AMMUNITION CONTRACT: Finland-based Patria Weapons Systems will provide Finland's military with field gun and heavy mortar ammunition under a 40 million euro ($53.9 million) contract, the company said Dec. 28. Patria will produce 120mm Illumination and IR-Smoke and Cargo ammunition for the AMOS motar system, as well as 155mm Cargo ammunition components and ammunition shells. The company also will deliver its Artillery Proximity Fuze.
NAVY Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $35,300,000 ceiling-priced modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-04-C-0001) for the development of the Generation II Mission Computer for the AH-1Z and UH-1Y aircraft under the H-1 Upgrade Program. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be completed in September 2010. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
NASA has selected Muniz Engineering Inc. of Houston to provide electrical systems engineering services to support the Applied Engineering and Technology Directorate at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., NASA said Dec. 22. The company will provide electrical engineering support services for hardware and software for space flight, airborne and ground systems, NASA said. The work includes developing and validating new technologies to enable future space and science missions.
RAPTOR EQUIPMENT: Curtiss-Wright Corp. will provide actuation equipment for the lead flap edge and weapons bay door for the F/A-22 Raptor, the company said Dec. 23. The work is being done under a contract from Lockheed Martin, which could be worth $32.6 million over three years, Curtiss-Wright said.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is reviewing the Defense Department's plans to move missile defense systems from the Missile Defense Agency to the military services, The DAILY has learned.
A new rifle sight that allows a soldier to aim at targets around corners and over or under barriers is being developed by Dayton, Ohio-based MTC Technologies Inc., the company said Dec. 22. The Parascope Urban Combat Sight contains a five-sided prism that enables a soldier to place a laser dot on a target from a variety of off-angle firing positions, the company said. Viewing ports from the rear are for normal firing and from the side for indirect firing. Only the hands and forearms of a soldier are exposed when shooting.
LOCKHEED LEADERS: Lockheed Martin executive June Shrewsbury has been tapped to become vice president of the company's F-16 programs. She is replacing John Bean, who left the company. George Shultz, who has been Lockheed Martin's C-130J deputy program manager, will succeed Shrewsbury as the company's head of strategic airlift, including the C-5.
The Department of Defense has delayed the Milestone B update on the Army's Future Combat Systems until May 2005, citing the program's recent restructuring. In July, the Army delayed by two years the deployment of FCS' first fully equipped unit of action until 2014, but said it will spiral in new technologies before then (DAILY, July 22).
Jan. 10 - 12, 2005 -- GOVCON: 4th Annual Government Convention on Emerging Technologies, "Enabling the National Security Community," Anaheim, Calif. For more information call 1-888-603-8899 or go to www.federalevents.com. Jan. 24 - 26 -- The ION National Technical Meeting, The Catamaran Resort Hotel, San Diego, Calif. For more information go to www.ion.org. Jan. 25 - 26 -- JPEO-CBD Advanced Planning Briefing for Industry, The DC Convention Center, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.ndia.org.
MORE ARMOR: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is calling on the U.S. Army to increase the production of "armor survivability kits" that provide protection on doors, glass and the rear of military vehicles. Feinstein says the Sierra Army Depot, located in Herlong, Calif., is ready to meet that challenge. The depot has completed several orders for vehicle armor and expects to begin producing 625 kits later this month.
The U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery School is asking for industry help in a study of ways to overcome shortfalls in U.S. air and missile defense capability. The school, at Fort Bliss, Texas, lists five "overarching" gaps in a Dec. 22 FebBizOpps notice: * "Cannot defeat the full spectrum of potential air and missile attacks on the U.S. Homeland * Cannot "completely defend ... critical assets against the array of potential ballistic missile, cruise missile, and rockets, artillery and mortar (RAM) threats
SOLD: Honeywell said Dec. 22 that it has completed the sale of its Performance Fibers business to Sun Capital Partners Inc. The business supplies high-tenacity polyester fibers. Honeywell Specialty Materials sold the unit to continue its focus on core businesses that provide advanced fibers and composites, fluorines, electronic materials and other products, the company said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
AURORA CONTRACTS: The European Space Agency plans to issue "invitations to tender for industrial contracts" in February for the European Aurora Mars exploration program, ESA says. Programs to issue tenders include the ExoMars mission, which would include an orbiter, a descent vehicle and a surface rover, and the Mars Sample Return mission. "Industry will be called upon to contribute to the definition of a European space exploration strategy and architecture," ESA says.
NASA has picked six proposals for science payloads to fly on its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the first spacecraft scheduled to be built as part of the agency's vision for space exploration. The LRO is scheduled to launch in the fall of 2008 and map the moon's surface, surveying natural resources and possible landing sites for future astronauts.
JOB INTERVIEWS: Unmanned aerial vehicle maker Aurora Flight Sciences of Manassas, Va., will conduct job interviews on Jan. 6-7 in Starkville, Miss., to staff its new Starkville facility, the company says. Aurora will build the Hunter II UAV in Starkville. The company is seeking a site manager, quality manager, office manager, composite lay-up technicians and assembly technicians. "We look forward to meeting face-to-face with many of the qualified individuals who will help Aurora launch this new venture," says Aurora Flight Sciences President John Langford.
INTERNAL MATTERS: A decision over the future leadership of EADS is among "important questions that will be decided within the group and not in public," an incoming co-CEO of EADS says. Thomas Enders, the company's German co-chair, tells Deutsche Welle German radio that EADS' strength lies in its "European cultural diversity." He and Noel Forgeard of France have been nominated to replace outgoing co-CEOs Rainer Hertrich and Philippe Camus this summer.
Raytheon Co.'s AGM-154C Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW-C) has received the go-ahead from the U.S. Navy to begin full-rate production, the Navy said Dec. 23. The production decision, made by Navy acquisition chief John Young, comes after test officials recently rated JSOW-C as "operationally effective and suitable" (DAILY, Sept. 23, Dec. 15). In operational testing, the glide weapon succeeded in 10 of 11 shots against various targets, including caves, hardened bunkers and radar sites.
International Launch Services (ILS) is expecting moderate growth in commercial satellite launches over the next few years as the high-definition television (HDTV) market grows in the U.S., according to ILS Vice President Frank McKenna.
ARMY DECISION: The U.S. Army probably will make a decision next year on a digital maintenance management system that would capture maintenance information for vehicles and automatically transfer it to a database for easy and quick use by the maintainer, says Greg Burton, director of advanced support concepts for Boeing Phantom Works. "We've been working on systems for rotorcraft, and have demonstrated it on the Chinook. But it could be used on ground vehicles," he says.
C-130J EXPORTS: Canada, India and Portugal are among the potential new customers for the Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules, the newest version of the C-130 transport, a company spokesman says. Australia, Denmark, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States already have bought or are buying the aircraft. By the end of December, Lockheed Martin expects to deliver the last of 22 C-130Js ordered by Italy.
SUB COMMISSIONING: The new submarine Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) will join the U.S. Navy fleet in a commissioning ceremony on Feb. 19 at the Navy submarine base in Groton, Conn., says the boat's builder, General Dynamics Electric Boat. The company delivered the sub to the Navy on Dec. 22. The sub honors the former U.S. president and Navy veteran who is only chief executive who was submarine-qualified.
Unable to secure further funding support from the Army, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has chosen to cancel the third phase of the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) program, an industry source told The DAILY. DARPA and the Army originally planned to split the cost of the $500 million program roughly 50/50, with DARPA paying most of its share in the early years, including two-thirds of the cost of Phase III. However, the Army pulled its support earlier this year to pay for other aviation priorities (DAILY, Sept. 20).
TPF PARTNERS: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is seeking partners to help develop scientific instruments for the Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronagraph (TPF-C) mission, currently slated for launch in 2014 or 2015. The partners can help develop concepts for TPF-C's spectrograph or propose studies of an important element of the spectrograph, such as concepts for extracting and measuring the signal from an extrasolar planet, NASA says. The agency plans to fly two TPF observatories - TPF-C and a free-flying infrared interferometer known as TPF-I.
