-based subsidiary Hagenuk Marinekommunikation have delivered three external communications systems for the U.K.'s first Astute-class nuclear submarine. EADS now is competing to supply similar systems for the next two Astute-class subs.
ADVANCED DISPLAYS: A Lockheed Martin Corp. unit has received $48.3 million from the Naval Sea Systems Command for new or modified variants of AN/UYQ-70 products, a family of display, processor and network systems currently fielded on the U.S. Navy's new Aegis destroyers, cruisers and other surface ships, as well as E-2C Hawkeye aircraft and attack submarines. The contract, awarded Aug. 19 but not announced until late Aug. 22, was not competitively procured, the Navy said. In May, Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors Tactical Systems awarded DRS Technologies Inc.
The launch of the Global Positioning System IIR-M1 spacecraft aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket is being delayed until mid-September at the earliest as Boeing tries to diagnose recent problems with the batteries used in the Delta rocket family's flight termination systems. The batteries power the avionics that command the rocket to destroy itself if it veers off course. GPS IIR-M1 will not launch until engineers are certain the batteries will perform as needed, according to Boeing spokesman Robert Villanueva.
Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) delivered its 100th F-16 wing box to Lockheed Martin Corp. last week, the company said Aug. 22. Lockheed Martin has ordered more than $100 million worth of wing boxes from IAI's Lahav Division since the company was awarded a contract for 120 pairs of wing boxes for $52 million in 1999. The Lahav Division currently is the sole manufacturer of F-16 wing boxes for Lockheed Martin's F-16 customers, the company said.
Pratt & Whitney started assembling the first flight-test engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter on Aug. 23, a company spokesman said. Plans call for assembly to be completed by about October, according to Matthew Perra. Then, he said, the engine will be tested and shipped in December to Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth, Texas, plant. "In January 2006, the F135 program will achieve Initial Flight Release and the F135 will power the F-35's first flight in third quarter 2006," P&W said.
Estonia is starting a procurement program for a new air defense system following a year and a half long analysis by the ministry of defense and the military. It has invited MBDA Systems and Raytheon to compete.
General Electric and Rolls-Royce plan to pick a site in mid-2006 to assemble F136 engines for the U.S. Defense Department's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a representative of the industry team said Aug. 23.
TCOM has finished building its first truck-mounted 17-meter aerostat system and will soon deliver it to its customer, the United Arab Emirates, a company official said Aug. 23. The new system's main advantage over TCOM's older trailer-mounted version is that a rugged, flat-bed truck, which does not have to be pulled, can operate more easily on "off-road" terrain, such as desert sands, said Stephen Silvoy, vice president of marketing at TCOM.
DRS Technologies, Inc. has received a $24 million contract to produce more infrared assemblies for the Javelin shoulder-fired anti-tank missile, the company announced Aug. 23. DRS Infrared Technologies in Dallas, Texas will produce more than 1,200 Second Generation Forward Looking Infrared Integrated Dewar Cooler Assemblies (IDCAs) for the Javelin's Command Launch Unit. Deliveries will begin in early 2006 and continue through June 2007, with further orders expected.
PREVIOUS PREDATOR: North Dakota's senior Democratic senator is advocating authorizing $218.5 million for buying General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc.'s Predator MQ-1 unmanned aerial vehicles and associated systems and support next fiscal year. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) submitted the legislation in July as an amendment to the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill in the Senate, which is expected to debate the bill after reconvening Sept. 6. The Air Force recently began deploying Predator Bs, designed to be more capable than the older MQ-1s (DAILY, Aug. 11).
The Raytheon/EADS team vying to build the Army's Future Cargo Aircraft is concerned about the procurement quantity in the service's recent draft request for proposals, which has dropped from an expected 33 to a maximum of 30.
New statistics show significant increases in commercial orders and shipments for the U.S. aerospace industry in the second quarter of 2005, fueling an upturn that has been under way since last year, according to David Napier, director of the Aerospace Industries Association's Research Center. The industry "is on pace to have its best year in terms of orders and shipments in more than a decade," AIA said in releasing the statistics. It said the numbers also include search and navigation instruments and the civil and defense sectors.
PRAGUE - The Czech military has received another six Jas-39 Gripen fighters from Sweden as part of a 10-year, CZK 20 billion (USD $830 million) lease for 14 new aircraft, according to Czech defense officials. The six single-seat aircraft, which landed a few days ago at the country's Caslav air base, are expected to begin protecting Czech air space within the next week. The Czech Republic received the first batch of six fighters last April and expect to see the last two two-seat Gripen fighters arrive at the end of this month.
The U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command has placed an order with Savi Technology for 100 units of its new Portable Deployment Kit, a mobile radio frequency identification system.
The James Webb Space Telescope industry team has finished the first major step in building the telescope's primary mirror, although the future of the observatory remains in doubt as NASA grapples with how to rein in an estimated $1 billion cost overrun on the project, budgeted at $3.5 billion.
Northrop Grumman has been named lead system integrator for unmanned ground vehicles under the U.S. Army's Family of Integrated Rapid Response Equipment (FIRRE) program, the company said Aug. 22. The FIRRE program will use unmanned vehicles to perform some tasks currently handled by troops, including perimeter security. The main unmanned ground vehicle for the program will be the Tactical Amphibious Ground Support (TAGS) vehicle, provided by Northrop Grumman subsidiary Remotec, based in Clinton, Tenn.
The U.S. Air Force believes it is making progress promoting its views in the Defense Department's 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review, a service official said Aug. 22. While declining to discuss specific issues being debated privately in the QDR, Maj. Gen. Ronald Bath, director of Air Force strategic planning, said the Air Force is winning appreciation for three major capabilities it provides: global mobility, persistent surveillance and precision strike.
AIR FORCE The Boeing Co., Huntington Beach, Calif., is being awarded a $24,679,000 cost-plus award-fee contract modification to provide for funding for the continued production of Space Vehicles 1 through 3. Total funds have been obligated. This work will be complete by June 2006. The Headquarters Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., is the contracting activity (F04701-96-C-0025, P00358).
Singapore has requested the possible sale of weapons, logistics and training support for F-15 fighters that could be worth up to $741 million, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress on Aug. 22. Singapore plans to choose this summer between Boeing's F-15 and the Dassault Aviation-built Rafale (DAILY, May 23).
