ACS REVIEW: Although the ink is barely dry on the announcement of a prime contractor selection for the Aerial Common Sensor (ACS), the Pentagon already is shuffling paper to prepare for another review of the program. A high-level Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) intends to meet sometime in the first quarter of 2005 to consider approving the Navy's integration into the Army-led program. If the DAB gives the go-ahead, ACS acquisition plans will be updated "to include Navy cost, schedule and performance parameters," the Defense Department says.
NIPPING BURT'S HEELS: According to the X Prize foundation, The da Vinci Project Team of Canada plans to launch its "Wild Fire" suborbital spacecraft on Oct. 2, just three days after Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne is scheduled to make its own X Prize qualification flight (DAILY, July 28). The $10 million prize is being awarded to the first private team that launches a human being into suborbital space, returns that person safely, then repeats the flight within two weeks using the same vehicle.
Competing industry teams led by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin have submitted updated proposals for the Defense Department's Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) program to reflect a schedule slip and a $100 million cut in the program's fiscal year 2005 budget. MUOS would replace the Navy's Ultra High Frequency Follow-on (UFO) communication satellites, providing mobile communications capability for troops across the services. The program's total potential value is estimated at $6.4 billion.
Northrop Grumman was chosen over Boeing to maintain the United Kingdom Royal Air Force's fleet of seven E-3D Sentry AWACS aircraft, a job the company said could be worth about $1.19 billion over 21 years. The company and the Ministry of Defence (MOD) will enter into discussions about the program specifics, with an anticipated contract award date of January 2005, Northrop Grumman said in an Aug. 5 announcement.
The Aerospace Industries Association prefers the Senate version of international tax code legislation that would affect export-intensive manufacturing companies, the organization's head wrote in a letter to House and Senate lawmakers.
The United States and Canada have agreed to allow missile-warning data collected by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to be used for ballistic missile defense, Canadian officials announced Aug. 5.
President Bush signed the $416.2 billion fiscal 2005 Department of Defense appropriations bill into law Aug. 5 in a ceremony at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Bush cited the bill's provision of $25 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, $10 billion for ballistic missile defense, $4 billion for C-17 airlifters and $200 million for Predator unmanned aerial vehicles "to track and hunt our enemies."
ELECTED: Lockheed Martin President Robert J. Stevens has been elected to the additional post of CEO by the board of directors, the company announced Aug. 5. Former Chairman and CEO Vance Coffman announced plans to retire on March 1. He will serve as the board of directors' non-employee chairman until April 2005, the company said.
Northrop Grumman Corp. was named the prime contractor for the Army's Command Post Platform (CPP) development and integration program, which will integrate and standardize the service's command posts of the future, the company said Aug.5. The initial award is for $26 million to design and construct 10 prototype command posts. The entire award, won competitively, is valued at up to $400 million over the next five years.
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) plans to grow its leap-ahead technology program to total 10 percent of the ONR budget by 2006, Maribel Soto, director of ONR's SwampWorks, said Aug. 4 at the Naval-Industry R&D Partnership Conference 2004 in Washington. "Currently, 'leap ahead' is 2 percent of the ONR funding, as it has been in the past, but will grow to 10 percent of the funding," Soto said. The rest of ONR's funding is divided between basic science and applied science efforts.
Recent action on Capitol Hill has shown that space weapon proponents need to make a better case for why their systems are needed, according to Randall Correll, a senior scientist at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in McLean, Va., and co-author of a recent paper on responsive space systems.
NET LOSS: The Titan Corp. suffered a second quarter loss of $66.6 million, or 79 cents per share, the company said Aug. 4. That compared with income of $5.9 million, or seven cents per share, for the second quarter of 2003. Titan's losses were blamed in part on an aborted merger with Lockheed Martin Corp. and a government probe of the company for allegedly violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Pratt & Whitney is modifying the lead engine for the U.S. Defense Department's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to address an erosion problem that surfaced in the propulsion system almost two months ago.
Activation of the Aura spacecraft is going well, NASA said Aug. 4. Aura was launched July 15 on a mission to study the Earth's ozone, air quality and climate (DAILY, July 9). All of its subsystems are ready to support the spacecraft's science operations, although those can't begin until the instruments are fully activated and the spacecraft reaches its orbit altitude, which is expected to occur this month, NASA said. Four of six ascent burns have been completed, with a fifth scheduled for Aug. 6.
ALLEGENT TECHNOLOGY GROUP, Woodbury, N.Y. Thomas A. Stroup, the chairman and CEO of GroupServe Inc., has been named to the board of advisers. CUBIC CORP., San Diego Robert S. Sullivan, founding dean of the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego, has been named to the board of directors. EADS DEFENCE AND COMMUNICATIONS, Ulm, Germany
CRYPTOGRAPHIC CONTRACT: The U.S. Air Force has awarded the Communications Systems East division of L-3 Communications a $13.5 million contract for work on the KG-3X Cryptographic Modernization Initiative Program, the company said. L-3 Communications, along with Rockwell Collins (DAILY, Aug. 4), was one of two winners of firm fixed price contracts that will cover the program's initial system development and demonstration phase. Phase I of the SDD is set to be completed by June 2005. After that, one winner will be chosen for the rest of the program, the company said.
The U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) sponsored a conference this week with officials from the military services, U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) and the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to identify the key challenges in distributing and deploying equipment to Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa.
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) said it has received a $7.8 million U.S. Army contract to produce M212 flares for the service's Advanced Infrared Countermeasure Munitions (AIRCMM) program. AIRCMM is designed to protect rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft from enhanced surface-to-air infrared weapon systems, ATK said in an Aug. 4 announcement.
Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) "has returned to a growth track," Moshe Keret, the company's president and CEO, said in announcing IAI's financial results for the first half of 2004. Sales for the first six months totaled $1 billion, compared with $904 million for the same period last year, a 14 percent increase, the company said. Net profit shot up 111 percent, going from $9 million in the first half of 2003 to $19 million this year.
TITAN CORP. has been awarded a five-year contract to provide a variety of services for the U.S. Navy's Space and Warfare Systems Command Systems Center Charleston, S.C., the company said Aug. 3. Under the deal, Titan will provide security support, configuration data management, integrated logistics, program management support and systems engineering. The services will support the Navy's command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems and other command and control networks.
