HAWKEYE AIR: Northrop Grumman Corp. will design, develop, fabricate, assemble, integrate, furnish, manage, test and evaluate an On-Board Oxygen Generating System for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft under a $22.6 million contract from U.S. Naval Air Systems Command. The award was tacked onto an existing contract, the Navy said. The work is expected to be completed in December 2012.
July 26 - 27 -- Nanotechnology for Defense, Georgetown Conference Center, Washington, D.C. For more information call 1-800-882-8684 or go to www.idga.org. July 26 - 28 -- Naval-Industry R&D Partnership Conference 2005, "Enabling Naval Innovations to Win the Global War on Terrorism." Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.onr.navy.mil.
MOBILITY STUDY: The Mobility Capability Study, which is assessing the Defense Department's transportation needs, remains on track to be completed in mid-to-late summer, a Pentagon spokeswoman says. The study could help determine whether the Air Force increases its planned buy of 180 Boeing C-17 Globemaster IIIs. Air Force Gen. John Handy, commander of U.S. Transportation Command, has said that at least 42 more C-17s are needed (DAILY, March 11, 2004). Boeing, meanwhile, says it needs a commitment from the U.S. government by January 2006 to go beyond 180 C-17s.
CHINA WATCH: Republicans in the House and Senate this week will keep the spotlight, and they hope a little heat, on China. Sens. James Inhofe (Okla.) and Susan Collins (Maine) have introduced an amendment to the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill that would boost the role of what is now called the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS). Inhofe says he wants to rename it the Committee on Foreign Acquisitions Affecting National Security, and increase its congressional oversight. "I have outlined in my earlier speeches how China is a clear threat.
PRAGUE - The Czech government has approved a plan to sell state-owned aircraft producer Aero Vodochody despite reservations expressed by the country's defense ministry. The decision, made by the cabinet July 20, means the company could be sold as early as the spring of 2006. Cabinet ministers agreed to sell Aero in a two-round tender that will focus primarily on the best business plan for the company, which sunk into debt in the late 1990s.
PRAGUE - Seven companies have submitted applications for a tender worth at least $800 million to supply nearly 200 armored carriers to the Czech military, according to the Czech defense ministry. Defense officials declined July 22 to confirm the names of the companies involved but they are believed to include General Dynamics' Austrian subsidiary Steyr-Daimler-Puch Spezialfahrzeug and Patria of Finland.
Senate lawmakers on July 21 unanimously backed a move to authorize an additional $445.4 million for new up-armored Humvees for the Army and Marine Corps next year. Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, led the effort after noting that some field commanders recently increased their armored Humvee requests as insurgencies flare in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Belgium's defense ministry has approved the acquisition of various military equipment worth more than 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion), the government said July 21. The purchases will include:
AEGIS BMD: The U.S. Missile Defense Agency remains on track to conduct the next flight-test of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (Aegis BMD) system in the fall, an industry source says. The most recent test, in February, resulted in the intercept of a short-range ballistic missile and was the first flight-test of the initial operational version of the sea-based Aegis BMD (DAILY, Feb. 28).
GLOVE CHALLENGE: NASA's latest Centennial Challenge prize competition will award $250,000 to the team that can design and create the best new glove for astronauts. The purse will be awarded in November 2006, when competing teams will go head-to-head testing their designs. The gloves must be strong, easy on the hands, and allow a high degree of dexterity, NASA says. The space agency is partnered on this challenge with Maryland-based nonprofit Volanz Aerospace Inc., which will run the competition at no cost to NASA.
NOT FADE AWAY: The European Space Agency's XMM-Newton space observatory has shown that SN 1979C, a star that exploded in 1979, is as bright today in X-ray light as it was when it was discovered years ago, an unexpected finding. Researchers can use the light from the supernova as a "time machine" to "study the life of a dead star long before it exploded," says Stefan Immler of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Md., leader of a team of astronomers studying SN 1979C. An abundance of solar wind has helped keep the supernova bright, they speculate.
AIRBORNE SETS: The U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division has tapped Cartwright Electronics of Fullerton, Calif., and Micro Systems Inc. of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., to provide up to 731 AN/DSQ-50A Airborne Sets each, including sensor and telemetry downlinks. The sets are used in aerial and surface targets to evaluate capabilities of weapon systems and to train weapon system operators. The awards - representing the only two offers made for the multiple-award contract - are worth $18.7 million to Cartwright and $12.3 million to Micro Systems.
The House on July 22 backed President Bush's space exploration agenda, voting 383-15 to authorize $33.4 billion for NASA over the next two fiscal years.
GOES-N: The GOES-N team hopes to finally launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., as early as the end of this week, following NASA's next attempt to launch Space Shuttle Discovery. If the shuttle launches July 26, as currently scheduled, GOES-N could lift off on the 29th, according to Boeing spokesman Robert Villanueva. If Discovery has to scrub again, GOES-N could fly a day earlier on the 28th. Although the Delta IV rocket carrying GOES-N will launch from a different pad than the shuttle, the two flights share certain range personnel and infrastructure.
The U.S. Air Force is moving ahead in the Air-to-Ground Radar Imaging (AGRI) program, an effort that one contractor said is aimed at further protecting soldiers by allowing aircraft to detect, track and target hostile forces in motion on the ground, and to do so from a safe distance.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has appointed Donald Kerr to direct the National Reconnaissance Office, effective Aug. 3. Kerr will take over from NRO Deputy Director Dennis Fitzgerald, who has been acting director since the retirement of Peter Teets. Unlike Teets, Kerr will not be dual-hatted as the Air Force undersecretary for space.
KEEP OUT: With an eye towards urban operations in Iraq, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is seeking proposals for a new lightweight, quickly reversible barrier technology for blocking doors, roadways and bridges. Because of the level of compactness required, DARPA expects that the system will have to be based on chemicals that are sprayed into an area and expand.
Following the recent cancellation of NASA's Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, the upcoming Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is poised to play a larger role in relaying science data from future Mars missions back to Earth, according to program officials. Originally scheduled for launch in 2009, MTO was to have been the first spacecraft sent to another planet for the express purpose of relaying communications, marking the beginning of what NASA calls an "interplanetary Internet." The mission was canceled to free money for other priorities.
Congress "can't meet" the Bush Administration's $24 billion, 25-year rebaselined budget for the Coast Guard's Deepwater recapitalization program, although congressional appropriators will consider the proposal during conference over the fiscal 2006 budget, a key House appropriator said July 21.
STRONG RESULTS: Revenues for vehicle armor supplier Armor Holdings Inc. shot up 66.1% and net income more than doubled in the second quarter of 2005, the company said July 21. Revenues were $371.6 million, compared with $223.7 million a year ago. Quarterly net income was $37.4 million, or $1.05 per share, compared with $17.8 million the year before.
FLIR Systems of Portland, Ore., posted increased revenue and earnings for the second quarter of 2005, the company said July 21. Revenue was up 10% in the quarter, reaching $131 million, compared with $119.3 million in the second quarter of 2004. Revenue for the first six months of 2005 was up 5%, to $239.3 million, over the same period last year. Net earnings for the quarter shot up 37% to $24.6 million, up from $17.9 million a year ago.
