FINAL MEETING: The Stafford-Covey Return to Flight Task Group has scheduled its final public meeting for May 6 in Webster, Texas. During the meeting the group plans to complete its assessment of NASA's responses to the return-to-flight safety recommendations made by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Originally scheduled for March 31, the group postponed the meeting to await more data from the space shuttle program.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) lobbied the Pentagon's top acquisition official on April 25 to release $84.4 million earmarked for General Dynamics Corp.'s Bath Iron Works for the design and advanced procurement of the second DD(X) destroyer. "This funding is critical to sustaining progress in the DD(X) program, including efforts to retain the skilled surface combatant shipbuilding design work force at Bath Iron Works," Collins said in a statement.
Integrated Systems Solutions Inc. of Pomfret, Md., has been tapped for $64 million in research and development services to increase the government's understanding of lighter-than-air platforms and their usage for sensor technologies, the Navy said late April 25.
Aurora Flight Sciences' GoldenEye-50 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) made its first long-awaited in-flight transitions from vertical to horizontal flight and back again during test flights in Manassas, Va., last week.
Israel has requested 100 Lockheed Martin-built Guided Bomb Unit-28s (GBU-28s) for use on its F-15 aircraft, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said April 26. The sale, which could be worth as much as $30 million, would include BLU-113A/B penetration warheads, WGU-36A/B guidance control units, FMU-143H/B bomb fuzes and BSG-92/B airfoil group guides, as well as support equipment, spares and technical and logistics support, DSCA notified Congress.
Retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Lester L. Lyles, former commander of Air Force Materiel Command, will chair a new committee to advise NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.
The United States and Turkey have signed a letter of offer and acceptance (LOA) for a $1.1 billion upgrade of Turkey's F-16s, fighter aircraft maker Lockheed Martin said April 26. The upgrade will create "a robust, common avionics configuration for Turkey's fleets of F-16 Block 40 and Block 50 aircraft," Lockheed Martin said. "Other countries have expressed interest in a similar upgrade package for their F-16s," June Shrewsbury, vice president of F-16 programs for Lockheed Martin, said in a statement.
CACI International Inc. of Arlington, Va., said it was awarded a $9.4 million prime contract to provide C4ISR support services for the Naval Surface Warfare Center-Dahlgren Division. CACI subcontractors include Sabre Systems Inc. and Global Technology and Management Resources. The CACI contract, for up to five years, was awarded under the Naval Sea Systems Command's 15-year, $50 billion SeaPort Enhanced contract vehicle.
In a speech on the floor of the Senate April 26, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) called upon President Bush to help find money for further servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope. "I want the president to look at those NASA pictures," Mikulski said, referring to new images released by the agency to commemorate Hubble's 15th anniversary. "I want to work with him on a bipartisan basis to find the money to keep Hubble flying and see to the edge of the universe."
A multiyear development effort by the U.S. Defense Department, Harris Corp. and BAE Systems to create a high-speed, aircraft-to-ship, tactical digital link has produced its first production contract and could lead to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of work within a decade. Harris Corp. announced April 25 that the U.S. Navy awarded it a one-year, $7.5 million contract to begin production of the Ku-band data link system, or Common Data Link (CDL) Hawklink, for the MH-60R Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System (LAMPS) helicopter.
Sea Launch Co. successfully launched DIRECTV's Spaceway F1 satellite into orbit on April 26, and early data indicates the spacecraft is in "excellent condition," the company said. The satellite was launched from the company's Odyssey Launch Platform stationed at the equator, carried by a Zenit-3SL booster. A ground station in South Africa acquired the satellite's first signal less than an hour after liftoff. Spaceway F1 is a Boeing 702 model built by Boeing's Satellite Development Center in El Segundo, Calif. It has a design life of 12 years.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has postponed marking up the fiscal 2006 Coast Guard authorization bill to settle member disagreements, a congressional aide told The DAILY. In hearings, committee members have homed in on the service's Deepwater recapitalization program and many have expressed frustration with the White House for not accelerating the effort.
A major review of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system is forecast to wrap up within the next few weeks, an MDA spokesman said April 26. The review, led by Navy Rear Adm. Kathleen Paige, is expected to conclude roughly in early- or mid-May, MDA spokesman Rick Lehner said.
Northrop Grumman announced April 26 that it has achieved milestones for three U.S. military aviation programs: the multiservice F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Navy's E-2D Advanced Hawkeye battle management plane and an upgrade to the Navy's EA-6B Prowler electronic attack plane.
Even with efforts to cut the costs of future submarines and destroyers, the U.S. Navy still would have to spend more every year on shipbuilding efforts than it has on average for the last five years, congressional budget officials have said.
Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) will build a communications satellite for ICO Satellite Management LLC to provide voice and data communications throughout the United States, the company said April 26. The satellite will be based on Space System/Loral's 1300 platform and will operate in the 2 gigahertz frequency band. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
(Editor's note: The following is excerpted from written responses by Adm. Michael G. Mullen, who has been nominated to be chief of naval operations, to written questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mullen testified April 19). Q: What is your view of the extent to which these defense [Goldwater-Nichols Act and Special Operations] reforms have been implemented?
Lockheed Martin Corp.'s net earnings grew 27% in the first quarter of 2005, net sales were up 2%, and its 2005 outlook for sales and earnings per share has been increased, the company said April 26. The company reported net earnings of $369 million, or 83 cents per share, in the first three months of 2005, compared with $291 million, or 65 cents per share, in the first quarter of 2004. Net sales climbed to $8.5 billion from first quarter 2004 sales of $8.3 billion.
Orbital Sciences Corp. said April 26 that it successfully flight-tested the final development vehicle in the U.S. Navy's GQM-163A "Coyote" Supersonic Sea-Skimming Target (SSST) system. The test for the Naval Air Systems Command occurred April 22 at Point Mugu, Calif., and marked the end of the SSST's development and flight-test program, which included seven launches over the last two years, including five guided and two unguided launches (DAILY, March 28).
NAVY FINANCES: The U.S. Navy has outlined four contracts worth a total of as much as $430 million for accounting services to support its financial improvement plan. The service on April 25 announced that Science Applications International Corp. of McLean, Va., was awarded a potential $110 million contract while IBM Business Consulting Services of Fairfax, Va., won another for about $104 million.
Northrop Grumman said it has received a $48.2 million contract from the U.S. Navy for production of 60 BQM-74E aerial targets in 2006. The contract includes an option for 60 more of the systems in 2007, the company said April 25. The subsonic, subscale BQM-74 series was introduced in 1966. The E model was fielded by the U.S. Navy in 1993 and is used to replicate enemy cruise missiles and aircraft for fleet training and to test and evaluate anti-ship and anti-aircraft weapon systems, Northrop Grumman said.
The U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) will call together contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. and other groups working on the Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS) for a terse update ahead of a planned Milestone C decision in December, defense officials have said. Meanwhile, the commanding general of the Special Operations Command, a unique combatant command that buys for its forces as well as trains and equips them, has told senators that the program's "battery problem" is about to be solved and that the ASDS is destined to get "across the finish line."
Boeing has awarded LaBarge Inc. of St. Louis a contract worth more than $1 million to provide wiring harnesses for the X-45C, which Boeing is developing as part of the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) program. LaBarge will build more than 150 wiring harnesses that distribute power and data signals at its facility in Joplin, Mo. The company expects to begin production this month and wrap up in November.
