DIGITAL RADIOS: Washington-based EFJ Inc. subsidiary EFJohnson has been awarded a $1 million contract to supply the Defense Department with Project 25 digital radios and accessories, the company said Feb. 7. The Association of Public-Safety Communication Officials International Project 25 is a joint effort of U.S. federal, state, and local governments that receives support from the U.S. Telecommunications Industry Association.
Raytheon has tested the third software increment for the ground control segment of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), the company announced Feb. 7. Raytheon is developing the ground segments for NPOESS prime contractor Northrop Grumman. The testing marks a major milestone leading to the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite, scheduled to launch in 2006, Raytheon said. NPP will act as a bridge to the operational NPOESS system, scheduled to begin launching in 2009.
The Pentagon plans to unveil its proposal for war-related funding during the week of Feb. 14-18, Defense Department officials said Feb. 7. DOD's $75 billion fiscal 2005 supplemental appropriations request, designed mainly to sustain operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, is expected to include money to maintain and repair vehicles, increase force protection and improve the detection of improvised explosive devices, Pentagon Comptroller Tina Jonas said. The Army's restructuring efforts also are slated to receive funding.
Sweden-based Bofors Defence AB has been awarded an 11 million euro ($14 million) contract to provide Finland's navy with two 57mm Mk 3 Naval Guns, the company said Feb. 7. Bofors will produce and install the guns for Finland's patrol ships of the Squadron 2000 class. Bofors also is completing an earlier contract for the production of the first two 57mm guns for the same ship class.
SAN DIEGO - U.S. forces in Iraq are using a device emitting high-energy, nonlethal acoustic beams to identify and turn back potential enemies before they get within lethal range, said an official with the company that produces the device. Since March, Marine, Army, and Navy units have been using American Technology Corp.'s (ATC) Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), Carl Gruenler, the company's vice president of Government and Force Protection Systems, told The DAILY Feb. 3.
Reps. Jim Saxton (R-N.J.) and Marty Meehan (D-Mass.), the ranking Republican and Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee's terrorism and unconventional threats subcommittee, have urged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to fill the vacant position of assistant secretary of defense for networks, integration, and information (ASD-NII). The ASD-NII serves as the Defense Department's chief information officer and oversees the largest computing system in the world. DOD has not had an ASD-NII for more than a year.
Bell/Agusta Aerospace Co. said Feb. 7 that SEACOR Holdings Inc. has ordered 20 AB139 helicopters, the largest AB139 order so far. The order raises the Bell Helicopter-Agusta joint venture's backlog to 100 helicopters, the company said. Delivery of the aircraft is to begin later this year and be completed by 2009. They initially will be used to support offshore oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico, Bell/Agusta said.
NASA's fiscal year 2006 budget request would boost funding for space exploration to $3.165 billion from $2.684 billion in FY '05, while putting the agency's aeronautics budget on a fairly steady decline through FY '10. The agency's exploration systems area includes all the technologies NASA is developing to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 and pave the way for a human Mars landing. By FY '10, its annual budget is slated to rise to $5.125 billion.
Goodrich Corp. said its military and space sales grew by almost 14% in the fourth quarter of 2004. The company reported a quarterly net income of $37 million on sales of $1.3 billion, up from $23 million reported for the same period in 2003. For the full year, Charlotte, N.C.-based Goodrich reported net income of $172 million on sales of $4.7 billion, up from $100 million of income on $4.4 billion in sales reported for 2003.
VOICE SYSTEMS: L-3 Communication Systems East of Camden, N.J., has been awarded a $19.8 million contract to furnish the Navy with six FY 04/05 MarCom Integrated Interior Voice Communication Systems (IVCS) for installation on DDG 51 Class Aegis destroyers. The systems provide a computer-controlled voice communication system for reliable and survivable interior voice communications in Navy combatant ships.
General Dynamics Land Systems will provide logistics support for the Fox M93A1 Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Reconnaissance Vehicle under a $39.3 million contract from the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, the company said Feb. 7. The work is expected to be completed by July 31, 2006. The Fox vehicle is used to survey battlefields for nuclear, biological or cheimcal contamination.
Defense-related federal contract awards amounted to only $6.4 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2005, as opposed to $15.6 billion in the final quarter of FY '04, according to a government contracting consulting company. That's off by nearly 59%, Reston, Va.-based Input said in a Feb. 4 report.
The U.S. Navy confirmed plans to deactivate one aircraft carrier this year and cut back the number of ships it would build in fiscal 2006, according to the proposed $125.6 billion Navy budget request the Bush Administration unveiled Feb. 7. A senior Navy budget official briefing reporters Feb. 4 declined to identify which carrier - rumored to be the 36-year-old USS John F. Kennedy (DAILY, Jan. 7) - saying only that the budget plan calls for 11 aircraft carriers, including whenever the futuristic CVN-21 aircraft carrier is launched.
Democratic colleagues have affirmed Rep. Jerry Costello (D-Ill.) to serve as the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Aviation Subcommittee. Costello took over from Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), who gained the ranking position on the Highways, Transit and Pipelines Subcommittee. The Illinois Democrat left his ranking position on the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee for Aviation (DAILY, Jan. 10). 'Critical time'
BIDDING ALLOWED: The prime contractors bidding to build NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) also will be allowed to bid for the upcoming systems integration contract, which NASA plans to award by December. However, "there have to be protections in place to make sure that organizational conflicts of interest don't come up as an issue," Lockheed Martin's Pat McKenzie says. The winner probably will work in partnership with a NASA center (DAILY, Jan. 4).
Feb. 10 - 11 -- 8th Annual Federal Aviation Administration Commercial Space Transportation Conference, The Renaissance Hotel, Washington, D.C. For more information call (202) 267-8568 or go to www.organization21.com/ast.faa. Feb. 16 - 17 - Aviation Week presents World Aerospace Symposium, Pierre Baudis Toulouse Congress Center, Toulouse, France. For more information or to register go to http://www.aviationnow.com/conferences.
GUARD RECRUITMENT The U.S. Army National Guard is at 80.5% of its fiscal 2005 recruiting goals, and 56% of its January goal, said Army Lt. Gen. Roger C. Schultz, director of the Guard. "It is way too early to admit defeat. My point is, we have eight more months of recruiting left," he said, referring to the fiscal 2005 year that ends in September. "The National Guard is not in crisis but it is significantly stretched," said Army Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau.
Contractors for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter have begun placing exterior surface panels on the major pieces of the first test jet, a significant step in the U.S. Defense Department-led program, according to government and industry officials.
