Senior Pentagon officials said Dec. 19 that the Defense Department expects to make a decision sometime in early 2003 on an Air Force proposal to lease 100 Boeing 767 refueling aircraft. "The department continues its review of the terms, conditions, business case analysis, and operational implications of this proposal," Pentagon acquisition chief E.C. "Pete" Aldridge Jr. and DOD Comptroller Dov Zakheim said in a statement. Aldridge and Zakheim chair DOD's leasing review panel.
Lockheed Martin says technology from a program it is working on for the Air Force could be used to help protect commercial airliners from attack by heat-seeking missiles. The target price per system would be $1 million or less, and devices could be available next year, according to the company. BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman also have said they could offer such systems.
A recent briefing the U.S. Navy gave several U.S. and international shipbuilders about the potential sale of diesel-electric submarines to Taiwan may be the first step in establishing a framework for the sale, according to naval analysts. The briefing, held at the Washington Navy Shipyard on Dec. 17-18, was given by Naval Sea Systems Command to representatives of four large U.S. defense contractors: General Dynamics Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp., and Raytheon Co.
Starting in the fiscal 2004 budget, U.S. Defense Department officials plan to shift more than $90 billion from sustaining current weapons and hardware to more futuristic programs, including laser satellite transmissions and unmanned combat aerial vehicles, a senior defense official said Dec. 19. The "significant" tilt in investment patterns also reflects the increasing strength of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's transformation agenda, a frequent cause of bitter disputes with service officials concerned about diversion of funds from existing programs.
LAUNCHERS: Lockheed Martin has received the first full-rate production contract for 34 Multiple Launch Rocket System M270A1 launchers, the company said Dec. 19. The launchers include improvements to the M270, including a new Improved Fire Control System and Improved Launcher Mechanical System. The contract, from the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, is worth $63.7 million.
General Dynamics Corp. announced Dec. 19 it had reached an agreement with General Motors to acquire that company's defense business for $1.1 billion in cash. The deal does not include General Motors' military trucks business, which is located in Troy, Mich. GM Defense, headquartered in London, Ontario, produces wheeled armored vehicles and turrets for military forces worldwide. Products include the Piranha combat vehicle as well as the Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) for Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia.
The evolving art of cyberwarfare is in an era similar to that of nuclear warfare in the late 1950s before U.S. nuclear doctrine was established, according to White House cybersecurity chief Richard Clarke.
IRIDIUM: The Department of Defense has extended its airtime contract with Iridium Satellite for another year. Iridium's communications contract with the DOD includes options to extend it through 2005.
NEW DELHI - Russia will allow India's state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. to export Russian aeronautics systems, built under license in India, to third countries. The countries signed a protocol to allow such exports on a case-by-case basis, an Indian defense ministry official said Dec. 17. The Indian government has asked HAL to mount an export drive to boost defense exports. The company's aim is to achieve $200 million in annual exports within a decade, HAL chairman Nalini Ranjan Mohanty said.
GETTING READY: A Boeing Delta IV booster that will conduct the first Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle mission for the U.S. Air Force has been erected on its launch pad, Boeing said Dec. 18. The booster is scheduled to launch a Defense Satellite Communications System III A3 spacecraft in February, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
BAE SYSTEMS NORTH AMERICA, Rockville, Md. Richard Ashooh has been appointed vice president of legislative affairs. BOMBARDIER, Montreal Paul Tellier has been appointed president and CEO. EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY Jean-Jacques Dordain has been appointed director general of ESA. GOODRICH, Charlotte, N.C. Tom Fitch has been appointed vice president and controller in the new Engine Systems segment. Jerry LaReau has been appointed vice president, government programs, based in Washington.
Less than a week after closing its acquisition of TRW Inc., Northrop Grumman Corp. has made another acquisition, the company said Dec. 18. The acquisition, Fibersense Technology Corp., designs and manufactures precision fiber optic gyroscopes (FOGs), inertial measurement units and sensor components for missiles, aircraft, sea and land applications.
Goodrich Corp. will reorganize into three business segments - Airframe Systems, Engine Systems and Electronic Systems, the company said Dec. 17. The move will streamline the organization and "enhance the company's alignment and communications with its global customer base," the company said in a statement. The reorganization will take effect Jan. 1.
MOSCOW - Russia's ORT-First Channel TV and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, or Rosaviakosmos, confirmed plans to launch the winner of a planned "reality" show to the International Space Station next fall. The TV channel reportedly already has paid about 10 percent of the $20 million for the flight on a Soyuz crew rescue vehicle, which are rotated for station duty every six months.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Dec. 18 that he expects Congress ultimately will approve the Bush Administration's new plan for deploying missile defenses. Although some lawmakers have criticized or expressed concern about the Administration's proposal (DAILY, Dec. 18), Weldon said he does not believe the opposition will be strong enough to defeat the missile defense plan.
A freshly installed network originally designed to beam F/A-22 Raptor test data from White Sands, N.M., to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in real time is gaining widespread interest across the U.S. Air Force procurement community, according to a senior testing official. Program managers for the Airborne Laser and the bomber fleet are considering the potential of the $4.5 million network designed in-house by engineers at the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC), said Steven Cronk, the center's operations chief.
In partnership with NASA, Space Imaging of Thornton, Colo., is developing a synthetic cockpit vision system based on remote sensing data that the company hopes will reduce accident rates for first-response helicopter crews across the country. The system is an outgrowth of NASA's Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) project, which combines Global Positioning System (GPS) data with digital terrain and elevation data stored onboard the aircraft to create real-time digital renderings of landscapes over which pilots are flying (DAILY, Sept. 17, 2001).
Lockheed Martin Corp. plans to bid its Snake Eyes multispectral infrared targeting system for several proposals next year relating to the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program. Snake Eyes, originally developed for the Tactical Reconnaissance Armored Combat Equipment Requirement (TRACER)/Future Scout and Cavalry System (FSCS) program, leverages the advanced sensing and signal processing technology of the Apache Arrowhead and Comanche electro-optical sensor programs.
The scheduled Dec. 19 launch of NASA's ICESat and CHIPSat satellites aboard a Delta II, as well as the scheduled Dec. 18 launch of the Coriolis satellite aboard a Titan II rocket, have been scrubbed until early next year. During a routine Dec. 16 test of electrical systems on the Boeing Delta II on the launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., engineers discovered a problem with a unit that sends the signal that instructs the rocket's payload fairing to separate and release.
