TRAINING ROUNDS: Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $26 million contract to provide laser-guided training rounds to the U.S. Navy in 2006, the company said May 3. The contract includes four one-year options through March 2009, making the contract worth up to $114 million. The work will be done at Lockheed Martin's Archbald, Pa., facility. More than 45,000 LGTRs have been produced in Archbald since 1990 for the U.S. Navy and international customers. Aircrews can be trained more cheaply with LGTRs than with laser-guided bombs, the company said.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are in the barnstorming days, and small businesses are increasingly important in helping guide the Pentagon and Wall Street in developing them, the U.S. Navy program executive officer for strike weapons and UAVs said May 3. Rear Adm. Timothy L. Heely told the 2005 Navy Opportunity Forum in Reston, Va., that defense officials generally are not able to look too far ahead regarding UAVs. With ongoing personnel reductions and budget pressures, forward-looking personnel often are the first to be shown the door, he said.
Aerosonde is developing an un-manned aerial vehicle that will have much more payload room than its existing UAVs. The new aircraft will be able to field three 10-pound sensors at the same time, compared with the single 10-pound payload that Aerosonde's existing Mark 4.1 UAV can carry and the seven-pound payload capacity of the company's Mark 3.1 UAV, said Peter Bale, a business development manager for the Australian firm.
Three government watchdog groups are urging the Pentagon to proceed with initial fiscal 2006 plans to kill the C-130J Super Hercules program despite a recent Senate vote on the issue. The Project On Government Oversight, National Taxpayers Union and Taxpayers for Common Sense also sent letters April 28 to lawmakers in support of the cancellation action. The groups also chided Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) for shielding a parochial interest - Lockheed Martin Corp. builds the airplane in Marietta, Ga.
EA-18G MODS: The Boeing Co. has begun converting an F/A-18F Super Hornet into EA-1, the first flight-test asset for the U.S. Navy's EA-18G electronic attack aircraft program. The year-long conversion process, which will include installing mission equipment and making final structural modifications, began April 28 in St. Louis when the jet was moved from a final assembly site to a modification facility. Photo courtesy the Boeing Co.
MICROWAVE CONTRACTS: Herley Industries Inc. of Lancaster, Pa., has been awarded two contracts worth $3 million to supply microwave technology for two separate U.S. Defense Department programs, the company said May 2. Under a $1.8 million contract, Herley will supply radio beacons for the U.S. Navy's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft. Herley also will provide Integrated Microwave Assemblies for a Radar Warning Receiver/Electronic Warfare Management System under a $1.2 million contract, the company said.
U.S. Navy officials plan to meet with Canadian and Italian counterparts in mid-May to discuss a possible role for those two countries in the Navy's P-8A Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) program.
Greece is showing fresh interest in the U.S.-led F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Greek representatives received a briefing on the stealthy jet the week of April 25-29, after they requested such a session, program spokeswoman Kathy Crawford said May 2. The briefing was provided by the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
NEW DELHI - The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is set to launch its latest remote sensing satellite, Cartosat-1, and piggyback satellite Hamsat, on May 5. The satellites are to be launched on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center's Sriharikota range in South India. This is the first time a launch vehicle will blast off from the newly built second launch pad at Sriharikota.
SUB WORK: General Dynamics Electric Boat has been awarded a $5.2 million contract modification by the U.S. Navy to perform engineering and technical services on the USS Connecticut attack submarine, the company said May 2. The contract covers additional repairs, maintenance work, and alterations on the sub. Initially awarded in March, the contract has a total value of $80.7 million. The work is being done at Electric Boat's shipyard in Groton, Conn. It is expected to be finished by December 2005.
Armor Holdings Inc. will provide additional up-armored Humvees, Gunner Protection Kits and armor component spare parts under contract modifications from the U.S. Army totaling $19.7 million, the company said April 29. The new orders are for the U.S. Army, Air Force and the Iraqi military. The work will be performed by the company's Aerospace & Defense Group at its Fairfield, Ohio, facilities, and deliveries are to be completed this year. The order is the first to include equipment for Iraq's military, the company said.
Net income soared 83% and sales climbed 10% for Ducommun Inc. in the first quarter of 2005, the company said May 2. Net income for the first quarter of 2005 was $4.1 million, or 40 cents per share, compared with $2.2 million, or 22 cents per share, in the same period last year. Increased sales in Ducommun's military and commercial sectors upped overall sales to $63.8 million, compared with $58.2 million for the first quarter of 2004, the company said.
ARMY PCL Construction Services Inc., Denver, Colo., was awarded on April 22, 2005, a $31,524,000 firm-fixed-price contract for construction of an Army Aviation Support Facility. Work will be performed in Aurora, Colo., and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2006. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were an unknown number of bids solicited via the World Wide Web on Jan. 21, 2005, and three bids were received. The U.S. Property & Fiscal Office, Aurora, Colo., is the contracting activity (W912LC-05-C-0001).
The Executive Control Board of the National Shipbuilding Research Program (NSRP) has selected 11 new Ship Production Panel projects, totaling $756,000 and designed to lower the costs of U.S. Navy shipbuilding and ship repair, the Naval Sea Systems Command announced April 29. Under a joint funding agreement established in 1998, half of NSRP programs are funded by NAVSEA, with the other half funded by various project teams. The NSRP is a collaboration of NAVSEA and U.S. shipyards.
In approving the fiscal 2006 budget resolution, Congress last week also agreed to nonbinding language that disapproved of a potential U.S. Navy competition between Northrop Grumman Corp. and General Dynamics Corp. to build the DD(X) destroyer.
NEW DELHI - India plans to set up a Strategic Aerospace Command to use space for network-centric warfare in the future, Indian air force (IAF) Chief Air Marshal S.P. Tyagi said. "The vision document already exists," Tyagi told The DAILY. He added that the command for futuristic warfare has to be developed with the help of the Indian Space Research Organisation. He did not give a timeline or say how the air force planned to move forward on the concept.
Spacehab Inc. has sold the Spacehab Payload Processing Facility (SPPF) to Tamir Silvers LLC for $4.8 million, while at the same time inking an agreement to lease the facility back for at least the next five years. Located just south of Cape Canaveral, Fla., the 58,000-square foot facility is where all of Spacehab's cargo modules are integrated and tested before delivery to NASA's nearby Kennedy Space Center for integration with the space shuttle.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin announced late May 2 that they have agreed to create a joint venture to combine the production, engineering, test and launch operations of U.S. government launches of Boeing Delta and Lockheed Martin Atlas rockets. The venture, named United Launch Alliance, will cut the cost of meeting national security and NASA needs for expendable launch vehicles, saving $100-150 million a year, the companies said.
NASA is considering several alternative methods for preventing ice from forming on the space shuttle's external tank that could break loose and threaten the orbiter during launch, in addition to the current favored method of installing heaters.
