The U.S. Navy said the Advanced Hawkeye aircraft now in development will be designated E-2D, an indication of the capability of its radar compared with the one carried by the current Hawkeye, called E-2C. The service's next carrier-based battle management, early warning and command and control plane is set to enter service in 2011, and will be used in maritime, littoral and overland operations, including missile defense, Naval Air Systems Command said March 14.
The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), has warned European countries and their defense industry companies that Congress would respond to their possible sale of arms to China. "We think it's an unwise move, but it's not going to be without a response from Congress," Hunter said March 10 while standing with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Capitol Hill after a HASC hearing. "That will be manifested in legislation. It relates to our relationship with European defense companies."
RECRUITING: The U.S. Army is having trouble meeting its recruiting goals for the Army National Guard, Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey said. The Army has reached 74% of its recruitment goals for the Guard this year, while hitting 94% and 90% of its goals for active duty and Reserve forces. To address the problem, the Army has boosted the number of recruiters from 9,000 to 12,000 across the board and increased incentives, Harvey said. Gen. Pete Schoomaker, U.S. Army chief of staff, said, "we have more than satisfactory tools for this.
MOSCOW - Russia's federal space agency, Roscosmos, announced on March 11 that Nikolay Sevastianov has been nominated as president of aerospace contractor Energia, a move that could have far-reaching implications for the future of the country's rocket and space industry. Energia is Russia's major contractor for its manned space program. It builds Soyuz and Progress spacecraft and is responsible for Russian flight operations, a function usually performed by government space agencies in the West.
The U.S. Army has made progress in speeding up the delivery of critical equipment to soldiers in Operation Iraqi Freedom, said Claude M. Bolton Jr., assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology.
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has called on the Defense Department to resist Senate efforts to make sure the previous Boeing air tanker contract with the U.S. Air Force is competed, and reiterated that he would fight against such a move again this year.
ARMY McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Co., Mesa, Ariz., was awarded on March 7, 2005, a $24,818,361 firm-fixed-price contract for Contractor Logistics Support Depot Repair. Work will be performed in Mesa, Ariz., and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2006. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole source contract initiated on March 7, 2005. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (DAAH23-00-C-0001). AIR FORCE
NEW DELHI - Global Positioning System components provider NovAtel Inc. of Calgary, Canada, has received an order from Waltham, Mass.-based Raytheon Co. for Space Based Augmentation System equipment in support of the Indian Geostationary Earth Orbit Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) program, NovAtel said. Financial terms were not disclosed. The equipment is set to be delivered in the first half of this year.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has awarded a contract to the Boeing Co. to tweak the ability of the Airborne Laser (ABL) to target ballistic missiles, a Defense Department official said March 14. The award continues work begun under an earlier technology insertion contract, the DOD official told The DAILY. The official declined to reveal how the ABL's targeting capability would be improved, saying such details are classified.
The U.S. Navy's EA-18G program has successfully demonstrated a key technology that will allow the electronic attack aircraft to conduct voice communications with friendly forces while simultaneously jamming enemy communications, industry officials said March 14.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) of San Diego has completed its Extended Range Multi-Purpose (ER/MP) systems capability demonstration (SCD) as part of the first phase of a future Army unmanned aerial vehicle program competition, the company said. GA-ASI, leading teammates AAI Corp. of Hunt Valley, Md., and Sparta Inc. of Lake Forest, Calif., demonstrated its Warrior aircraft at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. The Warrior is a derivative of the Predator UAV.
The White House on March 11 announced the nomination of Johns Hopkins University physicist and former In-Q-Tel President Mike Griffin to be the next administrator of NASA. The nomination ends months of speculation over who would be chosen to fill the post vacated by former Administrator Sean O'Keefe, who announced his intention to leave NASA in mid-December and began serving as chancellor of Louisiana State University last month (DAILY, Dec. 14).
Progress on determining which of the U.S. military services are going to be in charge of which aspects of unmanned aerial vehicles, including development, has "started to take off" in joint service discussions in the past few weeks, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Jan C. Huly told reporters March 10.
C-130 AMP: By late April, the U.S. Air Force plans to finish studying whether it would be feasible to recompete the C-130 Avionics Modernization Program (AMP), a service spokesman says. The Government Accountability Office recently called for the study, saying the AMP competition, which Boeing won in 2001, was tainted by Darleen Druyun, who began talking with Boeing about a job while still serving as an Air Force acquisition official (DAILY, Feb. 25).
LET THEM KNOW: Industry teams vying to build NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) have until March 15 to notify NASA centers in writing if they would like to partner with them on CEV work. The agency has decided that NASA centers can work with CEV contractors, but only on a nonexclusive basis. NASA released the final request for proposals for the CEV on March 1, and the deadline for submissions is May 2. The agency plans to award two three-year CEV contracts by September and downselect to a single prime contractor in late 2008.
OUTSIDE OPTIONS: Two aerospace and defense analysts say there is a good chance that Boeing Co. will go outside the company to find a new president and CEO to replace ousted head Harry Stonecipher. "Boeing would need to go outside to effect cultural changes," Herb Finster, senior partner and defense analyst at McKenna, Long and Aldridge, tells The DAILY.
Armor Holdings Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla., has received a $35 million order to provide the U.S. Army with a new armoring system for M1151 and M1152 Humvees, the company said March 11. The order was issued under a teaming agreement by military parts supplier AM General of South Bend, Ind. The Humvees will be armored to specified levels during production and fitted so that additional add-on armor can be quickly installed in the field with limited tools and manpower, the company said.
COMPETING LASERS: Military officials expect "in the next few months" to see three competing systems under the Joint High Power Solid State Laser program demonstrate close to 25 kilowatts of power "with the potential of good beam quality over relevant shot times," according to James B. Engle, Air Force deputy assistant secretary for science, technology and engineering. The Air Force, the High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office and the Army jointly fund the laser program.
March 17 - 18 -- Grid Networks, "Net-Centric Operations in the Emerging Global Information Grid," Sheraton National Hotel, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.technologytraining.com. 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.
Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's homeland security subcommittee, on March 10 said that while the Bush Administration's $966 million fiscal 2006 budget request for the Coast Guard's Deepwater recapitalization program represents "significant growth, it is also accompanied by numerous questions and concerns."
RADIOS CONTRACT: Harris Corp. of Rochester, N.Y., has been awarded a contract worth up to $75 million to supply the U.S. Marine Corps with Harris Falcon(R) II HF radios, spares and training, the company said. The AN/PRC-150(C) is the only HF radio with embedded communications security that has been certified for transmission of U.S. classified information, the company said.
A U.S. Air Force industry day slated this month on the broad mission of airborne electronic attack reflects recent Defense Department emphasis on the importance of electronic warfare, according to one analyst. At the March 22 event in Arlington, Va., Air Force officials will outline an effort to identify technology gaps in current airborne electronic attack plans and speed solutions to fill them.
PRAGUE - A new privately owned French aerospace, defense and telecommunications group has emerged after electronic equipment maker Sagem successfully bid to merge with state-run aerospace propulsion and equipment company Snecma. The two companies said March 9 that the merger would create a large international high technology group once formalities are completed. Sagem's successful offer for Snecma shares represented more than 83% of the state-owned company's capital and 94.4% of the shares which could be tendered, the companies announced.
