The House on May 25 approved a provision to direct the defense secretary to provide Congress by the end of the year a sustainment plan for the existing U.S. Navy MHC-51 class mine countermeasures ships. Lawmakers further agreed to codify the content requirements of the Buy American Act as stated in Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement Part 225, as well as encourage the Defense Department to buy lithium-ion cells, batteries and associated manufacturing technologies that are made in the United States.
FINANCIAL IMPROVEMENT: The U.S. Navy has awarded BearingPoint Inc., a business consulting and systems integration firm, a contract worth up to $107.6 million to assist with the implementation of the Navy's financial improvement plan, the company said May 25. McLean, Va.-based BearingPoint will help the Navy document business processes, test financial systems and sample financial data.
RECAPITALIZATION: Curtiss-Wright Corp. of Roseland, N.J., has completed the recapitalization of its common stock and Class B stock into a single class of common stock, the company said May 25. The company's stockholders approved the recapitalization on May 19. Each share of common stock now has one vote in corporate governance matters. The single class of common stock began trading under the symbol "CW" on May 25 on the New York Stock Exchange.
AgustaWestland has been awarded a 194 million pound ($355 million) contract by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence to upgrade its military's Apache AH MK1 helicopter's sighting and targeting system, the Anglo-Italian company said May 25. The upgrade involves Arrowhead, the U.S. Army's Modernized Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor. The M-TADS Electronic Display and Control and the Improved Helmet and Display Sighting System also will also be fitted to the U.K.'s 67 Apaches, the company said.
The Air Force's space surveillance network is remotely observing orbital rendezvous missions such as DART and the XSS-11 mission to gauge its ability to detect possible threats to satellites, according to an Air Force official.
ASSEMBLY PARTS: Lockheed Martin Corp. has been awarded a $35.7 million contract to produce night sensor assembly parts for the AH-64 Apache helicopter, the Defense Department said May 25. Seventy-eight percent of the work will be performed in Orlando, Fla., and 22% in Oswego, N.Y. The work is expected to be finished by April 30, 2008. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., awarded the contract.
JAVELIN PRODUCTION: The U.S. Army has awarded a Raytheon-Lockheed Martin joint venture a $95 million contract to produce the Javelin anti-tank weapon system, the companies said May 25. The joint venture will produce 120 command launch units and 1,038 missiles. The Javelin is in full-rate production. The weapon system is being used by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, as well as Australia's military, and has seen extensive use in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Establishment of the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., for the first time allows control of U.S. military space assets by a single entity, according to the Air Force.
MOSCOW - Khrunichev Center said May 25 that it has signed a contract with Russia's defense ministry to conduct research, development and flight-testing of the Angara launch vehicle.
The U.S. Navy is looking to award dual contracts to Northrop Grumman Corp. and General Dynamics Corp. to have each build a lead DD(X) destroyer simultaneously in the hopes that the service can compete the shipbuilders for a future round of DD(X) orders. Meanwhile, the Navy also is considering boosting the number of Flight 0 orders for its Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), John J. Young Jr., the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told reporters at the Pentagon May 25.
Lockheed Martin C-130E aircrew training simulators have been given a Level C certification, allowing the Air Force to train pilots on all tasks up to the final check flight, the company said May 25. The simulators are located at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark. The certification was given by the United States Air Force Air Mobility Command. Simulators are categorized from A to D, with Level D the highest. In a Level D simulator, a pilot can earn a rating without ever flying the aircraft.
Metal Storm Ltd. said May 25 that it will sell its ProCam Machine LLC business to Monroe Machined Products Inc. of Seattle, and will reposition itself as a "systems integrator" to sell its innovative electronic ballistics technology. Metal Storm, which is headquartered in Brisbane, Australia, and has an office in Arlington, Va., bought the precision-machined parts company in late 2003, saying the buy would help it get a strategic position in the U.S. defense market (DAILY, Dec. 12, 2003).
FULL HOUSE: If the May 24 debate before the House Rules Committee is a taste of what's to come, the full-chamber discussion over the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill (H.R. 1815) likely will center around women in combat, the base realignment and closure process and military health care efforts. House Armed Services Committee members appeared before the Rules Committee to prepare their bill for House consideration on May 25, as well as to lobby one more time for amendments that did not make it through the HASC last week.
Simulation and modeling technologies provider CAE Inc. of Montreal has purchased Terrain Experts Inc., which develops software tools for simulation database generation and visualization, for about $10 million in CAE shares. Terrain Experts produces the Terra Vista and SOFViz applications used for real-time 3-D image generation, battlefield visualization, and mission rehearsal. Known as Terrex in the military market, the company is based in Tucson, Ariz., and has about 40 employees.
The primary barriers to commercializing nanotechnology lie in transitioning innovation into a productive and cost-effective technology, an industry executive told congressmen looking to boost nanotechnology initiatives. Scott Donnelly, senior vice president for Global Research at General Electric Co., said transitioning is even more difficult with high-risk, emerging technologies.
The U.S. Air Force is studying a possible replacement for the aging Bell UH-1N Huey helicopters used by intercontinental ballistic missile wings, a general said May 24.
Foreign contractors who do business with the United States would face blacklisting on a Defense Department list if they sell certain defense goods and services to China under a provision that a prominent member of Congress plans to push in the House. The provision, championed by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is included in the House's version of the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill (H.R. 1815), which the chamber is scheduled to take up May 25.
DD(X) CONTRACT: Raytheon Co.'s Integrated Defense Systems, Tewksbury, Mass., has been awarded a contract worth up to $3 billion by the U.S. Navy for DD(X) ship system integration and detail design associated with specific DD(X) ship systems, the company said May 23. Besides the Raytheon unit, work also will be performed by Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems and Sensors, Moorestown, N.J.; United Defense LP, Minneapolis; Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, King George, Va.; and Ball Aerospace & Technology Corp., Westminster, Colo.
Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) head Gen. Lance Lord met with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper May 24 to brief him on the results of an AFSPC study on the potential of near-space, and believes that an operational deployment of near-space communications balloons could be imminent.
