A detachment of Belgium's unmanned aerial vehicle unit will help maintain stability in Bosnia-Herzegovina during its first operational deployment, the Belgian defense ministry said June 27. An 80th UAV Flight detachment and its Hunter-B UAV began arriving at Tuzla Eagle Base on June 22 and will be ready to fly reconnaissance missions by July 4. The detachment will provide reconnaissance and air-surveillance support in anti-trafficking and organized crime operations during its four-month mission, the ministry said.
ARMOR KITS: AM General of South Bend, Ind., has been awarded a $19.6 million contract modification for the purchase and installation of armor kits for M1151 Humvees, the Defense Department said June 27. The work will be done in South Bend and is expected to be finished by Jan. 31, 2006. The contract was awarded by the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said he is confident that the shuttle will return to flight as early as July 13, although the agency he recently took over was not able to implement all the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, including solving the issue of debris damage on the orbiter.
Raytheon Co. will produce Excalibur 155mm precision-guided artillery rounds for early fielding in Iraq under a $22.1 million contract awarded by the U.S. Army, the company said June 28. Developed by Raytheon Missile Systems and Bofors Defence of Sweden, Excalibur uses Global Positioning System and Inertial Measurement Unit technology to provide greater range and accuracy than traditional artillery.
PREDATOR ISR: BAE Systems Advanced Information Technologies will provide a "multi-sensor, multi-look exploitation system" to give the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance under a $5.4 million contract modification, the Defense Department said June 28. The Air Force Research Laboratory awarded the contract.
DRS Technologies Inc. said June 28 that options on a previously awarded U.S. Navy contract to develop advanced shaftless propulsion technology for future nuclear-powered submarine designs under the Tango Bravo program could bring the contract total to $30 million.
Unmanned aerial vehicle builder AeroVironment is flight-testing a subscale prototype UAV featuring a new long-endurance liquid hydrogen fuel system at Yuma, Ariz., according to company officials. The company-funded vehicle flew for the first time on May 27 and then again on June 2 for roughly an hour each time, marking what the company believes is the first time a UAV has flown on liquid hydrogen. The aircraft flew in racetrack patterns, both under manual control and autonomously through waypoints. Global Observer
Like a meteor shower of reports, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin on June 28 promised the House Science Committee several updates to Congress by September, including the research agenda for the International Space Station (ISS), space shuttle flight plans, a launch vehicle for the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), an architecture for lunar missions and other exploration and astronomy projects.
ORDERS: CFM International said it logged orders for 218 new CFM56 engines, worth $1.3 billion, at the recent Paris Air Show. CFM International is a joint venture of France's Snecma and General Electric of the U.S. The engines have been selected to power several Airbus and Boeing aircraft, the company said.
V-22 FORMATION: Eight V-22 Ospreys fly in formation June 18 after leaving the USS Bataan in the Atlantic Ocean, where the U.S. multiservice aircraft program concluded the flight-test portion of its operational evaluation (DAILY, June 28). Tests results are now under review. OPEVAL is supposed to lead to full-rate production approval of the Bell-Boeing tiltrotor transport this fall. Photo by Photographer's Mate 1st Class Ken Riley, courtesy U.S. Navy.
The U.S. Army has awarded Raytheon Co. a $69.7 million contract modification for TOW bunker buster missiles, the Defense Department said June 27. The work will be done in Tucson, Ariz., and is expected to be finished by Nov. 30, 2008. The contract was awarded by the U.S. Army Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala.
BALTIMORE - After conducting a series of failed experiments last year, the Air Force's Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Battlelab is seeking industry's help to develop sense-and-avoid systems for small UAVs. The Battlelab wants to develop an inexpensive system for small UAVs to sense and avoid other aircraft, allowing them to conduct routine file-and-fly operations in joint airspace. The scheme the Battlelab had settled on involved a series of electro-optic cameras installed on the aircraft.
Europe's MBDA Missile Systems says it is pushing ahead with developing two new missiles that might compete with U.S. weapons, but questions remain as to whether either project will bear fruit. During the recent Paris Air Show, MBDA revealed that Meteor, which six European nations are pursuing as a beyond-visual-range, air-to-air missile, is slated to begin flight-testing near the end of 2005.
The U.S. Army has awarded General Dynamics C4 Systems a $30 million contract to integrate up to 500 Land Warrior Systems and Stryker integration kits into a Stryker experimental battalion, the company said June 28. The delivery of assessment versions of the Land Warrior Systems and integration kits is scheduled for March through May of 2006.
MOSCOW - Russia's Federal Space Agency and Space Forces have banned Soyuz and Molniya launches following the June 21 launch failure of a Molniya M booster carrying a military communications satellite (DAILY, June 22). Both Soyuz and Molniya use the same third stage that presumably failed in the attempt. According to media reports, the failure probably was caused by a fire in one of the third-stage RD-0110 engines, manufactured in Voronezh.
A400M EQUIPMENT: AAR Corp.'s Cargo Systems business unit of Livonia, Mich., will provide cargo handling systems for Airbus' A400M military transport, the company announced at the recent Paris Air Show. AAR Cargo systems is teaming with Pfalt Flugteugwerke of Speyer, Germany, on the program, and will develop and build the floor-based cargo loading system and aerial delivery system. PFW will develop and build the structural floor and drainage system. AAR Corp. expects its share of the work to be worth $300 million for the company through fiscal 2015.
The U.S. Air Force announced June 27 that a new entity will oversee modernization of its aging tanker fleet. The Tanker Systems Modernization Systems Squadron (TSMSS) will handle efforts to update a fleet that consists of 59 Boeing KC-10 Extenders and more than 500 Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers. Terry Kasten, who has served as deputy commander of the Air Force's combat support systems wing and as deputy program director of the B-2 program office, will serve as director of TSMSS, which will be based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
MORE MH-60RS: The Naval Air Systems Command on June 22 awarded Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Systems Integration subsidiary in Owego, N.Y., a $49.8 million order for six low-rate initial production III MH-60R multimission helicopters. The contracted work, to be done in Owego, is to be finished in June 2008. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. In May, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. received a $24.8 million order for 12 MH-60Rs (DAILY, May 26).
BACK HOME: Aircraft simulator builder CAE will move its head office from Toronto to Montreal, which President and CEO Robert E. Brown said would bring it "back to its birthplace." CAE was founded in Montreal in 1947 and employs more than 2,800 workers in the area, the company said. CAE shareholders approved the move last week.
The U.S. Navy's MH-53E Sea Dragons, originally designed to pull mine countermeasures equipment through the water, will be modified for Marine Corps assault support in Iraq under a program started in February, the Naval Air Systems Command said June 27. Of the first eight Sea Dragons to be modified under a $5 million initial effort, four belonging to Helicopter Support Squadron Four were otherwise going to be decommissioned.
SHARE REPURCHASE: Boeing's board of directors has approved a new share repurchase program and declared a second-quarter dividend of 25 cents a share, the company said June 27. The authorization is for the repurchase of up to 40 million shares, or about 5% of the company's outstanding shares of common stock. The repurchases will be used for general corporate purposes, including Boeing's share-based plans and other employee stock benefit plans.
