Raytheon's Non Line of Sight-Launch System Precision Attack Missile has successfully completed its preliminary design review, Raytheon announced Nov. 7. The NLOS-LS PAM will be part of the first "spin out" of technologies from the Army's Future Combat Systems program, scheduled for 2008. NLOS-LS is in its system development and demonstration phase.
Aircraft equipment maker K&F Industries said Nov. 7 that its third-quarter sales for fiscal 2005 were up 10 percent to $100 million, partly driven by a 15 percent increase in military sales. Its earnings increased $2 million, to $40 million, compared with the same period last year. The White Plains, N.Y.-based company makes wheel and brake systems, fuel tanks and de-icing systems for military and commercial aircraft.
Former space shuttle astronaut Michael Coats has been named director of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA announced Nov. 7. Following service as a naval aviator, Coats joined NASA in 1978 as a member of the first astronaut class selected to fly the shuttle. He flew three missions, including as pilot for the first flight of Discovery in 1984.
CENSURE: Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has criticized Eric Edelman - whose recess appointment to be undersecretary of defense for policy Warner advocated - for not fully disclosing his involvement in special prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald's inquiry into the CIA-Plame leak case. "In my judgment, he would have been well advised to have disclosed to the committee his involvement with the Fitzgerald investigation," Warner said in a statement e-mailed to the press.
The U.S. Army tentatively plans to conduct the next test of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile system on Nov. 11 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. Two PAC-3 missiles will be fired at a ballistic missile target. The intercept attempt, which will be similar to a successful test conducted in September (DAILY, Sept. 9), is designed to try out software upgrades to the missile and ground system. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are the PAC-3 program's main contractors.
DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Caltex Alkhalij, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is being awarded a maximum $17,946,754 firm fixed price contract for facilities and services to receive, store, protect, and ship F76 and JP5. The other location of performance is Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. Using services are Army, Navy, and Air Force. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The performance completion date is Oct. 31, 2010. The contracting activity is the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pa. (SP0600-06-C-5602).
The Acquisition Advisory Panel is in the home stretch of finalizing its report to Congress and wants to hear from contractors on commercial best practices, performance-based contracting and interagency contract vehicles. "The report will be a vehicle for significant positive changes in the acquisition process," says the Contract Services Association of America.
The Air Force has not delayed the latest round of launch awards in its Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle in response to ongoing antitrust deliberations on the United Launch Alliance venture or a pending lawsuit seeking to stop the merger, according to the Space and Missile Systems Center. The so-called "Buy 3" EELV awards are expected to divide 23 launches through the end of the decade evenly between Boeing's Delta IV and Lockheed Martin's Atlas V rockets.
Nov. 7 - 10 -- Fatigue Concepts' Short Course, "Fatigue, Fracture Mechanics and Damage Tolerance," San Diego Seapoint Hotel. Call 1-916-933-5000 or go to www.fatcon.com/hsv. Nov. 8 - 10 - Aerospace Testing Expo 2005 North America, Long Beach Convention Center, Calif. Call +44-130-674-5744 or go to www.aerospacetesting.com. Nov. 8 - 10 -- Aviation Week's MRO Asia Conference & Exhibition, Suntec Convention Center, Singapore. For more information go to http://www.aviationnow.com/conferences.
Boeing will provide 50 Harpoon All-Up-Round (AUR) Missiles to Pakistan under a $62.5 million Naval Air Systems Command contract announced late Nov. 3. The missiles include 40 Tactical Block II Airlaunch AUR missiles and 10 Tactical Block II Grade B AUR missiles. The contract also calls for containers for Pakistan, Australia and Japan. The company is expected to finish the contract in June 2006.
Aviation Technology Group said Nov. 3 that it has lined up several suppliers for its Javelin executive jet, which is also expected to be developed into a military trainer in conjunction with Israel Aircraft Industries.
ACQUISITION POLICY: The Acquisition Advisory Panel is in the home stretch of finalizing its report to Congress and wants to hear from contractors on commercial best practices, performance-based contracting and interagency contract vehicles. "The report will be a vehicle for significant positive changes in the acquisition process," says the Contract Services Association of America.
Northrop Grumman's board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of 26 cents per share on common stock, the company said Nov. 2. The dividend is payable Dec. 10 to shareholders of record as of the close of business Nov. 28. The board also declared a dividend of $1.75 per share on the company's Series B convertible preferred stock. That is payable Jan. 17 to shareholders as of the close of business Jan. 3.
A leading trade association advocate for U.S. naval shipbuilding is confident that Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, the new chief of naval operations, is trying to shield current shipbuilding programs even as the DD(X) destroyer and the CVN-21 aircraft carrier remain under fire as defense officials and lawmakers mull budget cuts. "Everybody is worried, and everybody should be worried," American Shipbuilding Association President Cynthia Brown told The DAILY.
The Senate briefly resumed debate Nov. 4 on its fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill, but left more work for this week when the chamber could finally pass the measure. No votes were taken in the more than three hours that the Senate deliberated over more amendment proposals to the bill, which has run a start-and-stop legislative path since it was passed out of the Senate Armed Services Committee in mid-May (DAILY, Oct. 7). The Senate is scheduled to start voting on further amendments at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 7.
CONFIRMED: The Senate confirmed Shana Dale as deputy administrator of NASA on Nov. 4. Dale most recently served as deputy director for homeland and national security at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She succeeds former shuttle astronaut Frederick Gregory.
NASA BUDGET: House and Senate conferees agreed Nov. 4 to provide NASA with $16.5 billion for fiscal 2006, $260.3 million above the FY '05 level and $1 million above the Bush administration's request. Details of the NASA part of the $51.8 billion FY '06 Science, State, Justice and Commerce appropriations agreement were not immediately available.
U.S. defense officials and industry executives involved in the Future Combat Systems last week hosted a quarterly meeting on the program, which is "on track," an Army official told members of Congress. Claude Bolton Jr., assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, told the House Armed Services Committee Nov. 2 that the group hashes out hard questions, such as "what can we do that's timely, what can we do that's affordable, and that's off the table now?"
On Nov. 7, Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev will perform a five-and-a-half hour spacewalk to install a camera on the port side of the International Space Station's horizontal truss and remove a broken experiment from the solar array truss, according to NASA.
PROMETHEUS DEFERRED: NASA's Prometheus space nuclear power and propulsion program is being deferred and the $76 million budgeted for the effort in fiscal 2006 is being diverted to speed development of the Crew Exploration and Crew Launch Vehicle. Before the NASA's Exploration Systems Architecture Study, the agency had planned to restructure Prometheus to focus on surface power for a lunar outpost, following the cancellation of the costly Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter nuclear-enabled mission.
FOREIGN SATELLITES: James Lewis, senior fellow and director of technology and public policy programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the United States should consider contracting out more of its national security satellite needs to international providers. While that entails obvious data assurance issues, it also would expand the number of satellites that could be tapped for such services and provides another barrier to adversaries considering combating U.S. satellite capabilities. "Attacking U.S.
SEE THROUGH WALLS: With an eye toward urban operations in Iraq, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is embarking on a new program to develop technology for sensing people and objects inside buildings. The VisiBuilding program will place special emphasis on "how to make the technology operationally useful" at all stages of a mission, DARPA says, from planning to live scans of buildings during raids to post-raid sweeps to find hidden people and objects. DARPA released a broad agency announcement on Oct.
