Last week NASA's James Webb Space Telescope program received approval from the U.S. State Department to launch on a European Ariane 5 rocket, finally clearing a hurdle that added roughly an extra year of delay to the already technically challenged program.
T-45 TRAINING SUPPORT: L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace of Madison, Miss., has been awarded a $90.8 million U.S. Navy contract modification to provide contractor logistics support for the T-45 aircraft training system, the Defense Department said Sept. 23. The work is expected to be finished in September 2006.
APPROPRIATIONS: With fiscal 2006 less than a week away, Senate appropriators this week will start working on their FY '06 defense appropriations bill. The Senate Appropriations Committee's defense panel is slated to meet Sept. 26. Meanwhile, the incomplete defense authorization bill hangs in limbo in the Senate. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the senior minority member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and other Democrats have complained that the legislation, which was ready in May, still has not been brought back to the floor since it was suspended in late July. Sen.
Northrop Grumman has finished a U.S. Air Force-funded review of re-engining options for the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS), potentially moving the ground-surveillance aircraft a step closer to getting new engines.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), a vocal proponent of military aircraft programs built in part in his state, met Sept. 22 with Michael Wynne, President Bush's nominee to be the next Air Force secretary, and expressed his support.
UAV SERVICES: Boeing Co. has been awarded a $13.8 million contract modification to provide persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle services for the Iraq war and the war on terrorism, the Defense Department said Sept. 23. The work will be done onboard a U.S. Navy vessel in the Pacific and is expected to be finished in September 2006. The contract was awarded by the Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md.
Kimberly Johnson, Airports editor for our sister publication Aviation Daily, has embedded in Iraq with the 2nd Marine Division for three months. She is reporting for The DAILY from there, covering the performance of specific weapon systems, the realities of warfare in Iraq and other topics important to our readers. She also writes and takes photographs for "Mother of All Blogs," a Web journal about her experiences. It is located at http://www.moab-iraq.blogspot.com.
The U.S. Air Force has asked an independent team of experts to review its controversial Transformational Satellite (TSAT) program. Former Martin Marietta executive A. Thomas Young, who has led other reviews of military space programs, will oversee the TSAT study, which is expected to last about a month.
NEW CHAIRMAN: Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), the new House Homeland Security chairman, says Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) will serve as chairman for the panel's emergency preparedness, science and technology subcommittee. As subcommittee chairman, Reichert will lead the House's primary oversight panel for the Homeland Security Department's Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness, Science and Technology Directorate and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's terrorism preparedness and response missions.
Lt. Gen. William "Tom" Hobbins (USAF) has been nominated for a fourth star and as commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, the Allied Air Component Command and the U.S. European's Command's Air Component, according to the Senate Armed Services Committee. All are based at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.
JSF GUN: General Dynamics, which is developing the gun system for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, is ahead of schedule and under cost with that effort and recently completed a successful critical design review, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Defense Department's JSF program office. The company's GD-425 four-barrel Gatling gun will be mounted inside JSF's conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) version and be carried externally by the carrier variant (CV) and short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) version.
Orbital Sciences launched a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency satellite on its Minotaur I rocket late Sept. 22 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., the company said. The STP-R1 satellite, also known as the "Streak" technology demonstrator, was inserted into its 300-kilometer (186-miles) orbit about nine minutes after launch, Orbital said. The satellite is part of DARPA's Space Test Program (DAILY, July 22).
Northrop Grumman will provide a new ground-based radar to the U.S. Marine Corps which consolidates four radar mission areas into one, the company said Sept. 22. The first increment of the system design and development phase for the Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) is $7.9 million, and the whole program could be worth up to $125 million over four years, the company said.
Israel Aircraft Industries will build an AMOS 3 communications satellite for Spacecom under a $170 million contract, the company said last week. The spacecraft will be built at IAI's Systems Missiles & Space Group and is to be launched by the end of 2007. AMOS 3 is to replace AMOS 1, which has been operating since 1996 and is slated to continue until 2008. The new spacecraft will "implement advanced technologies," IAI President and CEO Moshe Keret said in a statement.
ARMORED VEHICLES: Canada expects full production to begin in 2010 on a fleet of new Multi-Mission Effects Vehicles for its army, the country's defense department says. The CAD 750 million (USD $640 million) project was announced Sept. 22 to design, develop, and deliver 33 of the wheeled light armored vehicles. The government is negotiating with Oerlikon Contraves Canada of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, over an expected CAD 100 million (USD $85.3 million) prime contract for the first phase of the project, which will cover design and development.
NCOIC LEADER: In October, Lorraine Martin of Lockheed Martin will become the new executive chair of the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium, taking over from Carl O'Berry of Boeing. Martin is vice president of flight solutions for Lockheed Martin Simulation, Training and Support. Including nearly 80 members, the year-old consortium is developing the basic standards that will allow defense technologies to interoperate in the future network-centric environment.
A Boeing 737-300 is being modified by BAE Systems in Mojave, Calif., to serve as an avionics test bed for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The work will include the installation of an F-35 nose section, a Northrop Grumman fire-control radar and other sensors to help emulate the shape of the JSF (DAILY, Sept. 22). This picture shows what the finished product is expected to look like. Illustration courtesy JSF prime contractor Lockheed Martin.
The Pathfinder-Plus solar-electric flying wing recently completed a series of research flights to investigate the effects of turbulence on lightweight, flexible wing structures, NASA said. The next stop for the 23-year-old craft is retirement, NASA said Sept. 21. The vehicle will be offered to a "major aerospace museum" for preservation and display, vehicle builder and owner AeroVironment Inc. said.
The United States and eight other nations are holding their second negotiating session to develop an agreement on production and sustainment of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a program spokeswoman said Sept. 22. This week's talks are taking place in Turin, Italy, and are to be followed by a third and final round sometime later this year. The first session took place in May in Virginia (DAILY, May 17). The MOU is supposed to spell out such things as the number of aircraft each country will buy and the location of maintenance facilities.
The additional delays caused by Hurricane Katrina make it highly likely that the next space shuttle launch will slip to no earlier than May 2006, according to NASA. The agency had been planning tentatively to launch the shuttle in March, until Katrina struck both Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where the shuttle's external tank is built.
PRICED: Axsys Technologies of Rock Hill, Conn., which makes optical equipment for the defense, aerospace and other markets, said Sept. 21 that its public offering of stock has been priced at $18 per share. The offering is scheduled to end Sept. 27.
MISSILE CONTRACT: Sweden-based Saab Bofors Dynamics has been awarded a SEK 350 million (USD $45.4 million) contract to help develop, produce and market the heavyweight anti-ship Missile System RBS15 Mk3 for Germany's navy, the company said Sept. 22. Saab will serve as system design authority while working with prime contractor Diehl BGT Defence. The missile systems will arm Germany's new K130-class corvettes.
Two years after the U.S. Navy tapped Raytheon to replace the aging ship-based Cobra Judy radar system, the program is facing a few challenges but is generally on track, according to a Navy official. The Cobra Judy Replacement (CJR) program held a "successful" preliminary design review (PDR) in February and is on schedule for a critical design review in January 2006, said Capt. Sheila Patterson, the Navy's major program manager for above-water sensors.
Defense electronics and propulsion company DRS Technologies is acquiring defense electronics and support firm Engineered Support Systems Inc. for $43 per share in cash and stock, the companies said Sept. 22. DRS will buy St. Louis-based ESSI stock for $30.10 per share plus DRS stock worth $12.90, as long as the average closing price of DRS's common stock before the acquisition's closing is between $46.80 and $57.20.
