LIGHT ANTI-ARMOR WEAPON (LAW) production is the subject of a request for proposals to be released on about Oct. 30 by the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane, Ind. The center said in an Oct. 13 Commerce Business Daily notice that the RFP will call for 185 M72A5 LAWs, with option quantities totaling 719.
The restructuring of the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program earlier this year has come at the cost of technology development, but has also removed concurrency, the JAST director said yesterday. A number of technology initiatives were rephased or scrubbed entirely, Rear Adm. Craig Steidle told reporters in Arlington, Va. For instance, six weapon seeker programs were "pared down to [the] one we're looking at," he said. Steidle wouldn't reveal the program.
October 13, 1995 McDonnell Douglas Aerospace McDonnell Douglas Aerospace, St. Louis, Missouri, is being awarded a $280,424,810 modification to previously awarded contract N00019-94-C-0084 to procure 24 fiscal year 1995 F/A-18C weapon systems and associated supplies and data. Work will be performed in St. Louis, Missouri, and is expected to be completed by September 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
LOCKHEED MARTIN's Martin Marietta Defense Systems unit, Pittsfield, Mass., will supply Digital Electronic Control Assemblies for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle under a $7.9 million delivery order awarded Sept. 25 by the U.S. Army Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command. The Dept. of Defense said the order is part of an $8.9 million contract.
UNITED INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING, Albuquerque, N.M., is up for a sole source award from U.S. Army Missile Command "for additional manhours to support the Javelin [weapon system] product assurance test and configuration management simulation and test programs and Javelin Foreign Military Sales (FMS) development," according to an Oct. 5 Commerce Business Daily notice from MICOM. "The proposed acquisition is for 8,000 additional manhours of support services in support...in FY '96 and FY '97," MICOM said.
Japan's Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS) has successfully completed the last of 10 firing tests of a prototype kick motor for the new M-5 launch vehicle.
NASA will try again Thursday to launch the Space Shuttle Columbia on a 16- day microgravity science mission after Sunday's weather scrub, and will bump Columbia in favor of the second Shuttle Atlantis mission to dock with Russia's Mir space station if Columbia doesn't fly by next Sunday.
October 11, 1995 General Dynamics Corporation General Dynamics Corporation, Electric Boat Division, Groton, Connecticut, is being awarded a $50,437,082 modification to previously awarded contract N00024-95-C-2101 for omnibus engineering and technical services for Ohio Class submarines. Work will be performed in Groton, Connecticut and is expected to be completed by September 1996. Contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
U.S. NAVAL Surface Warfare Center, Crane, Ind., is issuing a request for proposals for production of the Advanced Crew Served Weapon/Laser Illuminator System (ACSWS/LIS). It said in an Oct. 5 Commerce Business Daily notice that it wants 19 of the systems 120 days after contract award.
The U.S. Army conducted the third test launch of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense interceptor last Friday, apparently without problems. The missile was launched from White Sands Missile Range, N.M., against a Storm target at 8:45 a.m. MST. "The initial data we had indicated that the THAAD worked as planned," said a spokesman for Army Missile Command.
House National Security R&D subcommittee chairman Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) has accused the intelligence community of "foot-dragging" on a new intelligence estimate for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and urged Defense Secretary William J. Perry to ensure that it is completed and delivered in a timely manner. A change in the present assessment that the U.S. will not face a long- range missile threat until the middle of the next decade could lead to a speedup in deployment of a national missile defense.
The Eurofighter consortium is seeing slow progress in its flight test program, even though British Aerospace's DA.2 development aircraft, Daimler-Benz Aerospace's DA.1, and DA.3 in Italy are all now flying. Eurofighter's Mal Grosse told The DAILY that as of Oct. 10 the three planes had only accumulated a total of 80 sorties, flying about as many hours. This apparently includes the 18 flights completed in all by DA.1 and DA.2 last year before they were grounded for flight control system software revision and avionics upgrades.
Just after being selected by the U.S. Army for project definition and validation for the Corps Surface-to-Air Missile defense system, winners Lockheed Martin and a team of Hughes and Raytheon said they were pleased to have won-but that they are already preparing for the next downselect around 1999.
The U.S. Air Force is checking alternatives to upgrade its lethal Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) capability, including non- radiation seeking missiles. The service needs "something that will allow preemptive destruction to where we precisely locate these [enemy RF] emitters, and we don't need to rely on them radiating to kill them," one AF official said.
Things are busy on Mir, what with preparing for Friday's spacewalk and next month's second Shuttle docking mission, as well as unloading the Progress supply capsule that docked early last week with the supplies and fuel that will enable the extended mission. So it is unlikely the crew was very pleased with a little extra work caused by carelessness on the ground. Mission Control Center-Moscow asked the crew to help find a missing security badge, apparently lost and sealed inside the supply capsule by one of the workers who loaded it.
Adding to the Long March equation is Intelsat, which wants to get its Intelsat 8 in orbit as soon as possible. Industry sources have accused Intelsat of trying to muscle its way ahead of AsiaSat 2 and EchoStar in the Long March launch manifest. An Intelsat spokesman says the international consortium hopes to have its satellite launched in December or January, but adds that the schedule is very fluid because Intelsat and China Great Wall are "still talking."
ARIANESPACE will reset the launch date today for the Astra 1E European television satellite, after a faulty interface unit scrubbed Saturday's planned launch attempt. A replacement for the control unit will be flown from France to Kourou today, and launch of the Ariane 42L could come as early as 8:38 p.m. EDT tomorrow, according to an Arianespace spokeswoman.
China's Long March rocket, grounded since a January launch mishap, is now slated to return to operation on Dec. 8 with launch of the AsiaSat 2 satellite, sources say. Lockheed Martin Astro Space, which built the communications spacecraft in New Jersey, shipped it for launch last Thursday.
