GDE Systems, Incorporated, San Diego, California, is being awarded a $1,645,500 increment as part of a $9,349,016 cost plus incentive fee contract to design, fabricate and test a Handheld Standoff Mine Detection System (HSTAMIDS). Work will be performed in San Diego, California, and is expected to be completed by May 23, 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were 124 bids solicited on January 25, 1996, and six bids received. The contracting activity is the U.S.
Gencorp-Aerojet, Azusa, California, is being awarded a $20,417,454 face value increase to a fixed price contract to provide for replacement of Medium Wave Infrared modules on three Defense Support Program (DSP) sensors applicable to the DSP early warning satellite. Contract is expected to be completed November 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles, California, is the contracting activity (F04701-86/C-0023, P00132).
SYSTRAN SOFTWARE INC., La Jolla, Calif., will develop machine translation software products and services for the intelligence community under a five- year, $10 million contract from the National Air Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. Systran said the contract "includes the creation of several Eastern European languages, including the first-ever Serbo-Croatian-into-English machine translation software program."
President Clinton yesterday nominated Keith R. Hall, deputy director and acting director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), to be assistant secretary of the Air Force for space. Hall was appointed to the NRO posts earlier this year when NRO Director Jeffrey Harris and his deputy, Jimmie Hill, were ousted in the wake of criticism of NRO budget management (DAILY, Feb. 27). Hall has been acting secretary of the Air Force for space. His nomination for the post must now be confirmed by the Senate.
Northrop Grumman Corporation, Melbourne, Florida, is being awarded a $19,483,656 cost plus award fee contract to provide for interim Contractor Support and Contractor Logistics Support for maintenance and upgrade of software applicable to the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) Prime Mission Equipment. Contract is expected to be completed December 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were two firms solicited and one proposal received. Solicitation began April 1995; negotiations were complete April 1996.
Lockheed Technical Operations Company, Incorporated, Sunnyvale, California, is being awarded a $72,485,543 cost plus award fee contract to provide for requirement analysis, architecture planning, system engineering, on-site integration, horizontal engineering information systems management and configuration and data management in support of the Satellite and Launch Control Systems Programs Office, Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California. Contract is expected to be completed May 2002.
U.S. AIR FORCE'S LAST F-111F is slated for retirement in July. A ceremony marking transition of the 27th Fighter Wing from the 30-year-old plane to the F-16 is slated for July 25 at Cannon AFB, N.M. The AF said the last four-ship flight of F-111Fs will be delivered to Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz., on July 29 after ceremonies at Lockheed Martin Corp. in Fort Worth, Tex.
Boeing Co. has decided not to continue its partnership with McDonnell Douglas on NASA's X-33 reusable launch vehicle (RLV) flying prototype competition, opting instead to offer its services as a subcontractor to the winner of the competition, a company spokesman said yesterday. "We've had fairly detailed discussions with each [bidder] about what we might do," the spokesman said.
TEXTRON SYSTEMS DIV., Wilmington, Mass., has won U.S. Air Force approval of a process for refurbishing the carbon brake discs of F-16 Block 30 fighters. The company said yesterday that the approval, from the Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill AFB, Utah, was based on testing by the Flight Dynamics Directorate at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. Ron Milauskas, executive vice president, said "Textron's RD process presents the military and the commercial aircraft industry with a tremendous opportunity to reduce maintenance costs and significantly reduce turnaround time."
Flight testing of the "Electric Starlifter" is underway at Edwards AFB, Calif., following the aircraft's first flight, the Air Force reported. The NC-141A, with aileron control converted from hydraulic power to power-by-wire/fly-by-wire, made a 90-minute flight April 25 at the Air Force Flight Test Center, the service said. The flight went without a hitch, service program officials said.
Systran Software, Incorporated, La Jolla, California, is being awarded a $10,000,000 indefinite quantity task order contract to provide for programming support for Machine Translation Systems. These systems perform language translation tasks in support of the National Air Intelligence Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Contract is expected to be completed June 2001. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There was one firm solicited and one proposal received.
Britain plans to upgrade most of its fleet of Jaguar strike/reconnaissance aircraft to help cope with Eurofighter delays prompted by defense spending cuts, officials here said.
Air Force Under Secretary Rudy de Leon has signed a letter of transmittal to Northrop Grumman to start upgrading B-2 Air Vehicle-1 (AV-1) to operational status. The upgrade to the test plane includes replacing the landing gear, adding a new avionics suite and modifying the aircraft's structure, fuel system and weapons bay door.
McDonnell Douglas Delta II launch vehicle placed the Hughes Galaxy IX cable television relay satellite in its geostationary transfer orbit late Thursday after a successful launch from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla. Liftoff came at 9:10 p.m. EDT from Pad 17B at the Florida launch facility, and payload separation took place an hour and 21 minutes later over the Pacific. The spin-stabilized Hughes HS-376 satellite carries 24 C-band transponders for cable television feeds. It will join three other Hughes Communications Inc.
Raytheon Company, Equipment Division, Sudbury, Massachusetts, is being awarded a $9,810,196 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the TRIDENT II Captive Line Parts Program. Work will be performed in Sudbury, Massachusetts, and is expected to be completed in September 1999. Contract funds would not have expired at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Navy's Strategic Systems Program, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N00030-96-C- 0038).
DERLAN AEROSPACE CANADA, Milton, Ontario, received three contracts totaling $4.3 million for components of commercial fixed wing aircraft and military helicopters. Largest of the contracts, with an estimated value of $1.9 million, is from GE Aircraft Engines for power takeoff assemblies for the T700 engine. Derlan also got an award valued at about $1.2 million from Kaman Corp. for transmission components for SH-2G helicopters being purchased by Egypt.
MH-53J PAVE LOW III aircrews of the U.S. Air Force's Special Operations Command, flying from Brindisi, Italy, have surpassed the 5,000 flying-hour milestone in support of NATO's Bosnian operations. The AF said crews from the 21st Special Operations Squadron at RAF Mildenhall, U.K., and the 20th SOS, Hurlburt Field, Fla., "have provided continuous combat search and rescue capability for more than three years and continue flying missions supporting Operation Joint Endeavor."
HUGHES AIRCRAFT CO. delivered the first APG-73 radar for the Malaysian Air Force's F/A-18 Hornet aircraft. It said the radar will be installed at McDonnell Douglas Aerospace in St. Louis this summer in the first of the eight Hornets ordered by Malaysia.
Only three weeks after rolling out an upgrade package for the TFE731-3 business jet engine series, AlliedSignal Engines has sold out nearly 60% of this year's available upgrade slots, pushing managers to consider extra vendors and re-allocation of factory work to accommodate demand. The company had 82 openings for upgrades available for this year following rollout of the -3D program May 1, and as of late last week 49 of those slots were taken, AlliedSignal Engines executives said.
U.S. Navy fighters and attack aircraft will soon need to share digital electronic warfare information from sensors on a wide range of other platforms during battle, as the service studies extending the cooperative engagement capability (CEC) concept into tactical aircraft for the first time, says Rear Adm. Dennis McGinn, the service's air warfare director.
Loral Aerospace Corporation, Sunnyvale, California, is being awarded a $7,384,898 face value increase to a cost plus award fee contract to provide for hardware and commercial off-the-shelf software for the Archival Segment of the Air Force Satellite Control Network. Contract is expected to be completed December 2000. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, is the contracting activity (F04701-96/C-0018, P00002).
LOCKHEED MARTIN Skunk Works received $6.1 contract to repair an F-117A Night Hawk damaged by fire last year, the Pentagon announced on May 20. The in-flight broke out when a broken fuel tube sprayed about 150 gallons of JP-8 fuel into the plane's left engine bay. The pilot was able to land the aircraft (DAILY, Jan. 22). Repairs were expected to take between 12 and 18 months.
HEWLETT-PACKARD AND DIGITAL EQUIPMENT were awarded contracts totaling $593.75 million for advanced computers, peripherals and software, the Pentagon announced. Each company initially received $250,000, and will compete for the remaining amount. The U.S. Army Information Systems Selection and Acquisition Agency awarded the contracts on May 22.
Hughes Space and Communications Company, El Segundo, California, is being awarded a $17,850,000 modification to previously awarded contract N00039- 88-C-0300 to exercise an option for Global Broadcast System (GBS) on the last three Ultra High Frequency Follow-On Satellites, F8, F9, and F10. Work will be performed in El Segundo, California, and is expected to be completed by December 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity.
Wilcox Electric is challenging the FAA's decision to award a contract to Hughes Aircraft for the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). The agency took the work away from Wilcox late last month after it determined that the company failed to meet cost and schedule targets. Hughes had been a Wilcox subcontractor. Yesterday, the new president of Wilcox, Bill Marberg, told The DAILY that FAA's contract with Hughes gives that company "more time to achieve fewer and less stringent requirements than Wilcox had under its WAAS contract."
