BOEING SATELLITE SYSTEMS, El Segundo, Calif. David Ryan has been appointed president, replacing Randy Brinkley, who has resigned (DAILY, Feb. 25). BOMBARDIER, Montreal Denis Desautels, the former auditor general of Canada, has joined the board of directors. CENTRE NATIONAL D'ETUDES SPATIALES (CNES), Paris Yannick d'Escatha has been appointed president of the French space agency. MEGGITT AEROSPACE EQUIPMENT, North Hollywood, Calif.
ABL DELIVERY: The Airborne Laser (ABL) program's beacon illuminator laser, which will help identify the atmosphere's impact on the kill laser, has been delivered to the Missile Defense Agency, Northrop Grumman Corp. said. Northrop Grumman built the beacon illuminator laser and has been developing the chemical laser that will serve as the kill laser. Both lasers will be installed on a Boeing 747-400 Freighter that is slated to attempt the ABL program's first missile intercept in 2004.
Members of the House Armed Services Committee questioned Feb. 26 whether the Navy and Marine Corps have chosen the right mix and size for their aircraft fleets. The two services hope to save $975 million over the next six years by combining their tactical aircraft squadrons and cutting the number of fighter aircraft by 497, or about 10 percent. But committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) said the reduction may be too deep.
FALLS CHURCH, Va. - The rift with France and Germany over a possible war in Iraq is provoking some Capitol Hill lawmakers to rethink their position on America's future military presence in Europe, according to Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.). "I'm very upset, and so is the Congress," Weldon said during a keynote speech at the National Defense Industrial Association's (NDIA) Space Policy and Architecture symposium in Falls Church, Va., Feb. 26. "We have a major situation developing on Capitol Hill that I have not seen in 19 years."
Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., reported fourth-quarter revenues of $161 million, an increase of 33 percent over fourth quarter 2001. Orbital also reported an operating income of $10.8 million, compared with a loss of $23 million in the same period last year. Revenues for the year were $551.6 million, also an increase of 33 percent over 2001. Some of the increase was due to the company's work on a missile defense boost vehicle under a multi-year contract from the Boeing Co., Orbital said (DAILY, March 6, 2002).
The U.S. Air Force's close air support (CAS) role suffers from poor staffing decisions and is undermined by the structure of joint training exercises, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper said Feb. 26. The military plans to change how it trains and prepares for choreographing close air support missions after acknowledged weaknesses were exposed during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan last year.
GENERAL DYNAMICS LAND SYSTEMS of Sterling Heights, Mich., said the Stryker Mobile Gun System entered U.S. Army production qualification testing this week at Aberdeen Test Center, Md. Successful completion of the test is required before the system enters low-rate initial production, which the Army is expected to authorize in the fourth quarter of this year. General Dynamics has delivered seven pre-production Stryker Mobile Gun Systems to the Army, with an eighth to be delivered this month.
NASA's venerable Pioneer 10 spacecraft, launched in 1972, has sent its last signal to Earth, NASA said Feb. 25. A weak signal was received Jan. 22, with no telemetry data. NASA has no plans to made additional contact attempts, and aerospace agency engineers said the spacecraft's radioisotope power source has decayed and may not have enough power to send additional transmissions to Earth.
In a memo sent earlier this week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld questioned the Air Force's decision to delay the GPS III program, according to Owen Wormser, principal director for spectrum, space, sensors, and command, control, and communications (C3) at the Pentagon.
Actions taken by launch service providers to boost demand for service, such as reducing rates, are unlikely to significantly benefit the satellite industry, according to a panel of satellite executives and analysts. Instead, launch service providers need to focus on launch vehicle reliability and ensuring that their rates remain competitive, they said.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A space wargame being held this week at Schriever Air Force Base here will help the Army generate space-related requirements, according to Brig. Gen. Richard V. Geraci, deputy commanding general of Army Space Command. "You start talking and you start generating requirements," Geraci said in an interview last week as the week-long game began. "You say, 'You know, if our satellites had this capability and they could perform this way, we may be able to minimize casualties, be able to execute a mission in more rapid manner.'"
The Defense Department is trying to find promising technologies that could quadruple the military's deployable electric power supply within 10 years, a senior DOD official said Feb. 25. "Our power needs are insatiable," said Al Shaffer, director of plans and programs for Defense Research and Engineering. The military's electrical supply crunch was a key theme of his speech at the Non-Lethal Weapons conference in Alexandria, Va., which was sponsored by the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement.
ManTech International Corp. of Fairfax, Va., will acquire Integrated Data Systems (IDS), a Chantilly, Va.-based software development and systems integration company that supports intelligence and Department of Defense customers. ManTech will acquire IDS for $57.5 million in cash, the company said Feb. 25. The buy is the company's third acquisition since its initial public offering in February 2002. Last year, the company acquired Aegis Research Corp. and CTX Corp.
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has awarded the Titan Corp. of San Diego a $59.9 million contract to develop and build the Navy's X-craft, company officials said Feb. 25. The X-craft is envisioned to be a 73-meter long (about 240 feet) high-speed aluminum catamaran that features an advanced hull design to allow the ship to reach speeds of 50 knots or more.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The Department of Defense's investments in high-energy laser research are shifting from technologies designed to attack incoming ballistic missile warheads to tactical requirements, according to a defense technology official. That trend should be confirmed by an event scheduled in April by the High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office (HEL-JTO), which coordinates the Pentagon's research on laser technology and provides about $70 million each year to fund fledgling research and development efforts.
GLOBAL HAWK: Northrop Grumman has delivered the seventh Global Hawk unmanned air vehicle to the U.S. Air Force, the company said Feb. 25. The vehicle, which includes enhanced avionics, is the last to be delivered under the advanced concept technology demonstration phase. The company is scheduled to deliver the first two Global Hawk production vehicles later this year.
Initial results from the first flight test of the Navy's "Coyote" GQM-163A Supersonic Sea Skimming Supersonic Target (SSST) appear favorable, according to Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). The booster launch and separation phases performed as expected during the Jan. 23 test at Point Mugu, Calif., NAVAIR said. Data collected during the test is being analyzed to measure the rest of the Coyote's performance.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The Army plans to bring image fusion to the individual soldier when it fields the next-generation of night vision goggles in fiscal year 2007, according to Lt. Col. Cynthia Bedell, product manager for sensors and lasers at Program Executive Office-Soldier. Bedell is responsible for the development of hand-held night vision devices, from image intensification and infrared goggles to low-light cameras and laser rangefinders.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) needs fusion technologies that will blend images from different sensors in real time to provide the most useful view of a target, according to Patrick Gardner, science adviser at SOCOM's Office of Advanced Technology. "In my assessment, probably the richest field for fusion in distributed sensors is in the area of deeply buried targets," Gardner said at the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement's (IDGA) Image Fusion conference in Alexandria, Va., Feb. 25.
JOINT STARS: Northrop Grumman delivered the 15th E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) aircraft to the 116th Air Control Wing (ACW) on Feb. 25, the company said. This was the fifth aircraft produced in the Block 20 configuration, which includes integrated commercial-off-the-shelf onboard computing and signal processing, Northrop Grumman said. The company also is updating the first 10 Air Force Joint STARS aircraft to the Block 20 configuration.
Providing satellite services to the U.S. government could become an important source of revenue for satellite operators and service providers, according to satellite industry analysts. "The government has been an important bridge across these troubled waters," Richard DalBello, president of the Satellite Industry Association (SIA) said at a panel discussion at the Satellite 2003 conference in Washington, sponsored by Via Satellite. "As overall telecom buying has diminished, the government's unique needs have increased dramatically."
RADAR WORK: The Australian Department of Defence has awarded Daronmont Technologies a three-year, $15 million contract for building, operating and supporting a demonstration of an over-the-horizon, high-frequency surface wave radar. The SECAR radar can detect surface vessels and low-flying aircraft beyond the visible horizon, which will allow 24-hour surveillance of the coastline. Authorities will use the radar to monitor fisheries and offshore oil and gas equipment and deter smugglers.
An Army official told a Senate panel Feb. 25 that the Defense Department plans to terminate the Joint Simulation System (JSIMS) due to problems in developing the computer-training tool, but the proposal drew immediate criticism from a senator whose state hosts the program.
