Hughes Aircraft Company Electro-Optical Systems, El Segundo, Calif., is being awarded a $12,897,092 firm fixed price contract for Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) of NV-80 B-Kit for the Second Generation Forward Looking Infrared and Production of the Thermal Imaging System (TIS). Work will be performed in El Segundo, Calif. (60%), and La Grange, Ga. (40%), and is expected to be completed by March 31, 2001. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on Dec. 17, 1996. The contracting activity is the U.S.
General Electric Aircraft Engines, Lynn, Mass., is being awarded a $27,300,000 modification to previously awarded contract N00019-96-C-0080 for the low rate initial production (LRIP) I of 27 Model F414-GE-400 engines, related modules, devices and engineering services for the F/A- 18E/F aircraft. Work will be performed in Lynn, Mass. (58%); Evendale, Ohio (25%); Rutland, Vt. (4%); Albuquerque, N.M. (4%); Hooksett, N.H. (3%) ; Madisonville, Ky. (4%); and Wilmington, Del. (2%), and is expected to be completed by June 1999.
Harris Corporation, Palm Bay, Fla., is being awarded a $17,107,435 firm fixed price contract to provide for 220 Warhead Ready Tactical Telemetry Units for use on AIM-120 missiles during test firings. The work will be performed at Harris Corp., Malabar, Fla. Contract is expected to be completed January 2000. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were 12 firms solicited and one proposal received. Solicitation began August 1996; negotiations were completed March 1997.
Lockheed Martin Corporation, Moorestown, N.J., is being awarded a $9,800,000 cost reimbursement contract to provide for engineering, modification, and upgrade support for the Multiple Object Tracking Radar, which is used on various Department of Defense ranges. Contract is expected to be completed October 2000. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There was one firms solicited and one proposal received. Solicitation began May 1996; negotiations were completed February 1997. This effort supports foreign military sales to Great Britain.
Fokker gave all hope of resuming its aircraft manufacturing activities yesterday as the bankrupt Dutch company's receivers announced that final talks had collapsed on Friday. Stork, the Dutch industrial group that purchased Fokker's profitable maintenance, defense and spares activities a year ago, pulled out of the talks, initiated by Belgian businessman Andre Deleye. He had drawn up a plan involving Malaysia's Khazanah group, the Dutch government and Dutch bank Rabobank, owner of Fokker's know-how in the framework of a lease-back agreement.
Science Applications International Corp., McLean, Va., is being awarded a $3,144,089 increment as part of a $12,092,545 cost plus fixed fee contract for Electrothermal-Chemical Direct-Fire Gun Technology. Work will be performed in San Diego, Calif., and is expected to be completed by March 31, 2000. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were 15 bids solicited on March 4, 1997, and one bid was received. The contracting activity is the Defense Special Weapons Agency, Alexandria, Va. (DSWA01-97-C-0086).
If Congress forces the Defense Dept. to pay fees to FAA for using the National Airspace System (NAS), it would be an "absolute disaster" for the working relationship between the two agencies, according to Frank Colson, executive director of the DOD Policy Board for Federal Aviation. He was responding to a draft General Accounting Office report that concluded the Pentagon should pay such fees. A copy of which was obtained by DAILY affiliate ATC Market Report (DAILY, April 4).
Watkins-Johnson Co. will sell its defense electronics operations based in Palo Alto, Calif., and hopes to complete the divestiture by the end of the year, the company announced yesterday. The operations recorded $85 million in revenue in 1996. W. Keith Kennedy Jr., president and CEO, said the move will complete his company's "transformation to a high-technology firm specializing in semiconductor-manufacturing equipment and wireless-infrastructure products."
The U.S. Air Force will begin development testing of the B-1B bomber with the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) and Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) in fiscal 2001, and plans to field the weapons by 2002, according to a April 7 Commerce Business Daily notice. An integration contract for both standoff weapons is slated to be awarded in January 1999, the notice said. The contractor will have to ensure that the weapons are compatible with the Mil Std 1760 databus and the multi-purpose rotary launcher.
SATCON TECHNOLOGY CORP., Cambridge, Mass., signed a definitive agreement to acquire Film Microelectronics Inc. (FMI), a maker of hybrid integrated circuits and thin film substrates, SatCon announced yesterday. FMI, North Andover, Mass., recorded sales of about $5 million in its most recent fiscal year. Terms of the agreement will be disclosed upon completion of the acquisition, which is expected within the next month.
A Progress resupply capsule is scheduled to dock with Russia's troubled Mir orbital station at 1:20 p.m. EDT today, bringing a stock of repair parts, tools and supplies the two cosmonauts and one astronaut need to keep the atmosphere in Mir breathable until the Space Shuttle Atlantis arrives in May with more replacement hardware.
Earthbound scientists with experiments on the Space Shuttle Columbia have already asked for a reflight of the $500 million Microgravity Science Laboratory-1 (MSL-1) mission, even as their colleagues on orbit prepare to abort their planned 16-day stay in space today because of a malfunctioning fuel cell.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn., is being awarded a $25,481,724 firm-fixed-price, incentive-fee contract for Communication/Navigation Survivability Upgrade and Service Life Extension Program (NCSU/SLEP) for the Executive Helicopter Program. Work will be performed in Stratford, Conn., and is expected to be completed by March 2000. Contract funds would not have expired at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Air Systems Command, Arlington, Va., is the contracting activity. N00019-96-C-0165).
Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems, Fort Worth, Tex., reached a new three-year labor agreement with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the company announced Sunday. Union members approved the new agreement by a 75% margin.
The General Accounting Office has rejected Litton Industry's protest of the U.S. Navy's choice of Avondale Shipyards to build the LPD-17 amphibious ship. Litton lost the competition Dec. 17 and filed its protest Dec. 26 (DAILY, Jan. 3). A stop-work order has been in place since the filing, but Avondale said yesterday that it has already resumed work. The Navy says there will be some impact on the schedule, although the degree won't be known until consultations with Avondale have been completed.
The Russian Navy has completed elimination of 20 of the SS-N- 20 SLBMs on one of its Typhoon submarines by launching the missiles and them destroying them at low altitude, reducing its nuclear force delivery capability by 200 warheads. According to the navy press center, the operation was performed under the framework of the START I Treaty and was monitored by U.S. inspectors and representatives of ecological groups. The Typhoon submarine went to the Barents Sea and fired its missiles, which were then intentionally destroyed at low altitude.
The U.S. Navy isn't wedded to buying the so-called Navy variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, a conventional take-off and landing configuration, and may consider buying at least some of the U.S. Marine Corps/U.K. Royal Navy short take-off and vertical landing JSF planes. The Navy's air warfare requirements chief, Rear Adm. J.M.
A Navy buy of STOVL JSFs could "have a major impact on the total cost of the program," Johnson points out. He adds that if only two models need to be developed, "then the JSF program cost may be considerably less." The U.S. Air Force has also said it would consider buying some STOVL JSFs.
The French Ministry of Finance will accept bids from Lagardere SCA and a team composed of Alcatel Alsthom SA and Dassault for the government's 58% stake in Thomson-CSF, the ministry announced Friday. The two French competitors must submit final offers for the defense electronics company by May 7, and a winner is expected by the end of June.
The U.S. government has given Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas permission to market their fighter aircraft to Chile. The move marks a policy shift that ends a decade-long de facto embargo, and that could result in the sale of advanced U.S. jets to the region. The U.S. has allowed marketing licenses to be released "to companies which wish to compete in Chile's selection of fighter aircraft," according to a DOD official. No decision has been made, however, on whether a sale would be allowed to go through.
Israel could be another potential buyer of the STOVL variant, a Defense Dept. official tells The DAILY. Israel's air force has indicated it would buy the STOVL variant to enhance dispersal, and therefore protection from rocket attack.
NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off Friday on a 16-day microgravity science mission that will begin the transition to longer-term research on the International Space Station. Liftoff from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., came at 2:20 p.m. EST after a one-day delay while a coolant pipe was insulated (DAILY, April 3), and a 19-minute hold while crews finished checking a hatch seal that was replaced at the last minute.
Just in case the U.S. Air Force needed some more incentive to keep F-22 production costs under control, Defense Secretary William Cohen has told Congress that the program will change if "cost savings cannot be achieved." In his letter submitting the Cost Analysis Improvement Group's estimates, Cohen said he would "make changes to the program - quality and/or quantity - so as to keep the program both stable and affordable."
Recurrent leaks in the system that cools the Kvant 1 and Kvant 2 modules on Russia's Mir orbital station have left its three-man crew relying on backup chemical absorbers to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere they breathe.
