Power systems and engineering company Rolls-Royce has won a $260 million service and support contract for gas turbines powering 27 ships in service with the United Kingdom's Royal Navy as well as the French, Belgian and Royal Netherlands navies.
A helicopter programs report by a United Kingdom Parliament committee found good news and bad news. Formation of the Joint Helicopter Command in 1991 has been a plus, reducing duplication of capabilities across the military services, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said in a report on battlefield helicopters released March 18. But there still is a gap of as much as 38% in the number of helicopters available versus those needed, the report said.
ARMY Cox Construction Co., Vista, Calif., was awarded on March 11, 2005, an $18,933,000 firm-fixed-price contract for Construction of a new Command and Control Facility. Work will be performed at Fort Irwin, Calif., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 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. 12, 2005, and four bids were received. The U.S. Army Engineer District, Los Angeles, Calif., is the contracting activity (W912PL-05-C-0003).
DALLAS WORK: The U.S. Navy has awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat a $5.7 million contract modification to perform additional routine maintenance work on the USS Dallas (SSN-700), a Los Angeles-class attack submarine. The work, which consists of repairs, maintenance and alterations, began in February and should be completed in July. Initially awarded in August 2004, the contract has a total value of $22.1 million (DAILY, Dec. 21, 2004).
The launch of a test satellite for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) has been delayed for about 16 months due to sensor problems, according to the U.S. Air Force. The Visible Infared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which is being developed by Raytheon Co. to measure such things as sea surface temperature and ocean color, has experienced hardware glitches, causing the October 2006 launch of the test satellite to be moved to about February 2008.
VSE ORDERS: Alexandria, Va.-based VSE Corp. said March 18 that it was awarded the first three delivery orders totaling $44.1 million under a five-year U.S. Navy contract announced last September (DAILY, Sept. 29, 2004) for ship systems. Under the contract, VSE provides engineering and technical services to support Navy maintenance, overhaul, repair and alteration of systems aboard ships. The total contract could be worth more than $1 billion, the company has said.
FOUND IN TRANSLATION: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking technology proposals for an effort called Global Autonomous Language Exploitation (GALE), aimed at eliminating the need for linguists and analysts to provide translations and distillations of information for military personnel. GALE software will absorb, analyze and interpret huge volumes of speech and text in multiple languages, according to DARPA.
Honeywell is looking at a combination of technologies to make its T55-series engines more resistant to sand contamination as it positions itself for the upcoming competition to provide the engine for the Navy's CH-53X heavy-lift helicopter. After several hundred hours of use in sandy environments such as Iraq, contamination can cause the smaller blades in helicopter turbine engines to wear down to a "nub," according to Rich Douglas, directory of military propulsion for Honeywell's engines division.
UNDERSEA WARFARE: SYS Technologies has been awarded a $1.6 million contract to develop the Undersea Warfare Decision Support System (USW-DSS) for the U.S. Navy, the company said March 21. The system aims to provide an integrated, near real-time, net-centric anti-submarine warfare and mine warfare command and control capability. The Navy also is planning how to spend $600 million in requested funds to design an undersea superiority system, which would generate new ideas that entail off-board sensors and systems (DAILY, Feb. 18).
On March 18 the crew of STS-114 tested some of the equipment they will use during the space shuttle's return-to-flight mission, NASA announced. The Payload Crew Equipment Interface Test took place at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The astronauts tested equipment for their three scheduled spacewalks and inspected the cargo containers installed in the Italian-built Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, dubbed Raffaello.
The first four VXX presidential replacement helicopters put into service will be manufactured at AgustaWestland's plant in Yeovil, United Kingdom, before production is transferred to the Bell Helicopter facility in Amarillo, Texas, program officials said March 21.
WEAPONS FUNDING: The U.S. Defense Department should aggressively modernize its weapon systems now because support for funding such programs will diminish once operations in Iraq and elsewhere wind down and the military assumes a lower profile, says Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee's defense panel. "The minute this war's over, the money's going to dry up," Murtha says. The federal budget deficit "is going to drive everything that happens."
March 21 - 22 -- 13th Annual Conference on Quality in the Space and Defense Industries, "Strategies for Mission Success," Radisson At The Port Hotel & Conference Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla. For more information call (254) 776-3550, email [email protected] or go to http://www.asdnet.org/cqsdi. March 21 - 22 -- AIAA Defense 2005, Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.aiaa.org/events/defense.
A U.S. Air Force-sponsored Airborne Electronic Attack (AEA) industry day slated for March 22 in Arlington, Va., will be a time for industry to take a closer look at what it can contribute to the military's electronic warfare mission, a congressional staffer said. "Because the AEA capabilities are spread across so many industries and all the services, and there's so many people involved, it's very helpful to bring them together and focus on it in this way," Ken Miller, an aide to Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), told The DAILY on March 17.
ANTI-IED: The U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command has awarded iRobot Corp. of Burlington, Mass., a contract worth more than $18 million for its explosive ordnance disposal robots for "rapid deployment" to help the U.S. military defend against improvised explosive devices. The Navy says the contract was issued under 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(2), "Unusual and Compelling Urgency," although it was competitively procured with two proposals solicited and two proposals received. The company says it will deliver more than 150 robots to the Navy by the end of the year.
NO GROUNDING: The U.S. Navy won't retire air wings or ground aircraft early due to the proposed retirement of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy, Navy officials say, although proponents of maintaining 12 or more aircraft carriers have warned it could happen. The Navy does have a plan to move to fewer platforms, integrate Marine Corps and Navy aircraft, dissolve five squadrons and cut acquisition by 1,296 planes.
The Naval Sea Systems Command Warfare Center and the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory have electro-mechanically integrated commercial-off-the-shelf fire control system components onto two crew-served weapon systems: the M2 Heavy Barrel .50-caliber machine gun and the 40mm high-velocity grenade launcher.
DEEPWATER PLAN: Expect an overdue rebaselining budget plan on the Coast Guard's Deepwater acquisition program by March 25, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thomas Collins promises lawmakers. The plan will provide a detailed, yet sweeping assessment of the service's legacy assets and new homeland security and defense requirements, he says.
DIRECTV's Spaceway F1 satellite has arrived at the Sea Launch home port in Long Beach, Calif., where it will undergo final preparations for a late April launch, satellite builder Boeing said March 16. Spaceway F1, based on a Boeing 702 model satellite, will be launched on a Sea Launch Zenit-3SL vehicle. It is one of four Boeing-built spacecraft DIRECTV plans to launch over the next three years as part of a company expansion.
NASA recently completed a series of flight-tests in which two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) autonomously collaborated to avoid obstacles in flight. The project, known as the Networked UAV Teaming Experiment, uses principles derived from studies of fish and bird motions to simultaneously guide the vehicles around obstacles. NASA is investigating cooperative flight strategies for airborne monitoring and surveillance of natural disasters as well as atmospheric sampling.
NEAR-SPACE: The Air Force Space Battlelab wrapped up flight-tests in its Combat Skysat near-space communications demonstration on March 16 and plans to transition the program to Air Force Space Command this summer for possible procurement and deployment. The flights demonstrated the capability to extend the range of a standard handheld Army radio out to 400 miles by attaching it to an inexpensive balloon, according to the battlelab. Space Data Corp. of Chandler, Ariz., provided the balloon and integrated the payload, which together cost slightly less than $20,000.
PEGASUS REBORN: Northrop Grumman is considering taking its X-47A Pegasus unmanned demonstrator out of storage and resuming flights to reduce risk on the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) program. In 2003 the company briefly flew the company-funded Pegasus in support of the Navy's Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV-N) effort.
UP AND AWAY: Acting Air Force Secretary Peter Teets has announced his pending resignation, effective March 25. Industry and defense officials had expected the departure. Observers says Teets had planned to leave earlier, but James Roche's January departure as secretary prompted him to stay for the annual posture hearings before Congress. Navy Secretary Gordon England is expected to be nominated by President Bush to be the next Air Force secretary.
MUOS REVIEW: The Mobile User Objective System team led by Lockheed Martin Corp. has successfully completed the system preliminary design review (PDR) with the U.S. Navy, the company said March 17. The PDR kicks off a design and development phase for the space and ground segments to ensure the system will meet or exceed requirements for a new narrowband tactical satellite communications system. The first MUOS satellite is scheduled for on-orbit handover to the Navy in 2010 along with the entire ground system.
