AWS: Titan Corp. subsidiary International Systems LLC will produce about 85 Affordable Weapon System missiles for demonstration, test and evaluation under a $32.3 million contract from the U.S. Navy, which was awarded late last month (DAILY, May 24). The company will also work on the AWS launcher design and ship integration. The AWS is a guided missile system consisting of missile, launcher and mobile ground station, intended to carry a 200-pound payload to a target several hundred miles away. The contract was awarded by the Naval Sea Systems Command.
Following a series of on-site visits with 118 hopefuls in May, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has narrowed the field for its next Grand Challenge robotic ground vehicle race to 40 teams.
SEARCHLIGHTS: Xenonics Holdings Inc. said June 7 that the U.S. Marine Corps has bought roughly $3 million worth of its NightHunter illumination systems. The Carlsbad, Calif., company expects to ship the entire order immediately. Xenonics chief executive Dick Naughton said the company would continue lobbying lawmakers and defense officials and expects the effort to lead to more orders. The product, a compact searchlight, can illuminate objects more than a mile away with no "black hole" to obstruct the field of view, according to a company statement.
A key congressional panel is predicting that the U.S. Air Force's Personnel Recovery Vehicle (PRV) program will not meet its goal to pick a prime contractor by February. In a new report explaining its version of the fiscal 2006 defense appropriations bill, the House Appropriations Committee cut the Air Force's $113.8 million request for PRV by $42 million, or 37%, citing the expected delay.
Former Defense Department acquisition chief Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge Jr. is the highest Pentagon official alleged to be responsible for pushing the now-failed Boeing tanker lease with the U.S. Air Force, according to a new report, although new information indicates greater White House involvement.
Space Systems/Loral has won a contract from XM Satellite Radio of Washington, D.C., to build XM-5, a ground spare that will serve as a backup to XM's fleet of digital broadcasting satellites. Based on Space Systems/Loral's (SS/L) 1300 satellite bus, XM-5 will be delivered in 2007. It will have an on-orbit design life of 15 years and will feature two large mesh antennas. XM-5 is the first satellite XM has ordered from SS/L, and the fourth satellite order SS/L has received so far in 2005.
SHIP WORK: The U.S. Navy announced late June 6 that Cascade General of Portland, Ore., was awarded a maximum $5.7 million contract for the "midterm availability" of USNS Rainier (T-AOE 7), or repair work without a full dry-docking. Rainier is a Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force ship owned and operated by Military Sealift Command. The work will be done in Portland and is expected to be finished by October.
The House Appropriations Committee has funded NASA at $16.5 billion in fiscal 2006, or $14.7 million more than President Bush's request and $274.7 million above the enacted FY '05 level, including supplemental funding. The committee supported a push by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the panel's science subcommittee, to restore the agency's aeronautics research efforts at the FY '05 level of $906 million.
The House Appropriations Committee on June 7 voted to add one DDG-51 destroyer, two Littoral Combat Ships and one T-AKE amphibious cargo ship above President Bush's fiscal 2006 request, which already included four new U.S. Navy ships.
Lockheed Martin has been awarded two contracts worth $22.8 million to provide field support and upgrades for tactical missile defense radar systems used by U.S. Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, the company said June 7.
United Defense Industries Inc. of Minneapolis has been awarded a $376 million contract for the continuing design, development and testing of the Advanced Gun System, which includes the fully automated gun, magazine, and Long Range Land Attack Projectile for the Navy's new DD(X) destroyer, the company said June 7. The AGS will be a fully automated, single barrel, 155mm, vertically loaded, stabilized gun mount that can store, program, load, and fire the LRLAP. Each DD(X) destroyer would have two AGSs with up to 900 rounds of LRLAP ammunition.
THERMAL WEAPON SIGHTS: DRS Technologies Inc. of Parsippany, N.J., has received $43 million in new orders to produce more than 4,000 Thermal Weapon Sights for the U.S. Army, the company said June 7. DRS will produce light, medium and heavy sights using uncooled infrared technology. Deliveries will begin in October 2005 and continue through October 2006.
NEW DELHI - India has budgeted $117 million for research and development of unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance and other purposes. The country's military services have bought UAVs at a cost of $465 million, and are expected to invest millions more in the next three to five years, M. Natarajan, the scientific adviser to the defense minister, said recently at a workshop in Hyderabad on UAVs and emerging technologies sponsored by the Defence Research Development Organisation.
NEW DELHI - India has successfully test fired Pinaka, an indigenously developed multibarrel rocket system, from the Defence Research and Development Organisation's demonstration facility in Chandipur. Developed by the Armament Research and Development Establishment, Pinaka is an area weapon system aimed at supplementing the existing artillery guns at a range beyond 30 kilometers (18.7 miles). According to Indian army sources, the first phase of user trials has been successfully completed, and DRDO is working on suggested improvements.
The next milestone in the Department of Defense's Airborne and Maritime/Fixed Station Joint Tactical Radio System (AMF JTRS) program will occur this August when the department conducts a preliminary design review for the program. DOD officials said June 3 that Boeing and Lockheed Martin - the two companies vying for the system development and demonstration (SDD) JTRS AMF contract - recently submitted successful designs for the program's system design review phase. The approved designs have set the stage for the PDR in August, the DOD said.
LOADING TEST: Lockheed Martin's new West Coast Atlas V facility had a successful propellant loading test last week, the company said June 6, a "giant step forward" for the first Atlas V mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., next year. The team also conducted tests in a simulated "launch day-day fueling timeline."
The U.S. Navy's mine countermeasure (MCM) helicopter platform, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.'s MH-53E Sea Dragon, now is expected to remain a part of the U.S. fleet until 2015, Rear Adm. Deborah Loewer, commander of Mine Warfare Command, has said. Speaking in late May at the Mine Warfare Association conference in Panama City, Fla., the admiral said recently approved upgrades for the helos constituted a "win" for the mine warfare community. The MH-53E first was deployed in 1983, and replaced the last of the CH-53E Super Stallions in 1994, according to the Navy.
Japan has requested 40 Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) Block IIIBs, with MK 13 MOD 0 canisters, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress June 6. The sale of the missiles, canisters and related equipment could be worth as much as $104 million if approved, DSCA said. The missiles would be used to defend "critical sea-lanes of communication," DSCA said, and would be installed on ships with the Japanese maritime self-defense force. Principal contractors would be Raytheon Missile Systems Co. and United Defense LP.
General Atomics' unmanned aerial vehicle maker unit, Aeronautical Systems, has merged with the company's Reconnaissance Systems, which makes sensor systems. "The seamless integration of aircraft with sensor and weapon systems is crucial to providing comprehensive and timely solutions for the warfighter," Neal Blue, chairman and CEO of the combined enterprise, said in a statement.
The Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill would prohibit the Air Force from retiring 86 aircraft in 2006 at a cost of $460 million, the Congressional Budget Office has reported. Section 132 of the bill (S. 1042) would bar the Air Force from retiring any KC-135E tanker aircraft in 2006, when current service plans called for 49 of these planes to be mothballed.
PRAGUE - Ukraine has signed an agreement with European Union officials to participate in the Galileo program, becoming the third country to formally join Europe's global satellite navigation system ambitions.
