About 400 units of the U.S. Army's new Land Warrior System, provided by General Dynamics Corp., will be fielded in 2006, Army Staff Sgt. Reuben Romero said on Capitol Hill last week. The system, which integrates electronic systems with body armor and uniforms (DAILY, May 21, 2004), is being tested at Fort Benning, Ga., home of the Army's infantry school. In February, the Army merged its dismounted soldier activities, consolidating its Land Warrior and Future Force Warrior advanced technology demonstration programs, both of which already were under General Dynamics.
Turkish Aerospace Industries has signed an agreement to cooperate with Italy's Aermacchi on the new M-311 turbofan basic trainer program, the company said, part of its move to sign up partners to build the aicraft. The companies will create a joint engineering team, look for development opportunities and consider work-sharing on the program, Aermacchi said. TAI will be the exclusive partner for developing and producing some M-311 parts.
Lockheed Martin will build a close-combat tactical trainer reconfigurable vehicle simulator for the U.S. Army, the company said June 21. The work will be done under a $3.7 million U.S. Army contract, with the first system to be delivered to the service in six months. The contract has two additional one-year production options.
The U.S. Air Force probably will launch a tanker aircraft modernization effort in fiscal 2008 if a study of refueling options recommends pursuing such a program, the service's top official said June 21.
P-3 PROGRAM: L-3 Communications' Integrated Systems subsidiary has been awarded a contract worth up to $104 million for the U.S. Navy P-3 aircraft's sustainment, modification and improvement program, the company said June 21. The initial award under the contract, which has four one-year options, is a $5.1 million task order for fabrication and delivery of eight special structural inspection kits (SSI-Ks).
The Senate Appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice and science endorsed a $16.4 billion fiscal 2006 spending bill for NASA on June 21, including $250 million to continue preparations for a possible space shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
ABRAMS UPGRADES: General Dynamics Land Systems has been awarded a $141 million contract to upgrade 60 U.S. Army M1A2 Abrams tanks, the company said June 21. The tanks will receive the System Enhancement Package configuration, which has the latest command and control system, second-generation thermal sights and improved armor. The work will begin in July and take place in Lima, Ohio; Anniston, Ala.; Sterling Heights, Mich.; Tallahassee, Fla.; Scranton, Pa.; and Fort Hood, Texas. The tanks are set to be returned to the Army in January 2008.
SPEEDING UP: A $73 million contract modification award to General Atomics Aeronautical Systems will speed delivery of 17 Predator unmanned aerial vehicles and produce 15 more, along with related equipment and spares, the Defense Department said June 21. The work, under a modification awarded by the Air Force, is to be completed by September 2008.
Acting U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Dominguez believes the service has a pretty good handle on how to fix its troubled space programs, but he expects more problems to surface before those systems are completed. "There will continue to be challenges because space programs take a long time to develop," Dominguez said June 21 at a Capitol Hill breakfast seminar.
A top U.S. Marine Corps general cast doubt on the future of the U.S. military's high-mobility multipurpose-wheeled vehicles, collectively called the Humvee, as insurgents' roadside bombs in Iraq have exploited their lighter-armored, flat-bottomed weaknesses. "If this is the threat of the future, then the long-term utility of the Humvee has to be questioned," Gen. William Nyland, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, told members of the House Armed Services Committee on June 21.
Goodrich Corp. has shifted the roles of the executives who lead its three business units, a move that is conducted periodically to give the leaders broader and deeper experience, according to the company's director of media relations. The shift, which is effective immediately, involves these changes: * Jack Carmola, who had been president of Engine Systems, will now lead the Airframe Systems unit.
LE BOURGET, France - Lockheed Martin Corp. says it plans to begin conducting tests in about six to nine months to determine whether a submarine could retrieve an unmanned aerial vehicle at sea. The concept for the recovery system calls for a submerged Trident submarine to deploy a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) after a UAV has splashed into the water. After the ROV connects the aircraft to a cable on the submarine, the submarine is supposed to pull the UAV into one of its missile tubes.
ARMY AM General L.L.C., South Bend, Ind., was awarded on June 13, 2005, a $120,817,716 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for M1114 High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle Chassis. Work will be performed in South Bend, Ind., and is expected to be completed by Oct. 31, 2005. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole source contract initiated on July 17, 2000. The U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (DAAE07-01-C-S001).
Ericsson Microwave Systems said it has added protection against mortar and rocket attacks to its Giraffe Agile Multi-Beam air defense radar system. The system's fast antenna rotation allows it to scan the incoming weapon "several times early in its flight, allowing computation of the type of weapon that fired it and a full 3D picture of its trajectory," the company said in a statement, giving troops in the impact area a 25-second warning.
Polish airmen recently underwent training to fly the Lockheed Martin-built F-16 Fighting Falcon that their country will be receiving during the Sentry White Falcon 2005 exercise in Poland, the U.S. Air Force said. Airmen from the Illinois Air National Guard's 183rd Fighter Wing were in Poznan, Poland, last week with six F-16s for training with MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-22 jets during a U.S. European Command exercise that ended June 17.
DOCKED: On June 19, a Progress M-53 ferry spacecraft successfully docked to the International Space Station. Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev played an important role in the procedure, as the usual automatic procedure was aborted at the rendezvous phase due to lost communication between the Flight Control Center in Korolyov, Moscow region, and one of the Russian ground space communication stations. Krikalev used the Telerobotically Operated Rendezvous Unit to bring Progress safely to the rear berth of the station's service module.
IEDS: The Senate Armed Services Committee is scheduled June 21 to host a closed briefing on the nature of evolving improvised explosive devices and the Defense Department's approach to addressing them. IEDs continue to plague U.S. military personnel in Iraq, with insurgents changing tactics seemingly as fast as new technologies are introduced, Pentagon officials have described.
NASA should review its test operations support contract award to Sverdrup Technology Inc. for work at two field centers, and should possibly hold a new competition, the Government Accountability Office said June 20. NASA awarded Sverdrup the work, which consolidated previously separate contracts for test operations at the Stennis Space Center, Miss., and Marshall Space Flight Center, Ala.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is scaling back some of the requirements for the High Altitude Airship (HAA) in hopes of getting the weight-challenged project back on track, MDA officials said June 20. While the demonstration of an HAA prototype now is slated to last 35 days, five days longer than previously planned, the prototype's altitude of 65,000 feet will be reduced to 60,000 feet and its 4,000-pound payload will shrink to 500 pounds.
COUNTING DOWN: Sea Launch has begun a 72-hour countdown in preparation for the June 23 launch of the Intelsat Americas-8 satellite from the company's Odyssey Launch Platform at the equator, the company said June 20. The satellite, built by Space Systems/Loral, will be launched on a Zenit-3SL rocket.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The annual Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (CWID) is again showing its value as a test bed for new information exchange capabilities, according to one general. CWID 2005 is demonstrating industry-developed command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) equipment designed to enhance interoperability between the military, first responders, and strategic allies of the United States.
NASA has stood up its new Program Analysis & Evaluation Office, which Administrator Michael Griffin has established to give him strategic advice as NASA nears critical decision points in its efforts to complete the space station, retire the space shuttle and execute its vision for space exploration. The PA&E office is led by former NASA Deputy Chief of Staff Scott Pace. It will "help the administrator make hopefully better decisions than would otherwise be the case without us," Pace told reporters during a teleconference June 20.
