Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

INVENTORY: The state of Alaska's Department of Natural Resources is using imagery from DigitalGlobe's QuickBird satellite for forest inventory management, the Longmont, Colo.-based company said Sept. 22. The state bought imagery covering 320,000 acres over the Haines State Forest.

Applied Ordnance Technology Inc., located in Waldorf, Md., won an $11.7 million Phase II Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract from the Naval Surface Warfare Center to design, develop, fabricate and test gun components, projectiles and propellant for the Advanced Modular Gun Demonstrator Program, the Department of Defense said Sept. 21. The contract will support the implementation and use of an Extended Long Range (XLR) gun design, which is a modular, high-energy, high-velocity test gun incorporating multiple chambers and a segmented barrel.

The U.S. Navy needs to pick a replacement for its aging C-2A Greyhound cargo aircraft "in the next couple years," a service official said Sept. 22. The Navy is conducting studies on potential successors to the C-2A, a fixed-wing plane that is "starting to get old" after decades of use and will have to be retired by about 2015, said Rear Adm. Mark Fitzgerald, the Navy's acting director of warfare plans and requirements.

DIVIDEND: Kaman Corp. of Bloomfield, Conn., which builds helicopters and other equipment for the aerospace and defense industry, declared a regular quarterly dividend of 11 cents per share on shares of common stock, the company said Sept. 21. The dividend will be paid on Oct. 27 to shareholders of record on Oct. 13.

Representatives of President Bush and Sen. John Kerry's campaigns met with members of the Aerospace Industries Association earlier this week and said the aerospace industry is vital to the nation's health, according to AIA. Former Rep. Robert Walker (R-Pa.) spoke to the Aviation and Space Stakeholders Commission at AIA's headquarters on behalf of the Bush Administration, and former NASA Associate Administrator Lori Garver spoke on behalf of the Kerry campaign.

The critical infrastructure disruptions caused by a single electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the U.S. could cost the country $10 trillion or more, according to EMP commission member Lowell Wood. Caused by high-altitude nuclear blasts, an EMP can knock out electrical systems of all types on the ground over a very large area. The Commission to Assess the Threat from High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse first presented its findings to Congress in July following a two-year study (DAILY, July 23).

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).

The unitary warhead variant of the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW-C) has taken a big step toward being fielded by achieving a relatively high 90 percent success rate in operational test (OT) firings, government and industry officials said Sept. 22.

A contract to provide a national military command-and-control system to Slovakia has been awarded to the Northrop Grumman Corp., the company said Sept. 22. The command center is set for delivery in February 2005. It will be located in Bratislava.

Technology developer Planning Systems Inc. (PSI) and Capewell Components Co., which manufactures life support and aerial delivery products, have approved a sales agreement worth up to $5 million for Capewell to market PSI's precision air drop system (PADS) to overseas, non-U.S. users, the companies said Sept. 21.

The U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) would continue to undergo design refinement if funding for the program is delayed a year, but Lockheed Martin officials said it could be difficult to retain its design team if lawmakers halt appropriations for the surface combatant.

General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products, a business unit of General Dynamics, won a $26.5 million contract from the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Command of Rock Island, Ill., to produce 45 M2HB machine gun overhaul kits, the company said Sept. 22. Total contract value could reach $49.9 million if all planned options are exercised.

Seacor Holdings Inc. of Houston, Texas, has ordered three Agusta Grand helicopters from Agusta Aerospace Corp. of Philadelphia, Agusta Westland said Sept. 22. Agusta Aerospace Corp. is the U.S. branch of Agusta, an AgustaWestland company. The Agusta Grand is a new light twin-turbine helicopter that has payload and cabin space previously offered only in more expensive and larger helicopters, the company said. Deliveries are to begin in 2005.

AEROSPACE PRODUCTS INTERNATIONAL, Memphis, Tenn. David S. Currence has been named chief information officer. AURORA FLIGHT SCIENCES, Manassas, Va. John Appleby has been named vice president of science applications. BAE SYSTEMS, Rockville, Md. Lee H. Hamilton, a former member of Congress from Indiana and vice chair of the 9-11 Commission, has been appointed to the North America board of directors. COMPUTER SCIENCES CORP., El Segundo, Calif.

Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has won a contract for production of new bomb fuzes, a development that the Minneapolis company said puts it in a stronger position to compete for additional business of this kind.

An upgrade to the S-3B Viking jet aircraft underwent two days of carrier suitability tests that concluded Sept. 1 in Patuxent River, Md., the U.S. Navy said Sept. 21. In the first day's catapult testing, Cmdr. Alan Micklewright of Fleet Aircraft Test Squadron VX-20 and Lt. Jamie Chitko of VX-1 flew VX-1's S-3B, an all-weather carrier-based aircraft. Micklewright and Lt. Cmdr. Scott Josselyn of VX-20 handled the second day's carrier landing tests in conjunction with the Mass Memory Unit (MMU) project.

L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace will provide logistics support for U.S. Navy T-2 and T-39 trainer aircraft and H-3 Sea King helicopters under a $47 million contract, the Department of Defense said Sept. 20. The Madison, Miss.-based company will perform the work in Pensacola, Fla., and Corpus Christi, Texas, DOD said. The work is expected to be completed in November 2009. Naval Air Systems Command solicited proposals from eight companies and received offers from three, the DOD said.

EA-18G WORK: EDO Corp. of New York will provide an interference cancellation system for the EA-18G aircraft under a $14 million, three-year subcontract from the Boeing Co., EDO said Sept. 21. The work could be worth about $70 million over the life of the aircraft's anticipated production.

Australia-based ADI Ltd. and Forgacs are teaming to bid on the Australian Department of Defence's oil tanker conversion and $2 billion amphibious ship projects, ADI Ltd. said Sept. 20. The amphibious ship program is the largest of the two projects and involves the construction of the biggest warships ever built in Australia. The work would be done at the companies' Queensland and New South Wales facilities, Sydney-based ADI said.

Defense analysts said the U.S. Navy likely will not be able to afford a 375-ship fleet and will have to consider vessel requirements over quantity to more effectively address future combat threats. "They need to focus on capabilities-based planning. The fleet of the 21st century is heterogenous, with the biggest difference being mix of weapons [aboard]," said Col. Robert Work (USMC-Ret.), an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The recovery of scientific samples from the wreckage of NASA's Genesis sample return capsule continues at the Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, although there is no firm schedule for shipping the samples to their intended home at NASA's Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston.

Aerospace and defense component supplier Esterline Technologies, based in Bellevue, Wash., will supply sensors and be the sensors integrator for the turboprop engine on the Airbus A400 military transport program, Robert Cremin, Esterline chairman, president and CEO, told The DAILY Sept. 21. This is the first time Esterline will both supply sensors and be the sensors integrator on an aircraft program, he said.

A key design review for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Multiple Kill Vehicles (MKV) program has been delayed by about four months, according to Defense Department officials. The critical design review (CDR), which will detail plans for an upcoming experiment, had been scheduled for October 2004 but now will occur in February 2005 instead, DOD said in a statement responding to questions Sept. 21.