RAPTOR ENGINES: Pratt & Whitney will produce F119-PW-100 engines for the F/A-22 Raptor under a $431 million supplemental contract from the U.S. Air Force, the company said. The supplement covers 42 installed engines for 2006 deliveries, spare engines, spare parts, and support services. The supplement was added to a $168 million existing contract issued in 2003. The contract's overall value is about $600 million.
AIRSHIP DELAY: The critical design review (CDR) for the Missile Defense Agency's High Altitude Airship (HAA) has been delayed from June until September because some of the people involved in the program have been busy with other efforts, including the planned deployment this fall of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, according to Defense Department officials. The CDR is to help MDA decide whether to give HAA prime contractor Lockheed Martin a follow-up contract to build a prototype airship.
RAM ASSEMBLIES: Raytheon Co. has awarded a $1.3 million contract to LaBarge Inc. to produce cable assemblies for the Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) Guided Missile Weapon System, LaBarge said. LaBarge's cables will be used in RAM's launcher. RAM is designed to defend ships against cruise missiles and other threats. It is produced cooperatively by Germany and the United States.
CYLINDER BLOCKS: General Dynamics Land Systems has been awarded a source delivery order for Bradley Fighting Vehicle transmission cylinder blocks, the company announced June 29. The order was awarded by the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command and is part of a five-year, $25 million firm fixed price contract. Work will be completed by December 2010 if all options are exercised. A cylinder block pumps fluid to all key transmission components, enabling the shifting of gears.
COMBAT TRAINER: Cubic Defense Applications has been awarded a $4.3 million contract by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence to provide the British army with its first instrumented urban combat trainer, the company said. The Low Level Urban Skills Trainer (LUST) will be provided at various training villages throughout the U.K. The trainer equips all soldiers and weapons with electronic transponders and tags to accurately track the location of all elements involved in urban warfare. David Williams, director of U.K.
AURA LAUNCH: NASA's Aura spacecraft is scheduled to launch on July 10 aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket from NASA's Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Liftoff must occur in a three-minute window that will open at approximately 6:01:57 a.m. EDT. Spacecraft separation is scheduled to occur one hour and four minutes later. Aura will study the Earth's ozone, air quality and climate, and is the third in a series of major Earth-observing satellites launched by NASA to study the environment and climate change.
FY '06 BUDGET: Coast Guard Cmdr. Kathleen Donohoe says the announcement on how the aviation assets in the service's Deepwater modernization program will be reconfigured will come in the fiscal year 2006 budget proposal in February. The Coast Guard says it is looking at changes in the requirements needed for the new mix, but declines to discuss specifics. Deepwater is the Coast Guard's $20 billion recapitalization program to replace aging cutters, patrol boats, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. In May, Coast Guard Commandant Adm.
Quality control remains a major challenge for the Defense Department as it prepares to field a new shield against ballistic missiles, according to a key general.
MDA TRANSITION: The Missile Defense Agency is entering a new era of leadership. Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, who has led the agency for the past five years, turned over the reins July 2 to Air Force Lt. Gen.-Select Henry "Trey" Obering, who is being elevated from MDA deputy director to director. Kadish does not officially retire until Sept. 1, but he plans to be on leave until then (see related story on Page 6). Army Maj. Gen.
REMOVABLE ARMOR: To fill a badly needed requirement in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), in about six weeks the Department of Defense plans to award a contract for removable ground vehicle armor, says Capt. Jeff Landis, a Marine Corps spokesman. According to Lt. Gen. Robert Magnus, Marine Corps deputy commandant for programs and resources, the service is looking at several contractors who manufacture the "bolt on/bolt off" ground vehicle armor.
The Defense Department has asked Congress to reallocate more than $3 billion in previously enacted funds, mainly to pay for urgent needs that have arisen in ongoing military operations.
The U.S. Coast Guard has not completed its plan for reconfiguring the aviation assets in the Deepwater program, Cmdr. Kathleen M. Donohoe said July 1. Deepwater is the Coast Guard's $20 billion recapitalization program to replace aging cutters, patrol boats, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. In May, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thomas Collins said the current Deepwater solution has limitations on lift capability (Daily, May 6) and the mix of aircraft will need to be changed.
The U.S. Navy's Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS) is a combat submersible launched from a fast-attack submarine that can deploy special operations troops near hostile shores, according to Naval Sea Systems Command officials. The ASDS is the first dry combat battery-powered submersible system designed to insert and extract special operations forces and their combat gear clandestinely from hostile territory, an official at Northrop Grumman, the prime contractor, told The DAILY.
For the first time, U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) demonstrated in a recent exercise how multiple, dissimilar unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) can share imagery and command and control functions, said Frank Roberts, head of UAV initiatives for JFCOM's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) integration division. The exercise was Forward Look III, held June 12-21 in North Carolina, the last in a series of three exercises that tested the interoperability of various UAVs.
The Cassini-Huygens probe entered orbit around Saturn June 30 via a maneuver that took the spacecraft through Saturn's rings twice while it gathered the closest measurements ever obtained of the second-largest planet in the solar system.
DEMO ENGINE: Pratt & Whitney recently completed the final large military demonstrator engine for the Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technology program, the company said. The experimental test engine, XTE67/1, was developed to demonstrate reduced maintenance and production costs and improved weight and thrust performance. Pratt & Whitney will begin testing the engine in July.
KEYSTONE, Colo. - Gen. Lance W. Lord, Commander of Air Force Space Command, said cutting money from some big-ticket space programs, as recommended by the Senate Appropriations Committee, would mean taking longer to shift to a strategy of using precision effects. Programs like the Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT) "are the key to what we want to do," Lord told reporters June 30 at a symposium here.
REJECTED: The defense technology firm DRS Technologies refused an unsolicited, $42-per-share cash acquisition bid from L-3 Technologies because it "would not be in the best interest of the company's stockholders," the company said July 1. L-3 said it would drop its bid but could discuss a DRS acquisition in the future "if DRS decided to pursue a transaction."
F/A-22 CONTRACT: The Air Force has awarded a $2 billion contract to Lockheed Martin to buy 22 F/A-22 Raptors in fiscal 2004, the Defense Department announced late July 1. Work on the Lot 4 aircraft is slated to be completed by October 2006 and take place at Lockheed Martin facilities in Fort Worth, Texas, and Marietta, Ga., and at Boeing facilities in Seattle, Wash., DOD said. The Air Force said in March that it had reached a verbal agreement with Lockheed Martin on the Lot 4 buy (DAILY, March 25). The Air Force has procured 51 F/A-22s in prior years.
A July 1 DAILY story headlined "Scientist: 'Space elevator' feasible because of nanotube advances" gave the incorrect impression that geosynchronous orbit (GEO) is 62,000 miles above the Earth. The space elevator would extend beyond GEO (approximately 22,236 miles) to a total altitude of 62,000 miles.
Goodrich Corp. will provide internal rescue hoists for UH-1 and UH-60 helicopters under orders from the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, the company said July 1. Steve Loye, Goodrich's vice president of hoist and winch, said the Marines have ordered 35 new hoists and the Army has agreed to a five-year contract for the overhaul of their existing hoists.
SUB WORK: General Dynamics Electric Boat has been awarded a $12.8 million contract modification by the U.S. Navy to do nuclear submarine work, the company said. General Dynamics Electric Boat will provide scheduling, planning, and technical support for submarine maintenance, as well as planning yard, design agent, engineering and technical support. The contract could be worth more than $1.1 billion over five years if all options are exercised and funded. Eighty-five percent of the work will be done in Groton, Conn.
The Boeing Co. is selling its Commercial Electronics unit to BAE Systems North America, the company said June 30. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The unit, based in Irving, Texas, will become part of BAE Systems' Platform Solutions Sector, which provides services and products for commercial and military aircraft, Boeing said. The sale included the Texas operations and service center, service centers in London and Singapore and parts of the unit's operations in Puget Sound.
