Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

The Naval Air Systems Command has awarded Northrop Grumman Corp. a $26.7 million contract to demonstrate and develop an electronic combat support system, the company said Sept. 24. The Agile Rapid Global Combat Support (ARGCS) system will cover all branches of the U.S. military, several NATO coalition partners and a number of platforms.

EUROPEAN COMPETITION: A new European Commission (EC) Green Paper assesses how the EC can clarify the criteria to establish when buying military equipment, services and works can be exempted from competitive procurement requirements. The purpose of the Green Paper is to improve cross-border competition in certain types of defense procurement, the EU says.

The U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command has awarded $23 million in contract modifications to Armor Holdings Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla., to supply more crew protection kits for the Army's heavy truck fleet, the company said Sept. 23.

DRS Technologies Inc. of Parsippany, N.J., and Jeannette, Pa.-based Elliott Co. Inc. are teaming to form Canopy Technologies LLC, which will market high-performance integrated power systems for industrial and commercial applications, DRS Technologies said Sept 22.

F-16 SIMULATORS: ETC-PZL Aerospace Industries of Warsaw, Poland, will assemble, test and deliver several F-16 simulators for L-3 Communications of Arlington, Texas, which is delivering them to Poland's air force. The work will be done under a $6.6 million contract, which includes delivery of the L-3 designed simulators and ETC-PZL's own cockpit simulators, as well as maintenance and support for five years.

TACTICAL TOMAHAWK: The U.S. Navy recently completed two successful tests of its Block IV Tactical Tomahawk missile, the service announced Sept. 23. A Sept. 16 test at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Indian Head, Md., involved a simulated mission in which the missile was attached to a test stand. In the second test, conducted earlier this week, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Stethem fired a Tomahawk from a Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) sea range off the coast of southern California.

The first unit equipped (FUE) of the U.S. Army's High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) - basically a Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) on a Family of Medium Tactical Vehicle truck chassis - is scheduled for March, an Army official said Sept. 23.

The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) has created the EADS Corporate Research Foundation in France to strengthen ties between public and private research and education and between the industrial and technical communities, the company said. EADS has allocated 24 million euros (31.2 million) over five years for the foundation.

The first F136 engine designed for the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is on track to begin testing in January, according to a spokeswoman for General Electric, which is developing the propulsion system with Rolls-Royce. The first F136 configured for JSF's two other variants - conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) and carrier variant (CV) - has run for 22 hours and reached maximum thrust since starting testing in July (DAILY, July 27), the spokeswoman told The DAILY Sept. 22.

RAPTOR REVIEW: U.S. Defense Department acquisition officials have scheduled a high-level meeting Oct. 5 to review progress in the Air Force's F/A-22 Raptor program. No major decisions are expected at the meeting, according to an Air Force spokesman. One potential topic of discussion is recent testing that is supposed to pave the way for full-rate production approval in January 2005.

Next week NASA will receive another round of industry proposals on supporting technologies to enable a human return to the moon and future human missions to Mars.

TRIDENT CONTRACT: General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems of Arlington, Va., has been awarded a $50 million contract by the U.S. Navy to provide checkout, installation, repair, operational support, and systems engineering for the Trident II missile's fire control system, the company said Sept. 23. The work is expected to be completed by March 2007 and will be done in Pittsfield, Mass.

GMD INTERCEPTOR: The fourth interceptor for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system was placed in an underground silo Sept. 22 at Fort Greely, Alaska, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency announced Sept. 23. Two more interceptors are to be installed at Fort Greely by mid-October. The Defense Department plans to begin operating GMD later this year to defend against long-range ballistic missiles.

NASA has approved an additional six months of operations by its Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), which have been exploring the surface of the Red Planet since January. The twin rovers, "Spirit" and "Opportunity," have spent the past eight months searching Mars' Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum regions for clues about the history of martian water. Their baseline mission was for three months of operation, although NASA scientists always hoped they would last longer.

The fate of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's High Altitude Airship (HAA) program could be decided in a matter of weeks. A key design review is scheduled to kick off Oct. 6 and 7 when prime contractor Lockheed Martin conducts a series of technical presentations for MDA. The agency then is expected to take up to 30 days to evaluate the technical information and decide whether Lockheed Martin should get a $50 million contract to conduct the next phase of the program: building and demonstrating an HAA prototype.

NASA has rescheduled the last captive-carry flight of its X-43A hypersonic demonstrator aircraft for Sept. 27 from Dryden Flight Research Center, Calif., the agency announced. If the flight is postponed for any reason, it could be flown on the following day, Sept. 28, NASA said. The two-hour flight will serve as a dress rehearsal for the X-43A's final Mach 10 (7,200 miles per hour) flight attempt, which is expected to occur in late October or early November.

The Nigerian navy has received two more A109 Power helicopters from Agusta, an AgustaWestland company, AgustaWestland said Sept. 22. Cascina Costa, Italy-based Agusta delivered Nigeria's first two A109 Power helicopters in July 2004. The A109 Power's maritime version already is being used by the U.S. Coast Guard, Italian navy and Nigerian navy. The Swedish military also has picked the helicopter for its navy.

The first production Sikorsky S-92 helicopter, a commercial version of the H-92 being bid for the next-generation U.S. Navy VXX presidential helicopter, is scheduled for delivery this weekend in Louisiana for offshore service on the Gulf of Mexico with Petroleum Helicopters, Inc. (PHI). A second S-92 for PHI is nearing delivery early next month, Sikorsky said Sept. 23.

Rolls-Royce Corp. of Indianapolis, Ind., will provide engineering and technical services for the 501K-17, 501K-34 and 250-KS4 Marine Gas Turbine Product Improvement Program (PIP), the Department of Defense said Sept. 22. The PIP is for Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers. Work is expected to be complete in September 2009. The work will be done under a $10.2 million contract from the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia.

Harris Corp.'s Sierra II programmable cryptographic module has been certified by the National Security Agency to protect voice and traffic data up through the Top Secret/SCI level, the company said Sept. 23. The Sierra II can be embedded in a variety of voice and data systems, including wireless local area networks, military sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles and other systems, the company said.

MKV TEST: A key experiment for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Multiple Kill Vehicles (MKV) program has been moved from fiscal 2005 to the summer of 2006, Defense Department officials said Sept. 22. DOD officials indicated earlier that the critical design review for the experiment has been delayed four months, to February 2005, mainly because more work is needed (DAILY, Sept. 22). The experiment, or hover test, is intended to see if a single, miniaturized kill vehicle can home in on a target.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved several amendments to NASA's fiscal year 2005 authorization bill Sept. 22, including two tailored to deal with the potential gap between the planned retirement of the space shuttle and the introduction of the proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV).