FORCE PROTECTION: After attracting formal interest from 28 firms as primes, the Air Force plans to unveil preliminary details of its procurement plan for the Integrated Base Defense Security System (IBD SS) by the end of the week, new acquisition notices say. IBD SS, which is managed by the Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., is a seven-year contractual vehicle for buying and integrating a broad range of force protection equipment and services (DAILY, Jan. 27).
Lockheed Martin is launching a 20-month effort to plot the spiral upgrade plan for the F/A-22, which focuses on improving the aircraft's air-to-ground strike capability. The upgrade planning has been in the works for almost a year, but a contract was awarded by the Air Force last week. The Raptor Enhancement, Development and Integration (REDI) contract funds the initial study effort with task orders worth $63 million.
C-130J AWARD: The U.S. Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin Aeronautics a six-year contract worth $4 billion to build 60 C-130J Hercules transport aircraft, the Defense Department said March 14. Forty CC-130Js will be delivered to the Air Force and 20 KC-130Js will be delivered to the Marine Corps by calendar year 2009.
The Defense Department plans to set up a program to provide rapid funding for experiments that aim to promote military transformation, defense officials said March 14. Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski (USN-ret.), director of DOD's Office of Force Transformation, said the transformation initiatives program (TIP) will provide funding for experiments "on very short notice" so combatant commanders can take advantage of "emerging opportunities" that arise in military operations or exercises or through the availability of new technology.
As NASA awaits the results of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), the agency is forming a team to begin planning for the space shuttle's return to flight. Working toward a notional schedule of launching as early as September, the team will examine issues regarding Columbia's flight, including foam insulation on the external tank, policies concerning photographic and radar coverage of shuttle flights, and the possibility of on-orbit tile repair.
SPENDING GROWTH: Large defense spending increases probably are a thing of the past, according to Steven Grundman, director of aerospace and defense consulting for Charles River Associates. DOD spending authorization for operations and maintenance, procurement, and research and development rose $60 billion between 1996 and 2003. From 2003 to 2013, that increase is expected to total just $17 billion. "This high period of growth in the budget authority is behind us now," he says.
APPROPS CHANGES: Major staff changes are in the works for the House and Senate Appropriations defense subcommittees. Steve Cortese, Republican staff director for the Senate panel, is leaving Capitol Hill to work for Lockheed Martin. He is being replaced by Senate panel aide Sid Ashworth. Greg Dahlberg, Democratic staff director for the House panel, also is joining Lockheed Martin and is being succeeded by Senate panel aide David Morrison.
The Army needs quick congressional approval of a fiscal 2003 supplemental appropriations bill to pay for ongoing military operations, Army Secretary Thomas White told a House panel March 12. White testified before the House Appropriations defense subcommittee that the Army will run out of operations and maintenance (O&M) funds by the end of April and will exhaust its personnel accounts around June. Those funds have been depleted by the worldwide war on terrorism and the buildup for a possible invasion of Iraq.
The U.S. Air Force is studying what it will take to accelerate the GPS III satellite constellation from its currently scheduled 2012 first launch, according to Air Force Undersecretary for Space Peter Teets. The study follows a recent memo from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to senior Defense Department officials, in which he suggested it might be appropriate to accelerate GPS III rather than delay it, as the Air Force had planned to (DAILY, Feb. 27).
SHARP WORK: Raytheon Co. will produce low-rate initial production Shared Reconnaissance Pod (SHARP) systems under a U.S. Navy contract worth up to $19.2 million, the company said March 13. Raytheon Technical Services will produce eight SHARP systems for delivery in 2004. The SHARP is to be deployed soon as an early operational capability for the F/A-18F Super Hornet on the USS Nimitz.
THE EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY'S first deep space ground station has opened in New Norcia, north of Perth, Australia. The facility, ESA's first ground station, will play a major role in the agency's deep space missions, including the Rosetta comet rendezvous mission and Mars Express, scheduled to launch in May. The ground station's antenna weighs more than 600 tons and stands more than 40 meters (131 feet). The station is the first of a series that ESA plans to build around the world to make up a European deep space network, ESA said.
NEW DELHI - India has again postponed the launch of its second developmental Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D2). The launch had been planned for February, then was moved to the last week of March and now has been scheduled for May, according to an official with the Indian Space and Research Organization (ISRO). The launch was delayed because of the rescheduling of the launch of the INSAT-3A satellite. A month's gap is needed between the two launches to allow ground stations to track them, the official said.
Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) said March 13 it will trim 1,125 employee positions by 2010. The cuts, it said, are part of a larger Air Force plan to cut some 13,000 active duty and civilian positions in the next seven years.
LONDON - The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (MOD) picked Thales U.K. on March 12 for the assessment phase (AP) of the army's Future Integrated Soldier Technology (FIST) program. FIST is intended to equip British infantry for the computerized network-centric battlefield of the future by integrating improvements in C4I, target acquisition, navigation, survivability and lethality.
The United States has resumed reconnaissance flights near North Korea, although without fighter escorts, according to a senior U.S. military official. The resumption follows a March 2 incident in which four North Korean MiG-29 fighters intercepted a RC-135 Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft over the Sea of Japan. "We retain the right to fly unarmed flights over international airspace," Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee March 13. "The flights have recommenced."
MOSCOW - Khrunichev Space Center has significantly cut the cost of its Proton launch vehicle for International Launch Services to cover its debt to ILS partner Lockheed Martin. In late February, the minutes from a December 2002 roundtable discussion became available, providing financial and status information on the Proton's launch market.
The Defense Department should consider putting missile defense systems on flatbed ships to protect the U.S. coastline against attacks from the sea, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) said March 13. The military has been using the Aegis weapon system to develop sea-based missile defenses that would protect the U.S., allies and deployed troops. Because Aegis is based on cruisers, it easily could be moved around the globe to be near potential missile threats.
During a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing March 12, chairman Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said he will begin an "all-out push" to get the State Department to take some older helicopters off the munitions list to allow their sale in China and other markets. "I'm going to make an all-out push, and I'll put the [State Department] on notice ... that this is denying U.S. workers jobs, denying us market share," Weldon said during a hearing of the tactical air and land forces subcommittee devoted to the U.S. rotorcraft industrial base.
Although the U.S. Air Force is buying Litening II ER targeting pods from Northrop Grumman Corp. for the F-15E strike aircraft, "there's no plan to go further down that path," an Air Force official said March 13. The pods "were bought for F-15Es as an interim measure pending the full production ramp-up of [Lockheed Martin Corp.] Sniper pods and the long-term program for Sniper for the Air Force," said Russell Bone, director of the Precision Attack System Program Office at Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Robins Air Force Base, Ga.
The Air Force is initiating development this year of its new, small expendable launch vehicle (ELV) and plans to have a first test flight in 2007, according to Air Force Undersecretary for Space Peter Teets. Teets has said that despite the effectiveness of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs), Lockheed Martin's Atlas V and Boeing's Delta IV, the military also needs an even more "operationally responsive" small ELV in order to assure access to space (DAILY, Feb. 13).
RECOGNITION: Lockheed Martin Aeronautics' F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter program was awarded the 2003 Shingo Prize for excellence in manufacturing, the company said March 12. The aircraft was developed by the company's Skunk Works for the U.S. Air Force. Utah State University administers the Shingo Prize.
Members of a presidential panel studying the U.S. aerospace industry told a congressional committee March 12 that developing new kinds of propulsion could dramatically improve the industry's overall prospects. "In both air and space, propulsion is a major area where research could produce some dramatic changes," said Robert Walker, chairman of the Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry.
The General Accounting Office says in a new report that the Air Force's F/A-22 Raptor program faces $1.3 billion in additional cost overruns. The cost growth for the Lockheed Martin-built fighter aircraft is in addition to the $876 million overrun the Air Force revealed last fall. That and billions in earlier overruns already have reduced the number of aircraft the Pentagon expects to buy from 438 in 1997 to 333 in 2001 to as few as 224 last October, said Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.), who released the report.
