Senate leaders this week appointed a working group to examine how to reform the Senate's oversight of homeland security and intelligence as recommended by the 9/11 Commission. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Minority Leader Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) appointed the working group Aug. 24.
The U.S. Navy is set to announce a contract award Aug. 31 on its Extended Range Active Missile Program (ERAM), service officials told The DAILY. The ERAM, also known as the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6), will be compatible with the fire control system on the next-generation DD(X) destroyer and would fill the Navy's requirement for a long-range interceptor. It is intended to defeat aircraft and cruise missiles.
The U.S. Air Force plans a second presolicitation conference on the Rapid Attack Identification, Detection, and Reporting System (RAIDRS) program. The first conference was held July 20-22. The second is slated for Sept. 15-17. The purpose of the second conference, according to an Aug. 23 FedBizOpps notice from Air Force Space Command's Space and Missile Systems center, is to "continue communication with industry and further define the ... draft request for proposal (RFP)" for RAIDRS Spiral 1, or RS-1.
NASA is planning to use U.S. Navy radars to monitor space launches after data gathered in a recent launch showed they could be useful when the shuttle returns to flight. A pair of radars on loan from the USNS Pathfinder, an instrumentation ship, were used to track the launch of NASA's MEcury Surface, Space, ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) earlier this month (DAILY, Aug. 5) from Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
The U.S. Defense Department plans to take steps to make key satellites less vulnerable to various threats, including radiation from a high-altitude nuclear blast.
MOSCOW - Victor Remeshevsky, the deputy head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency, is expected to suggest resuming production of the light Kosmos-3M launch vehicle, both for Russian launches and to serve the international market for small- and mid-sized satellite launches. Remeshevsky spent last week in Omsk, Siberia, discussing prospects for re-establishing Kosmos-3M production at the Omsk Polyot Association. The first Kosmos-3M launched in August 1964, so a decision to restart production would mark the rocket's 40th anniversary.
Wing assembly for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter began Aug. 23 at Lockheed Martin's plant in Fort Worth, Texas, where forward-fuselage production started in July, the company said Aug. 23. BAE Systems begins building the aft fuselage in England this week. Center-fuselage assembly has been under way since May at Northrop Grumman facilities in California.
NEW DELHI - The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is completing preparations for the launch of a spacecraft for conducting microgravity experiments in a reusable capsule. ISRO plans to launch the space capsule recovery experiment (SRE) payload along with the Cartosat-2 satellite in the second half of 2005 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in south India. The last of three airdrop tests of the instrumented SRE module were conducted successfully in August using a helicopter to qualify the module for the flight.
MTHEL TEST: The Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) test bed shot down a mortar round for the first time Aug. 24 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., a U.S. Army spokeswoman said. The mortar round is the fourth type of target that the test bed has destroyed. Previous tests have knocked down artillery shells and two types of rockets.
Lockheed Martin-led Team US101, competing for the U.S. Navy's VXX presidential helicopter contract against Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., is offering an aircraft that is just as American-made as its competitor, a company official said Aug. 24.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - State-owned weapons manufacturer ZVI has signed an initial $5 million contract with the Czech defense ministry to supply its new 20mm Plamen (Flame) air cannon to the Czech air force. The deal, which provides 20 cannons, 10 pods and 60,000 rounds of ammunition this year for the air force's fleet of Aero Vodochody-built L-159 light attack aircraft, follows a successful series of field trials.
BAE SYSTEMS has been awarded a $41.9 million contract by the U.S. Navy to provide Digital Autopilot Systems (DAS) to upgrade 120 P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, the company said. The contract includes hardware qualification support, flight and ground testing and aircraft trial kit installations. Deliveries to the Navy will start in August 2005, and completion of the contract is set for 2009. The DAS consists of a combined autopilot control panel, two solid-state rate gyro assemblies and a digital autopilot computer.
Three major U.S. national security space programs that have been plagued recently by ethical or technical woes are making progress in solving their problems, but challenges remain, a Pentagon official and a government-chartered task force said Aug. 24.
The U.S. Air Force is considering buying more Theater Airborne Reconnaissance Systems (TARS) and adding upgrades to allow the fighter aircraft pod to work in all types of weather and send images directly to ground commanders, members of an F-16 squadron said Aug. 24.
LABARGE INC. has been awarded a $3 million contract by General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products to manufacture Aegis combat system MK200 controllers, the company said. The controllers are a key part of the MK99 Fire Control System used in the Aegis. The Aegis system integrates electronic countermeasures, rapid-fire Gatling gun cannons and missiles to provide anti-submarine, anti-surface and anti-air warfare protection to the naval fleet. The controllers are deployed in fleets such as the Arleigh Burke class of guided-missile destroyers.
The Naval Inventory Control Point (NICP) and its repair contractors have not followed U.S. Navy and Defense Department inventory management control procedures in shipping government furnished material to Navy repair contractors, leaving the Navy vulnerable to millions of dollars in fraud, waste and abuse, a new Government Accountability Office report has found. The DOD agreed with the GAO's findings and agreed to implement its recommendations.
EDO CORP. has successfully demonstrated new pneumatic-ejection equipment for the B-1B bomber in test flights at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., the company said. Inert weapons weighing 500 and 2,000 pounds were released from a B-1B during tests in July and August. An improved weapons carriage and release rack were assessed under the B-1B Pneumatic Assisted Release (PAR) initiative. PAR equipment uses compressed air to eject weapons, rather than the pyrotechnics used in older ejectors.
CUBIC DEFENSE APPLICATIONS is part of a group that has won a large services contract to support the U.S. Joint Force Command's (JFCOM) Joint Experimentation Program (JEXP) and Joint Futures Lab, the company said. CDA is on a 22-member team led by General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems (DAILY, July 13). The five-year contract has four option years with a potential value of $478.6 million. The total value to CDA cannot yet be determined. JFCOM's job is to transform U.S. warfighters into a Joint Fighting Force.
NASA's Genesis mission is scheduled to culminate Sept. 8 when helicopter crews in the skies over Utah will attempt to catch in midair a sample capsule released by the spacecraft. Launched in August 2001, the Lockheed Martin-built Genesis spacecraft spent two years orbiting a libration point between the Earth and the sun collecting solar particles. Trapped on delicate wafers of gold, sapphire, silicon and diamond, the samples will shed light on the composition of the sun and the origins of our solar system, according to NASA.
GENERAL DYNAMICS C4 SYSTEMS will develop and deliver 10 prototype tablet computers power by direct liquid fuel cells to the U.S. Air Force, the company said Aug. 23. The computers will be evaluated as a potential replacement for Air Force ground air traffic control computers, said the company, which is working on the program as a subcontractor to SRA International Inc. "This science and technology initiative will equip the U.S.
More than 700 scientists from 50 countries are scheduled to meet early next month to discuss the early results of the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite mission, ESA said Aug. 23. The $2 billion Envisat, launched in 2002 (DAILY, Feb. 27), monitors environmental and climatic changes. At the Sept. 6-10 symposium in Salzburg, Austria, more than 650 papers are scheduled to be presented, including results from Envisat observations of oil spills, fires, floods, changes in the ozone layer, pollution and earthquakes, ESA said.
The research and development (R&D) costs for the U.S. Navy's future aircraft carrier, CVN-21, are increasing by about $728 million, or 20.2 percent, according to the most recent Selected Acquisition Reports, released by the Department of Defense last week. CVN-21 program development costs went from $3.6 billion to $4.3 billion, "due primarily to a revised estimate of development costs approved at Milestone B," DOD said.
