CDR AND QDR: The House Armed Services Committee will release its own "committee defense review" report next year that will identify and categorize potential strategic threats to United States national security over the next 20 years (DAILY, Sept. 15). The HASC's "Threat Panel," a 12-member group led by Reps. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) and Michael Turner (R-Ohio), will begin meeting Sept. 21 and focus on Latin America. The unofficial Threat Panel will be followed by a second series of panels that will identify existing U.S.
When it comes to military platforms, Tyco Electronics is virtually everywhere, the company says. The Harrisburg, Pa.-based firm, a subsidiary of Tyco International Ltd., produces 80,000 different connectors, fiber optics relays, sensors, antennas, semiconductors and other electronic components that are contained in most every air- and ground-based defense platform in the United States, company officials say. Tyco makes commercial components too, providing the composite cable for the Boeing 787's high-voltage electrical system.
NEXT HURRICANE: The U.S. Northern Command has requested approval from the U.S. military's Joint Staff for four heavy-lift and four medium-lift helicopters to be forward-staged at Patrick Air Force Base, near Cocoa Beach, Fla., and to be available for potential damage assessments from Hurricane Rita. Likewise, the USS Bataan is headed to Mayport, Fla., for resupply and will take aboard four MH-60 Black Hawk and two MH-53 Pave Low helicopters, the Pentagon said Sept. 20. Bataan will sail behind the storm to support potential Rita relief efforts.
Many U.S. Army program managers think they still don't have, and won't get, enough responsibility over resources and management authority to act on new acquisition-reform guidance and take the risks they are being told to take, the RAND Corp. has said in a study. Army program managers are being asked to "be more innovative" and "take more risks" under Defense Department acquisition reform efforts started in the mid-1990s, the RAND report said.
NASA on Sept. 20 announced new discoveries about surface changes on Mars detected by the agency's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, which has been orbiting the red planet since 1997 and is now the longest-lived Mars explorer. MGS has operated around Mars longer than any other spacecraft and sent back more images than all previous Mars missions combined, according to NASA. Its primary instrument, the Mars Orbiter Camera, is the most powerful camera currently orbiting the planet and has imaged nearly 4.5% of Mars' surface in high resolution.
Orbital Sciences will build the THOR II-R communications satellite for Telenor ASA, which will use it for Ku-band fixed telecommunications and direct-to-home TV broadcasts. The satellite, due to be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2007, has 24 transponders, with three times the payload power of the THOR II satellite. It will be used to improve Telenor services in the Nordic countries, Europe and the Middle East.
CPI Aerostructures of Edgewood, N.Y., will provide the U.S. Air Force with 37 aircraft wing skins for the A-10 Thunderbolt under a $569,000 contract. The company, which builds structural aircraft parts, provided leading edges for the A-10 fleet under a multiyear contract through 2000, which included follow-on work through 2004. It also has provided components to the C-5A Galaxy cargo aircraft, the T-38 Talon trainer, the E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft and the MH-60S mine-countermeasures helicopter.
Curtiss-Wright Controls Inc. will continue to deliver hardware for Lot 9 V-22 Ospreys. The $1.8 million contract, from Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, calls for more Cockpit Control, Feel and Drive (CCFD) Actuators and an Aerial Retractable Refueling Probe (ARRP) Manual Drive Gearbox. Each V-22 has three CCFD Actuators and one ARRP Manual Drive Gearbox. The work is being done at the Curtiss-Wright Controls Engineered Systems facility in Shelby, N.C.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is requesting information from industry about lightweight spacecraft buses that could carry a proposed solar sail mission vying for the chance to launch in 2010. Goddard's ST-9 Solar Sail mission is a candidate for the New Millennium Program's Space Technology 9 (ST-9) flight opportunity. The mission would validate solar sail technology through the orbital deployment of a steerable solar sail that provides predictable and measurable acceleration.
NASA's newly unveiled exploration architecture could allow for crews of astronauts to remain on the lunar surface up to six months at a time, should such stays be deemed necessary, according to Administrator Michael Griffin. NASA's first mission back to the moon, targeted for 2018, would have a crew of four astronauts staying no more than a week on the surface (DAILY, Sept. 20). After NASA gains more experience, "we could take crew to the moon, let them work for six months, and then return them," Griffin said in Washington Sept. 19.
The Bush Administration is defining how national security space programs will be coordinated and managed in light of recent changes in how the government is organized, top defense officials said Sept. 20. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Administration is finalizing a plan to spell out how the Air Force and National Reconnaissance Office will interact now that a single person is no longer serving as both undersecretary of the Air Force and director of the National Reconnaissance Office.
Ballistic Recovery Systems, which builds whole-aircraft emergency parachutes, has reached a settlement resolving breach-of-contract claims made by Charles F. Parsons and Aerospace Marketing, which was to market BRS products to the Cessna aftermarket. BRS, of South St. Paul, Minn., will pay Parsons $1.9 million over eight years. The deal allows BRS "to continue on its growth path in selling aviation safety products while not adversely affecting ongoing operations," company CEO Larry E. Williams said in a statement.
Armor Holdings of Jacksonville, Fla., and Ceradyne of Costa Mesa, Calif., have received orders for more body armor for U.S. troops, the companies said Sept. 20.
ARMY Rotair Industries, Bridgeport, Conn., was awarded on Sept. 9, 2005, a $7,506,235 firm-fixed-price contract for Stabilator Amplifiers. Work will be performed in Bridgeport, Conn., and is expected to be completed by Oct. 9, 2009. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole source contract initiated on June 1, 2005. The U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command, Fort Monmouth, N.J., is the contracting activity (W15P7T-05-C-F011).
Aerospace company Honeywell said it will sell Indalex Aluminum Solutions to an affiliate of private investment company Sun Capital Partners for $425 million in cash and the assumption of liabilities, including pension funds. Indalex was part of United Kingdom-based Novar, which Honeywell bought earlier this year for $2.4 billion (DAILY, April 1), but the aluminum company "does not fit with our portfolio," Dave Cote, Honeywell's chairman and CEO, said in a statement.
Engineers in Japan have successfully test-fired the MB-XX upper-stage rocket engine, a joint venture of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and Nagoya Guidance and Propulsion Systems Works. Pratt & Whitney supplied the fuel turbopump for the engine, while Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the Nagoya Works' parent company, provided the thrust chamber assembly, valves and oxidizer turbopump. Both companies share the design and system engineering work on the demonstrator, Pratt & Whitney said last week.
Foster-Miller Inc. has received $133.3 million more for lifecycle support and spare parts for additional small robot systems under the Man Transportable Robotic System program. The contract modification comes on top of recent awards worth around $95 million each to Foster-Miller and iRobot Corp. for their respective unmanned, autonomous systems for ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (DAILY, Sept. 16).
NASA's new human spacecraft, with solar panels deployed, is shown docked to the lunar lander in orbit around the moon in this artist's conception. The capsule has an Apollo-like shape but is three times larger, allowing for a larger crew, NASA said. Illustration by John Frassanito and Associates, and courtesy NASA.
ENGINE WORK: General Electric Aircraft Engines will provide rotors used in F-414 engines under a $12 million order from the U.S. Naval Inventory Control Point. The engines power the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The work is to be completed by August 2007, the Department of Defense said.
South Korea's military plans to deploy a domestically produced portable anti-air missile system in October following a successful test last week, the Korean Overseas Information Service said Sept. 19. The KP-SAM system's God's Bow missiles hit a low-flying target in a Sept. 16 test, the country's Defense Quality Assurance Agency said. The Agency for Defense Development (ADD), a state-run research institute, is in charge of the system in partnership with South Korean defense companies. ADD plans to produce hundreds of God's Bows every year.
On Sept. 19 in Washington, Administrator Michael Griffin formally unveiled NASA's plan for returning astronauts to the moon and laying the groundwork for trips to Mars, which the agency expects to cost $104 billion between now and the first targeted lunar mission in 2018.
