Senate leaders this week appointed a working group to examine how to reform the Senate's oversight of homeland security and intelligence as recommended by the 9/11 Commission. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Minority Leader Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) appointed the working group Aug. 24.
NASA is planning to use U.S. Navy radars to monitor space launches after data gathered in a recent launch showed they could be useful when the shuttle returns to flight. A pair of radars on loan from the USNS Pathfinder, an instrumentation ship, were used to track the launch of NASA's MEcury Surface, Space, ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) earlier this month (DAILY, Aug. 5) from Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
One of the issues the Aerospace Industries Association's Technical Operations Council (TOC) is grappling with is the Department of Defense's service and industry requirement to comply with new unique identification (UID) and radio frequency identification (RFID) rules that become effective Jan. 1, said the TOC's new head. "The military services are feeling that the UID requirements are an unfunded mandate," Bruce Mahone, AIA's new assistant vice president of technical operations, told The DAILY Aug. 25.
ARMOR CONTRACT: Cercom Inc., a subsidiary of United Defense Industries, has been awarded a $5.9 million order for interceptor body armor inserts, the company said Aug. 25. The contract was awarded by the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command Acquisition Center, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. Work will be performed at Cercom's Vista, Calif., facility, and is to be completed by May 2005. "We're pleased to be improving troop survivability," Rich Palicka, Cercom president, said in a statement.
Canada's armed forces are conducting a major joint exercise to demonstrate new surveillance technologies and test their capacity to respond to emergencies in the country's sparsely populated far north, the Canadian Department of National Defence said Aug. 24.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - The U.S. Army plans to lead a broad study on the science and technology (S&T) needs of cruise missile defense. Michael Schexnayder, deputy to the commander for research, development and acquisition at the Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), said the study will assess what S&T issues should be focused on in the future, including gaps that should be closed.
Teams led by BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman have been selected by the Department of Homeland Security to begin Phase II of the Counter Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) system development and demonstration program, the DHS announced Aug. 25. Each team will receive about $45 million over 18 months to build and test prototypes to determine whether a viable technology exists to address the use of shoulder-fired missiles against U.S. commercial aircraft.
The U.S. Air Force plans a second presolicitation conference on the Rapid Attack Identification, Detection, and Reporting System (RAIDRS) program. The first conference was held July 20-22. The second is slated for Sept. 15-17. The purpose of the second conference, according to an Aug. 23 FedBizOpps notice from Air Force Space Command's Space and Missile Systems center, is to "continue communication with industry and further define the ... draft request for proposal (RFP)" for RAIDRS Spiral 1, or RS-1.
A retired U.S. Coast Guard commander told a House subcommittee Aug. 25 that is it "inexplicable" that Congress and the White House have been reluctant to accelerate modernization of the Coast Guard's "obsolete" fleet in the wake of the war on terrorism.
ORBITS: SpaceDev has been awarded an extension to a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) to examine satellite orbits that could be used to rapidly deploy microsatellites over areas of interest, the company said Aug. 24. The Poway, Calif.-based company will study deploying a constellation of satellites in elliptical orbits.
The U.S. Air Force's F/A-22 Raptor has completed a major part of a key evaluation phase by finishing various flight maneuvers with other aircraft. "All scenarios that were to be flown during [the fighter jet's initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E)] have been flown," a spokeswoman for the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center (AFOTEC) told The DAILY Aug. 25.
RISK REDUCTION: Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky Aircraft were awarded delivery orders worth $56.5 million each for risk-reduction work on the VXX presidential helicopter replacement program, the Department of Defense announced Aug. 25. Both companies are leading teams to build presidential helicopters, with a decision expected by the end of the year.
The U.S. Navy is set to announce a contract award Aug. 31 on its Extended Range Active Missile Program (ERAM), service officials told The DAILY. The ERAM, also known as the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6), will be compatible with the fire control system on the next-generation DD(X) destroyer and would fill the Navy's requirement for a long-range interceptor. It is intended to defeat aircraft and cruise missiles.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - State-owned weapons manufacturer ZVI has signed an initial $5 million contract with the Czech defense ministry to supply its new 20mm Plamen (Flame) air cannon to the Czech air force. The deal, which provides 20 cannons, 10 pods and 60,000 rounds of ammunition this year for the air force's fleet of Aero Vodochody-built L-159 light attack aircraft, follows a successful series of field trials.
Three major U.S. national security space programs that have been plagued recently by ethical or technical woes are making progress in solving their problems, but challenges remain, a Pentagon official and a government-chartered task force said Aug. 24.
Lockheed Martin-led Team US101, competing for the U.S. Navy's VXX presidential helicopter contract against Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., is offering an aircraft that is just as American-made as its competitor, a company official said Aug. 24.
MOSCOW - Victor Remeshevsky, the deputy head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency, is expected to suggest resuming production of the light Kosmos-3M launch vehicle, both for Russian launches and to serve the international market for small- and mid-sized satellite launches. Remeshevsky spent last week in Omsk, Siberia, discussing prospects for re-establishing Kosmos-3M production at the Omsk Polyot Association. The first Kosmos-3M launched in August 1964, so a decision to restart production would mark the rocket's 40th anniversary.
CUBIC DEFENSE APPLICATIONS is part of a group that has won a large services contract to support the U.S. Joint Force Command's (JFCOM) Joint Experimentation Program (JEXP) and Joint Futures Lab, the company said. CDA is on a 22-member team led by General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems (DAILY, July 13). The five-year contract has four option years with a potential value of $478.6 million. The total value to CDA cannot yet be determined. JFCOM's job is to transform U.S. warfighters into a Joint Fighting Force.
GENERAL DYNAMICS C4 SYSTEMS will develop and deliver 10 prototype tablet computers power by direct liquid fuel cells to the U.S. Air Force, the company said Aug. 23. The computers will be evaluated as a potential replacement for Air Force ground air traffic control computers, said the company, which is working on the program as a subcontractor to SRA International Inc. "This science and technology initiative will equip the U.S.
Wing assembly for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter began Aug. 23 at Lockheed Martin's plant in Fort Worth, Texas, where forward-fuselage production started in July, the company said Aug. 23. BAE Systems begins building the aft fuselage in England this week. Center-fuselage assembly has been under way since May at Northrop Grumman facilities in California.
More than 700 scientists from 50 countries are scheduled to meet early next month to discuss the early results of the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite mission, ESA said Aug. 23. The $2 billion Envisat, launched in 2002 (DAILY, Feb. 27), monitors environmental and climatic changes. At the Sept. 6-10 symposium in Salzburg, Austria, more than 650 papers are scheduled to be presented, including results from Envisat observations of oil spills, fires, floods, changes in the ozone layer, pollution and earthquakes, ESA said.
