FINANCIAL IMPROVEMENT: The U.S. Navy has awarded BearingPoint Inc., a business consulting and systems integration firm, a contract worth up to $107.6 million to assist with the implementation of the Navy's financial improvement plan, the company said May 25. McLean, Va.-based BearingPoint will help the Navy document business processes, test financial systems and sample financial data.
Yuval Yanai, senior vice president and chief financial officer, has resigned. Ran Maidan will replace Yanai as chief financial officer, effective Sept. 1. Maidan currently is chief financial officer of the Elisra Group.
Metal Storm Ltd. said May 25 that it will sell its ProCam Machine LLC business to Monroe Machined Products Inc. of Seattle, and will reposition itself as a "systems integrator" to sell its innovative electronic ballistics technology. Metal Storm, which is headquartered in Brisbane, Australia, and has an office in Arlington, Va., bought the precision-machined parts company in late 2003, saying the buy would help it get a strategic position in the U.S. defense market (DAILY, Dec. 12, 2003).
HELO WORK: Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. has been awarded a $24.8 million contract modification for the production and delivery of 12 MH-60R Multi-Mission helicopters, the company said May 25. The work will be done in Stratford, Conn., and is expected to be finished in April 2006. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md. awarded the contract.
To overcome the challenges of maintaining continuous real-time satellite communications with hypersonic vehicles, the DARPA/Air Force FALCON (Force Application and Launch from the Continental U.S.) program is planning a communications demo for the second of its three hypersonic test vehicles.
Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) head Gen. Lance Lord met with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper May 24 to brief him on the results of an AFSPC study on the potential of near-space, and believes that an operational deployment of near-space communications balloons could be imminent.
The U.S. Defense Department's Joint High Power Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) program has recruited a fourth team to demonstrate electrically driven laser technology later this year, a program official said May 24.
Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. have been chosen to proceed to the next stage of the Innovative Space Based Radar Antenna Technology (ISAT) program, according to an Air Force spokeswoman. Northrop Grumman was also competing for the program, which is to develop and demonstrate a 325-foot-long satellite antenna. Boeing and Lockheed Martin were given the go-ahead, said Connie Rankin, a spokeswoman for the Air Force Research Lab's Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.
The primary barriers to commercializing nanotechnology lie in transitioning innovation into a productive and cost-effective technology, an industry executive told congressmen looking to boost nanotechnology initiatives. Scott Donnelly, senior vice president for Global Research at General Electric Co., said transitioning is even more difficult with high-risk, emerging technologies.
MAINTENANCE, INSPECTIONS: Lockheed Martin Services Inc. Aircraft and Logistics Center of Greenville, S.C., has been awarded an $81.2 million contract modification to exercise an option for P-3 phased depot maintenance, special structural inspections, and enhanced special structural inspections, the company said May 20. The work will be done in Greenville. It is expected to be finished in May 2006. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., awarded the contract.
VEHICLE ARMOR: Armor Holdings Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla., has been awarded a $12.2 million contract to provide heavy vehicle armor to the U.S. Army, the company said May 24. Armor Holdings will produce armor panels, ballistic glass and gun turret assemblies and provide product support for the family of medium tactical vehicles, the heavy expanded mobility tactical truck and palletized loading system vehicles. The work will be done in 2005 at Armor Holdings Aerospace and Defense Group facilities in Fairfield, Ohio and Phoenix, Ariz.
CWID RESULTS: Brig. Gen. Thomas Verbeck, director of command, control, communications and warfighting integration for U.S. European Command (EUCOM), hopes to improve upon the historical track record of the Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (CWIDs) when EUCOM hosts the event in 2006. In the past, the services have had little success in fielding the interoperability innovations arising from CWID, he says, which formerly was known as the Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (JWID). "In fact, JWID, now CWID, has been going on probably for 10 years.
DD(X) CONTRACT: Raytheon Co.'s Integrated Defense Systems, Tewksbury, Mass., has been awarded a contract worth up to $3 billion by the U.S. Navy for DD(X) ship system integration and detail design associated with specific DD(X) ship systems, the company said May 23. Besides the Raytheon unit, work also will be performed by Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems and Sensors, Moorestown, N.J.; United Defense LP, Minneapolis; Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, King George, Va.; and Ball Aerospace & Technology Corp., Westminster, Colo.
The U.S. Air Force is studying a possible replacement for the aging Bell UH-1N Huey helicopters used by intercontinental ballistic missile wings, a general said May 24.
PRAGUE - European Union defense ministers have agreed to a series of steps designed to tackle the fragmentation of defense equipment markets and boost the effectiveness of defense spending across Europe.
Foreign contractors who do business with the United States would face blacklisting on a Defense Department list if they sell certain defense goods and services to China under a provision that a prominent member of Congress plans to push in the House. The provision, championed by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is included in the House's version of the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill (H.R. 1815), which the chamber is scheduled to take up May 25.
NEW DELHI - After ironing out some differences, India and Russia are close to concluding an intellectual property rights agreement to cover the co-production of weapon systems and missiles. Moscow has insisted that New Delhi sign the agreement because the two countries' defense cooperation has shifted from a buyer-seller relationship to joint development of high-tech weapons like the BrahMos cruise missile.
NASA would get $15 million more than President Bush requested for its fiscal year 2006 budget, or $16.5 billion, according to a budget approved May 24 by the House Appropriations Committee's science panel. The bill would fund the space exploration program at $3.1 billion, restore the aeronautics research program to the FY '05 level of $906 million, and give $40 million to "partially restore NASA's science programs," a committee statement said.
PRAGUE - Plans by European Union leaders to introduce the bloc's own rapid-reaction forces were boosted May 23 when EU defense ministers agreed to an accelerated decision-making and planning process for operations involving the proposed "battle groups."
Boeing successfully tested the 500-pound Laser Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) against a moving target for the first time, Boeing said May 24. In the test, conducted at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., a Laser JDAM was released from an Air Force F-16. The fighter was flying at 20,000 feet and was about four miles from the target, a slow-moving unmanned truck, when the JDAM was released. The inert JDAM tracked the laser to the target and scored a direct hit, Boeing said.
FULL HOUSE: If the May 24 debate before the House Rules Committee is a taste of what's to come, the full-chamber discussion over the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill (H.R. 1815) likely will center around women in combat, the base realignment and closure process and military health care efforts. House Armed Services Committee members appeared before the Rules Committee to prepare their bill for House consideration on May 25, as well as to lobby one more time for amendments that did not make it through the HASC last week.
P-3C DELIVERED: Lockheed Martin has delivered the U.S. Navy's 65th P-3C aircraft to be modified as part of the Anti-Surface Warfare Improvement Program, the company said May 24. The AIP upgrades use commercial-off-the-shelf software and nondevelopment technology to improve the P-3C's capabilities.
