CONTRACT ADDITION: The Boeing Co. awarded Orbital Sciences Corp. $50 million in additions to its contract to develop and build interceptor boosters for the missile defense program, Orbital said Jan. 10. The addition supports nine demonstration and test flights of Orbital's Ground-based Midcourse Defense booster, beginning early this year, the company said. The total value of Orbital's work on the program now stands at around $1 billion, including production options, the company said.
EASING THE STING: The Navy plans to spend more than $400 million on training systems to ease the sting of closing its controversial live-fire training base on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico. Military training at the Caribbean range will cease by May 1, Navy Secretary Gordon England says. Navy officials have found training alternatives that will cushion the loss of Vieques, and which include "new technologies and range announcements," according to a Navy statement.
SEE AND AVOID: Autonomous "see and avoid" capability will be essential for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as they become more prevalent on future battlefields, according to Joseph Thomas, vice president of UAV programs for AAI Corporation. "One of the tenets of aviation that I've [lived] with all my life is 'see and be seen,'" Thomas says. "That's your first responsibility - to keep your head on the swivel, make sure you see what's out there, and avoid it. Now a UAV can't do that ...
L MINUS TWO: NASA will decide Jan. 14 whether the crack found in a fuel line support assembly during a routine inspection of the shuttle Discovery merits scrubbing the scheduled Jan. 16 launch of shuttle Columbia on STS-107 - a pure science mission that will carry Israel's first astronaut. The space agency has spent the past few weeks reproducing the cracks in test articles to determine whether the shuttles can fly safely with them (DAILY, Jan. 6). "They're in the home stretch," Johnson Space Center spokesman James Hartsfield says. "There's optimism that we can ...
Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski's visit to the White House this week will set the stage for a new round of talks to complete a $3.8 billion fighter contract awarded last month to the Lockheed Martin F-16, according to a source close to the Polish delegation. Poland's fighter competition, which was decided Dec. 27, likely will come up in talks between Kwasniewski and President Bush, the source said. "I would assume they would touch upon that particular issue," the source said, "but I doubt that they would go into details."
GUN WORK: General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products will provide 40 M61A1 20mm Gatling Guns and ammunition feed systems to Boeing for the F-15, under an $18.9 million contract.
JSF WORK: Rolls-Royce has contracted with Philips Aerospace of the Netherlands to supply fan cases for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's F136 engine, the company said Jan. 9. The companies had signed a memorandum of understanding to work together during the Paris Air Show in 1999. The first F136 engine is to begin testing in 2004, with production units available beginning in 2010, according to the company.
One of the biggest challenges for Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems over the next five years will be driving the cost down on its cutting-edge aerospace products, according to Jack Kelble, president of the business unit. "It's a very competitive market. Northrop Grumman does an excellent job of producing [radar] arrays at a reasonable costs," Kelble said in an interview Jan. 9. "We're both working to drive down the costs of arrays."
The replacement of Goodrich Chairman and CEO David Burner by current Chief Operating Officer Marshall Larsen is unlikely to result in significant changes for the company over the next two years, according to a U.S. aerospace analyst. Goodrich announced Jan. 9 that Larsen would replace Burner as CEO on April 15 during a company board of directors meeting. The board approved the succession plan early last year, Goodrich officials said.
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has acquired Composite Optics Inc. (COI), of San Diego, the company said Jan. 9. COI builds telescope structures, mirrors, satellite structures, antenna reflectors and other equipment, which is in place on spacecraft such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and Mars Global Surveyor and the U.S. Air Force's Airborne Laser.
Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee, is threatening to oppose some of the Defense Department's missile defense programs if the Air Force does not get enough money to buy the Lockheed Martin F/A-22 Raptor.
In its latest Operational Evolution Plan (OEP), the FAA calls on the air travel industry to help foot the bill for equipment modernizations that will help the National Airspace System (NAS) keep pace with future demand. Although air traffic demand has been down following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the FAA expects traffic will return to pre-Sept. 11 growth patterns between 2005 and 2007. FAA estimates the OEP will allow for a 45 percent capacity increase by 2013.
Through its proposed Advanced Theater Transport (ATT) and Light Aerial Multipurpose Vehicle (LAMV) concepts, Boeing is offering the Army alternatives to rotorcraft for battlefield mobility, according to company officials. Boeing is marketing the ATT to meet the Army's Advanced Maneuver Transport (AMT) requirement, which translates to the ability to vertically lift one 20-ton vehicle in the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program. Sikorsky and Bell Helicopter Textron are working on large rotorcraft concepts for AMT (DAILY, Jan. 9).
The Army's special operations aviation component will expand its capability by removing some current non-core duties, according to a senior defense official. A shortage of Army special operations pilots and aircraft has hampered plans to increase the size of the force, which has been in high demand in the war on terror and stands to play a key role in a potential conflict in Iraq.
NOMINATIONS: President Bush will nominate former congressman Paul McHale of Pennsylvania to be assistant secretary of defense for homeland security, the White House said Jan. 9. Bush also will nominate Christopher Ryan Henry, the corporate vice president for strategic assessment and development at Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), to be deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.
NEW DELHI - India's short-range Agni-1 was test-fired Jan. 9 from a mobile launcher on Wheeler's Island in the Bay of Bengal, according to a senior official with the Indian defense ministry. "The launch of the one-stage missile is expected to help defense scientists validate some crucial technologies, like guidance and telemetry systems," the official said.
RAISED: Standard & Poor's changed its outlook on Rockwell Collins from negative to stable, the ratings service said Jan. 9. "Rockwell's strong balance sheet, fairly conservative financial policy, and growing military business are expected to offset the impact of the continued decline in the commercial aerospace market on the firm's solid credit profile," S&P analyst Christopher DeNicolo said in a statement. S&P affirmed the company's ratings, including its "A" long-term corporate credit rating and "A-1" short-term rating.
Boeing Phantom Works has demonstrated that the 20-year-old Link 16 airborne network can be converted into an "Internet-like" connection for dramatically improving collaboration on time critical strikes, the company said. Capping a nearly four-year development effort, a recent demonstration involved a link between a strike node aboard the F-15E1 Advanced Technology Demonstrator and a command and control node (C2) on the 737 Avionics Flying Laboratory, said Don Winter, director of network-centric operations at Phantom Works.
NEW DELHI - Indian and U.S. officials plan to hold a space conference in India later this year to foster space cooperation between the two countries. The conference will build on an agreement made last year during Indian Prime Minister Atal Behair Vajpayee's visit to Washington, when the two countries decided to foster cooperation in space technologies such as satellite navigation services, environmental monitoring and the Global Positioning System.
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), said Jan. 9 that he hopes to boost funding and oversight for weapons programs and that he has appointed new subcommittee overseers for aircraft, missile defense and military space. The existing five subcommittees will be replaced with six new ones: tactical air and land forces; strategic forces; projection forces; readiness; terrorism, unconventional threats and capabilities; and total force.
The U.S. Air Force and Navy want input from industry on the possible development of a pod-mounted laser infrared countermeasures system for fighter aircraft, larger military planes, and possibly commercial planes. A modification of the Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures system (LAIRCM), already in low-rate production by Northrop Grumman for the C-130 and C-17, could be a candidate, the Air Force said.
