Steven E. Reid has been named vice president of unmanned aerial vehicle systems. Joseph G. Thomas has been appointed senior vice president of unmanned systems.
UCAV vs. JSF: The U.S. Defense Department's original goal of building unmanned combat air vehicles for one-third the cost of an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is no longer feasible given current requirements, according to Rick Ludwig, Northrop Grumman's director of Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) business strategy and development. "They're asking this airplane to do the same things that manned aircraft do," Ludwig said at a press briefing in Washington March 15.
Democratic appropriators will fight to remove $8.5 million proposed in President Bush's fiscal 2006 budget to finish a study of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said March 16. "Don't reopen this nuclear door," Feinstein said on the Senate floor. "Those of us who are appropriators will once again try to remove this funding from the budget."
Data Link Solutions (DLS) will make the Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS) compliant with Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) software under an $82 million contract. The product will be called MIDS JTRS, said Rockwell Collins, which owns DLS along with BAE Systems. Fighter aircraft, tanker/transports, command and control aircraft and helicopters are potential users of the MIDS JTRS terminal, along with maritime and fixed ground-base sites, DLS said.
GLOBAL HAWK: An operational assessment (OA) of the Global Hawk A model has been delayed, the Defense Department said late March 16. The assessment originally was to be completed in time to support a DOD review of the unmanned aerial vehicle program in March, but the OA now is planned for completion later this year. DOD did not give a reason for the delay. The Air Force is buying seven A models and is midway through developing the larger, more capable B model, which has been grappling with cost increases (DAILY, March 16).
RFP DELAY: Release of a request for proposals (RFP) for NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, series R (GOES-R) has been delayed from March 15 to about March 22, NOAA said in a notice on FedBizOpps. The delay is due to "internal review scheduling conflicts," NOAA said.
THEY'RE BACK: The House Science Committee on March 17 will consider several reintroduced bills that would try to promote efforts to find near-Earth asteroids, improve the energy efficiency of the U.S. metals industry and strengthen U.S. supercomputing capabilities. The bills - H.R. 1023, H.R. 1158 and H.R. 28 - passed the 108th House in nearly identical form.
Despite having an alternative acquisition strategy, the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program has built-in checks and balances to protect against wasting money, Army officials assured lawmakers on March 16. FCS, expected to cost $120-128 billion through 2025, is being procured under Other Transaction Authority (OTA), exempting it from Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) rules. Although the Army has incorporated some FAR regulations into FCS, the contract still eliminates the Truth-in-Negotiations Act (TINA) and Procurement Integrity Act (PIA).
Navy Adm. Timothy J. Keating, the combatant commander in charge of U.S. homeland defense, is urging Congress to fully fund a demonstration of the military usefulness of the Missile Defense Agency's unmanned, untethered, long-duration High Altitude Airship (HAA) as part of the command's effort to track airborne threats over the country.
Dan Garey is retiring as vice president of human resources and a corporate officer. He is being succeeded by Dan Serbin. Roger Sherrard has been named Automation Group president. Tom Williams has been elected vice president and president of the Instrumentation Group, succeeding Sherrard.
Several prominent Republican senators from shipbuilding states are promoting legislation to allow the U.S. Navy to use advanced appropriations for shipbuilding and provide $14 billion more in the budget, but another powerful colleague has expressed concern over tying down future budgets.
The U.S. Army received authority from the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) on March 15 to proceed with low-rate initial production of an undetermined number of new UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters, an Army spokesman told The DAILY. Though the DAB passed the program's Milestone C, "we don't have the acquisition decision memorandum (ADM) yet, which will spell out the numbers for LRIP. The ADM will probably come out sometime next week," the spokesman said.
NASA has consolidated the management of its wind tunnels under a single program manager based at the agency's headquarters in Washington, who will determine which tunnels will be kept open and how they should be managed. NASA is considering a number of options, according to Victor Lebacqz, the agency's associate administrator for aeronautics. The options include shared ownership and pricing, transfer to management by other entities such as the Defense Department, and other modes of operation.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.K. Ministry of Defence (MOD) are collaborating on a program to determine the usefulness of unmanned combat air systems within future coalition operations, DARPA announced March 16. The effort began in December and is scheduled to end in July 2009. It will culminate in a demonstration involving live and simulated manned and unmanned vehicles from both nations operating in a coalition warfare exercise.
ROOT CAUSE: Boeing and the Air Force have determined the root cause of the premature engine cutoff that marred the first flight of the Delta IV Heavy rocket in December. The culprit was the tank design in the area of the propellant feed line inlet, which restricted fuel flow and caused a cavitation, or bubble, of gaseous fuel that tricked the engine cutoff sensors into thinking the tanks were dry.
Proposed cuts in NASA's fiscal 2006 aeronautics budget could lead to a serious erosion of U.S. economic and national security, witnesses told House lawmakers on March 16. Over the past decade, funding for aeronautics research at NASA has declined by more than half, to about $900 million a year. For FY '06, the agency is requesting $852.3 million, $54 million less than the FY '05 budget. This level would decline another 20% over the next five years under current plans, as NASA diverts personnel and resources to fulfill its space exploration goals.
HELO DELIVERY: The first of 11 Agusta A109 Light Observation Helicopters worth $72 million will be delivered to Malaysia's military in November, said Abdul Aziz Zainal, the country's military chief. The remaining 10 aircraft will be delivered in stages in 2006. The helicopters were ordered in 2003. Although the Agusta A109s are designed for reconnaissance, Malaysia's military plans to fit them with rocket launching systems, the military chief said.
CONSOLIDATION: Federal civil agency acquisition training will be moved inside defense acquisition facilities, the White House Office of Management and Budget announced March 16. The Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI) will be relocated within the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) at Fort Belvoir, Va.
The U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman are coming to terms with cost growth in the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program that has occurred during the transition to the larger RQ-4B model, according to Northrop Grumman officials.
Testifying before a House Appropriations subcommittee on Capitol Hill March 15, Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) asked appropriators to fully support the Bush Administration's $3.6 billion fiscal year 2006 budget request for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
