The Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman's Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. a $558.7 million contract modification to continue its CVN-21 design effort. The company was cleared for long-lead time material procurement and non-nuclear advance construction, as well as system development, engineering services and feasibility studies for the future aircraft carrier. The work is to be finished by December 2006.
Arianespace successfully launched two satellites late Nov. 16, carrying DirecTV's Spaceway 2 direct-broadcast satellite and the Telkom 2 communications satellite for PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia to orbit. The mission represented the heaviest dual payload ever launched, Arianespace said. The launch was conducted from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, using Arianespace's heavier-lift Ariane 5 ECA booster.
The fiscal 2006 defense spending measure has become a possible vehicle for several unrelated legislative packages, according to Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), the top House Democratic appropriator. Obey said on the House floor Nov. 17 that Republican leaders were considering attaching additional Hurricane Katrina spending and other measures under the guise that the must-pass defense appropriations usually receives strong final support across Capitol Hill.
MILESTONE: Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Navy successfully completed the critical design review of the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft, the company said Nov. 17. The company can now complete production of the two test aircraft. Its Integrated Systems sector is the prime contractor under a $2 billion system development and demonstration contract.
The House on Nov. 16 passed a bill to authorize the Navy to enter into a contract for the nuclear refueling and complex overhaul of the Pacific Fleet aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. The bill, proposed by shipbuilding advocate Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-Va.) and cosponsored by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), would allow $89 million in fiscal 2006 funds to be used to start work on the contract. Additional amounts could be obligated this fiscal year.
Italy's defense ministry and the U.S. Defense Department have signed an agreement establishing a partnership for the joint development of the AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM), Alliant Techsystems said Nov. 16. Italy will provide around $20 million in developmental funding and will make "several million dollars worth of nonfinancial contributions, including surrogate targets/simulators," the company said.
The draft request for proposals (RFP) for spiral 5 of the Army's part of the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS-A) likely will not be issued in January, as previously expected, and could be pushed back to next spring, according to DCGS-A official Donald Porter Sr.
Lee Van Arsdale has been appointed CEO effective Jan. 1, 2006. Ignacio Balderas, the current CEO, has been named to the board of directors and chief development officer.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee's airland panel, called for greater transparency and accountability in Defense Department acquisition at a Nov. 15 hearing and warned that weapons programs and systems likely will face deeper cuts, if not elimination. "We have unsustainable defense spending," said McCain, a vocal critic of DOD acquisition. "We cannot sustain the number of programs that we have in the program of record."
In a frank assessment of the U.S. military's continuing inability to provide its wealth of tactical intelligence to even brigade-level ground forces, the National Reconnaissance Office's new deputy director for national systems operations said the military services must better train and equip their forces.
Raytheon will provide APS-134LW radar hardware to Toshiba for use in Japan's U-125A search and rescue aircraft, the company said. The company's Space and Airborne Systems unit will deliver seven receiver-exciter-synchronizer processors and four antenna gimbals to Toshiba under an $8.6 million contract. Raytheon and Toshiba are partnered on the APQ-2 radar, based on the APS-134LW. Toshiba provides the radar transmitter and antenna reflector for the system, which is installed on the U-125A, a modified Hawker 800.
KEY FUNDING: Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) amended the Senate's fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill to require the Defense Department to provide annual budget information for "key military equipment," including plans to fully fund acquisition and modernization. Her amendment did not define what equipment would qualify as "key." House and Senate negotiators must now work out differences between their bills.
Allen V. Compito has been named principal director of the Space Systems Directorate, National Systems Group, at the Chantilly, Va., office. Kenneth B. Elliott III has been named principal engineering specialist in the Information Assurance, Engineering and Technology Group in the Columbia, Md., office. Michael W. Fortanbary has been appointed principal engineer in the office of the senior vice president, National Systems Group, at Chantilly.
The NOTAR (no tail rotor) design of MD Helicopters' Explorer differentiates it from the competition in the Army's Light Utility Helicopter procurement, according to company officials. The lack of a tail rotor will make the aircraft safer for soldiers to operate around and easier to maintain, according to MDHI Chief Technical Officer Andy Logan. Twenty-five percent of helicopter accidents are related to tail rotors, the company says.
James M. Simon Jr., has joined the board of directors of parent company Orbimage Holdings Inc. Simon is a former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Administration and the founding director of the Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments in Reston, Va.
Additional billings on a Phase II Small Business Innovative Research contract with the U.S. Air Force drove up revenue for Pasadena, Calif.-based Viaspace Inc. in the third quarter of 2005, the company said Nov. 16. But the company's net loss grew more than seven times larger. The firm, which commercializes NASA and Defense Department technologies, reported third quarter '05 revenue of $93,271, compared with $50,000 for the same period in 2004. But its net loss grew to $577,402 compared with $80,461 in the third quarter of '04.
SUFFOLK, Va. -- Lockheed Martin says business is already booming at its Center for Innovation, which opened its doors here in March to explore ways to improve information sharing among warfighters.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is expected to conduct the next intercept attempt of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (Aegis BMD) system as early as Nov. 17, sources said Nov. 16. MDA previously had indicated that the test would occur sometime in mid-November (DAILY, Aug. 22).
