Litton Data Systems, Agoura Hills, Calif., is being awarded a $58,003,369 cost plus award fee contract to provide for development of modernization upgrades to Fielded Threshold Systems at Region/Sector Air Operations Centers (R/SAOC). Contract is expected to be completed November 2000. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were two firms solicited and two proposals received. Solicitation began October 1996; negotiations were completed March 1997.
March 12, 1997 The Ages Group*, Boca Raton, Fla., was awarded on March 11, 1997, a $32,069,212 modification to a firm fixed price contract for life cycle contractor support for C-12 and RC-12 Army aircraft. Work will be performed at various beddown sites worldwide. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were 47 bids solicited on June 30, 1995, and six bids were received. The contracting activity is the U.S. Army Aviation and Troop Command, St. Louis, Mo. (DAAJ09- 96-C-0388).
VIASAT INC., Carlsbad, Calif., received a $20.9 million contract option from Hughes Defense Communications Inc., Fort Wayne, Ind., for satellite modem modules. The Demand Assigned Multiple Access (DAMA) modules are a component of portable satellite communication terminals used by U.S. military forces. The companies also negotiated an additional option, good until January 1999, valued at about $21 million.
Raytheon Co.'s win of a $44.3 million U.S. Air Force contract for the National Air and Space (Warfare) Model (NASM) program (DAILY, March 3) involves development and deployment of a computer-based simulation system to help train AF battlestaffs around the world. The Air Force's Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom AFB, Mass., chose Raytheon Electronic Systems, Bedford, Mass., over teams led by Hughes, Lockheed Martin, and TASC.
Toshiba Corp. has lost to NEC in bidding for a ground station computer system that will be a key component in the Global Navigation Satellite System planned by Japan's Ministry of Transport. The ministry picked the NEC unit as superior and more reliable than Toshiba's offering, even though the Toshiba bid of $22.2 million was much lower than the $35.8 billion bid by NEC. In the international competition, Hughes was teamed with NEC, while Stanford Telecom was Toshiba's teammate.
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), San Diego, California, is being awarded a $285,000,000 indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract for the Defense Information Infrastructure Integration Contract (DII-IC), providing for multiple types of task orders. The contract has one base year with four one year options. This contract was competitively awarded with 84 proposals solicited and 2 proposals received. The Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization - National Capital Region, is the contracting activity (DCA100-97-D-0043).
KLM ORDERED four Boeing 737-800s valued at $190 million for delivery in mid-1999. The Dutch flag carrier will configure the aircraft in two classes with 147 seats for its European fleet. The first -800 is scheduled to fly for the first time in July. When the aircraft are delivered, KLM's fleet will consist of 40 737s.
IIT Research Institute, Chicago, Ill., is being awarded a $10,018,279 cost- plus fixed fee contract for establishment and operation of the Manufacturing Technology Information Analysis Center. Twenty five proposals were solicited and four were received. Work is expected to be completed by March 14, 2000. Funds will not expire at the end of the fiscal year. The Defense Supply Center Columbus, Columbus, Ohio, is the contracting activity (SP0700-97-D-4005).
Despite the appearance that many high profile U.S. Air Force competitions end up having to be reviewed by the General Accounting Office, AF acquisition chief Arthur Money says "the number of protests is falling precipitously year to year." He attributes the decline to greater dialogue with industry early in the program and better debriefings after competitions are over.
The Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) will be integrated for use on the B-2 bomber as part of a $116 million FY '97 congressional increase to improve the stealth bomber's conventional weapons capability, an AF official says. The increase is also allowing the AF to fund a program called General Weapons Interface System, that should reduce the cost of future weapons integration on the bomber.
ALLIEDSIGNAL AEROSPACE has been selected to supply a convertible brake for 22 Airbus A319 aircraft that TAP-Portugal plans to buy or lease, AlliedSignal announced. Terms of the contract weren't disclosed. AlliedSignal said the new brake concept allows airlines the option of using either carbon composite or steel heat sinks in the same wheel and brake structure.
Loral Space&Communications has closed its purchase of AT&T's Skynet Satellite Services, cutting the original price of $712.5 million to $478.1 million in the wake of January's Telstar 401 failure. Under the sale agreement AT&T will collect $132 million in insurance proceeds for the lost satellite, which abruptly stopped transmitting Jan. 11 and ultimately was abandoned when AT&T controllers could not reestablish contact (DAILY, Jan. 15, 21).
F/A-18E/F low rate initial production won't go ahead without a briefing to Defense Secretary William Cohen, Pentagon acquisition chief Paul Kaminski, who makes the LRIP decision, said Friday. The Defense Acquisition Board is scheduled to convene later this month to decide whether to approve LRIP, but the General Accounting Office is recommending delaying the decision until completion of the Quadrennial Defense Review.
In another indication the U.S. Air Force is increasingly realizing the importance of air traffic management, the service is setting up a Systems Program Office for such work at its Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom AFB, Mass., Air Force acquisition chief Arthur Money tells The DAILY. The SPO will deal with "air traffic management, precision landing, all those type of issues," he said in an interview in his office Thursday.
NASA ADMINISTRATOR Daniel S. Goldin will present his agency's plans for aeronautics and space transportation technology in the coming century at a Washington luncheon Thursday sponsored by the Aero Club of Washington, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the National Aviation Club. Goldin will speak on "The Three Pillars of Success for Aviation and Space Transportation in the 21st Century" at noon Thursday at the Hyatt Capitol Hill, 400 New Jersey Ave., NW. For reservations, call 703-327-7082.
Sky Solutions Ltd., a company owned partly by Lockheed Martin Corp., was chosen over a company owned in part by Hughes Aircraft Co. for an air traffic control effort in Scotland that could be worth $1 billion over 25 years. Lockheed Martin said Friday that the U.K. National Air Traffic Services Ltd. (NATS), a subsidiary of the Civil Aviation Authority, named Sky Solutions as the preferred bidder for the New Scottish Center (NSC), an air traffic control facility to be built at Prestwick in Ayrshire, Scotland.
LOGICON INC., Los Angeles, won a five-year, follow-on contract from U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command to provide life cycle engineering support services for digital, computer-based combat systems. The $57 million contract includes a base year and four option years. Work will be conducted at Logicon's Engineering Systems Operating Center, Arlington, Va.
France's Thomson-CSF returned to the black after three years of heavy losses. The state-owned defense electronics firm, which the government is trying to privatize, said it earned 745 million francs ($130.4 million) on sales of 36.3 billion francs ($6.4 billion) in 1996. That followed a loss of 791 million francs ($138.5 million) in 1995. The company credited its rebound to the sale of its 19% stake in the troubled bank Credit Lyonnais.
While protests disrupt the flow of a program, Money says they don't cancel out the benefits of acquisition reform. AF officials were perturbed when Alliant Techsystems in February protested the AF selection of Lockheed Martin for the Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser program because they may lose some of the schedule gains they achieved through streamlined acquisition. But Money says he isn't bothered. "I'm willing to tolerate that delay because we got such a hell of a good deal," he says.
Estimates of the Congressional Budget Office and the Pentagon on defense outlays for fiscal 1998 are $5.6 billion apart, and could be growing. The CBO assumed Congress would approve all of the $4.8 billion rescission of fiscal 1997 funds that the Pentagon has requested. If Congress doesn't go along with all of that, outlays in FY '98 would rise further. The differential between the CBO's scoring and the Administration's could widen to as much as $7 billion, according to several observers.
The Aerospace Systems Group of Alliant Techsystems signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dhalgren Div., to jointly develop and test a composite payload structure for the Land Attack Standard Missile (LASM), Alliant announced yesterday. It said the Composite Structures Business Unit will aid in the design of the composite shroud structure, develop fabrication methods and assemble the submunitions into the payload shroud.
Recent acquisitions helped sales at Litton Industries jump 30% in the second quarter to $960.5 million, as earnings grew 11% to $36.2 million. Michael R. Brown, president and CEO, said in a prepared statement that the acquisition of PRC in February 1996 fueled the 1997 sales gain for Litton, headquartered in Woodland Hills, Calif.
A future tactical unmanned ground vehicle being pursued jointly by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps must be fully air transportable in a UH-60 Black Hawk or V-22 Osprey. The Tactical Unmanned Vehicle (TUV) must be able to conduct reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition (RSTA) as well as chemical and biological agent detection for 24 hours while under remote controlled. Each TUV system would consist of a mobile unit with payload - for RSTA and chemical/biological agent detection - and an operational control unit.
FAA has formally accepted the Display System Replacement (DSR) for air traffic control automation from Lockheed Martin. The system will replace aging equipment in the 20 U.S. Air Route Traffic Control Centers with new controller workstations, display computer hardware and software and network infrastructure, according to Lockheed Martin's Air Traffic Management unit, Rockville, Md.
A budget boost would allow the U.S. Army to get 10 operational prototype Anti-Satellite systems fielded by 2000, says Sen. Robert Smith (R-N.H.). Smith, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee's panel on strategic forces, says he has been told that about $80 million in FY '98 and $45 million in FY '99 would make this possible. Some DOD space officials have acknowledged that an ASAT would help them in their goal of attaining space control and dominance, but the White House remains opposed to the program and has no budget request for it.
