HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - U.S. missile defense developers have discovered that the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, designed to destroy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles in their final stages of flight, will also be capable of shooting down longer-range targets.
Titan Corp., through significant internal growth over the last couple of years, has been able to bid on more contracts that are worth more than $100 million, a company official said Aug. 19. Gene Ray, chairman, president and CEO, spoke Aug. 19 at the company's annual shareholders meeting and said the company bid on 16 such contracts in 2004.
The Government Accountability Office has rejected Raytheon Co.'s protest of its exclusion from the U.S. Army's MX395 Precision Guided Mortar Munition (PGMM) program, saying it was not "timely filed." Raytheon had submitted baseline and alternate proposals for the program in April 2003, but was turned down. Alliant Techsystems (ATK) and Lockheed Martin proceeded to a final competition, which ATK eventually won (DAILY, Jan. 8).
Lockheed Martin's team has successfully completed a preliminary design review (PDR) of its proposal for the U.S. Army's Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) program, the company said Aug. 19. The PDR included a review of the preliminary design for all elements of the system: communications, sensors systems, mission management software, air vehicles, and ground- and air-based command and control elements. The weeklong PDR was conducted at Lockheed Martin facilities in Owego, N.Y., in late July.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - The U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Airborne Laser (ABL) program plans to conduct two key test events by year's end, according to a program official. One event, which will occur on the ground, is the "first light" of ABL's Northrop Grumman-developed kill laser. The other, which will take place aboard the ABL aircraft, is the first flight of the Lockheed Martin beam control/fire control system, which is to help guide the kill laser to its target.
REORGANIZING: Space Systems/Loral and Loral Skynet would emerge intact as separate subsidiaries under a reorganized New Loral, according to a reorganization plan that Loral Space & Communications Ltd. has filed with U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Satellite builder Space Systems/Loral would emerge debt-free, said the company, which expects to leave Chapter 11 bankruptcy before the end of the year.
ENDURANCE: Boeing believes its ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) set an endurance record for the longest flight by a UAV launched and retrieved at sea during a nearly 17-hour mission conducted over the waters of Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca August 4-5. The 10-foot wingspan UAV took off via a wedge catapult launcher aboard the fishing boat Shackleton and performed area surveillance of sea conditions and ships for 16 hours, 45 minutes before returning to the ship by catching a rope hanging from a 50-foot high pole.
Northrop Grumman Corp. said it is heading a team that includes AOptix Technologies Inc., of Campbell, Calif. and OPTRA Inc., of Topsfield, Mass., to design, build and demonstrate a prototype optical aperture system to enable laser communications between space-based platforms and aircraft.
The first flight of Bell Helicopter's full-scale Eagle Eye unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) demonstrator has been pushed back from the end of this year to February 2005 to allow for additional upgrades that should enable a continuous flight-test schedule, according to Robert Dompka, Bell's director of tiltrotor UAVs. "Rather than fly in the fourth quarter and just get air under the wheels and put it back down to mod, we're delaying it until February of '05 so we can incorporate a few features," Dompka told The DAILY.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - The U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) program is being delayed by congressional budget cuts, an MDA official said Aug. 19. The Defense Department had planned to begin fielding KEI in 2010-2011, but Air Force Brig. Gen. Mark Shackelford, MDA's acting deputy director, said at the seventh annual space and missile defense conference here that delivery of the first KEI unit has been moved to 2012-2013 because of funding reductions.
The Virginia-class submarine is undergoing acoustic and combat system testing during its second sea trial, "Bravo," which will culminate at the end of this month, a program official told The DAILY Aug. 19. The submarine successfully passed propulsion plant tests during its first sea trial, "Alpha," at the end of July.
TOMAHAWKS: Raytheon Co. has been awarded $1.6 billion for the full-rate production of up to 2,200 Tomahawk Block IV Cruise Missiles for the U.S. Navy and the United Kingdom, the Department of Defense announced Aug. 18. Work will be performed in Tucson, Ariz., and be completed in June 2011. The contract combines purchases from the Navy (96.5 percent) and the U.K. (3.5 percent), the DOD said.
WEBB WORK: Axsys Technologies Inc. of Rocky Hill, Conn., will produce beryllium optical substrates and other equipment for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope under an $18.6 million contract from Ball Aerospace and Technology Corp., the company said Aug. 19. Axsys' contract calls for the production of optical substrates for an engineering development unit, 18 primary mirror segments and support structures. The company expects to deliver all of the segments by the end of 2006.
The U.S. Navy's DD(X) multimission destroyer, equipped with an all-electric drive and Advanced Gun System, is intended to be the cornerstone of advanced technology surface combat ships. "This is the transformation for the Navy from a blue-water to a littoral force that influences events ashore," said DD(X) Program Manager Capt. Charles H. Goddard.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, which the U.S. Defense Department plans to begin deploying later this year, might be taken off its "alert" status from time to time to allow more research and development activities to take place, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Aug. 18.
In another move to strengthen its defense business, Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer has teamed with the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) to bid for a stake in Portuguese military aircraft maintenance firm OGMA, an Embraer representative told The DAILY Aug. 18.
A Brookings Institution guest scholar says the process of revamping tactical and long-term U.S. intelligence will take tough negotiations throughout government. Helmut Sonnenfeldt told The DAILY that any changes ultimately would have to come as carefully constructed legislation or a presidential decision. He said it won't be a process that can be completed in a week or a month, but could take much longer, even years.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is moving ahead on CrossHairs, a program to quickly detect and locate the point of origin of threats like sniper bullets, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, and anti-tank missiles. DARPA issued a request for information on the idea last fall, and now plans an industry day on Sept. 16 in Arlington, Va., according to an Aug. 17 FedBizOpps notice.
The space shuttle Discovery has entered normal processing operations at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., after completing a period of extensive wiring to accommodate various new safety systems to be installed before its scheduled return to flight in March or April of next year.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - The Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL), which the United States and Israel are developing jointly to shoot down a wide range of airborne threats, is being restructured and delayed because of budget constraints, a U.S. Army general said Aug. 18.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) plans to continue increasing the remote-controlled operation of radars at the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on the Kwajalein Atoll. The increase of remote operation will be done because of the high cost of stationing people at the Pacific location, said Michael Schexnayder, SMDC's deputy to the commander for research, development and acquisition.
HIRING AGAIN: The U.S. aerospace industry is again hiring workers, monthly Labor Department data shows. Industry employment reached 579,800 in June after plummeting to 568,700 in February, a 50-year low. The employment hike coincides with increases in U.S. companies' shipments in the defense, helicopter, general aviation and commercial aviation sectors. The data was compiled by the Aerospace Industry Association's Aerospace Research Center.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - The head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program is reaffirming MDA's commitment to two interceptor booster designs for the system. Responding to a question at the seventh annual space and missile defense conference here, Army Maj. Gen. John Holly, GMD's program director, said Aug. 17 that he would like to maintain a dual-booster strategy "indefinitely."
