Increasing demands for information prompted by the war on terrorism and the push for homeland security have added to the Department of Defense's concerns about ceding spectrum to industry, according to Steven Price, who heads the Pentagon's newly created office for spectrum management. Companies promoting third-generation (3G) wireless systems have been lobbying the government to free government-controlled bands in the 1710-1755 MHz and 2110-2150 MHz spectrum, which under the Clinton Administration was scheduled for auction by September.
ITT Industries' $519 million Air Force contract to upgrade ground-based sensors (DAILY, Feb. 1) is potentially worth $959 million and could last as long as 18 years if all options are exercised, the company said Feb. 1.
January 29, 2002 TRW Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Systems, Clearfield, Utah., is being awarded a $9,224,816 (estimated) contract modification to provide for the Central Data Acquisition and Analysis System Replacement Program on the ICBM Prime Integration contract. At this time, $8,464,758 of the funds has been obligated. This work will be complete December 2005. The Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is the contracting activity (F42610-98-C-0001). January 30, 2002
With the Pentagon committed to using realistic costs estimates for its weapons programs, senior Defense Department officials are warning service officials that they also must use better cost estimates or risk having their programs cancelled. In the fiscal year 2003 budget request submitted to Congress Feb. 4, the Pentagon has added $3.7 billion to account for more realistic cost estimates of weapons systems, DOD Comptroller Dov Zakheim said Feb. 4 at a Pentagon briefing.
ALENIA SPAZIO of Italy will build satellites for Teledesic's global, broadband Internet-in-the-Sky communications network, according to Teledesic. "This agreement with a well-respected international satellite manufacturer as our partner enables us to begin deploying our system economically," said Teledesic President Dennis James. The agreement covers the construction of Teledesic's first two satellites. The company is negotiating with Alenia Spazio and other companies for the construction of other satellites.
President Bush's $379.3 billion defense budget request for fiscal year 2003 includes $68.7 for procurement and $53.9 billion for research and development, funds that will benefit a number of programs that the Administration says will provide "transformational" military capabilities. Unmanned aerial vehicles, precision guided weapons and space programs would receive a large share of the funding increases requested for procurement and research and development.
The U.S. Air Force plans to provide sizable funding increases in fiscal 2003 for the F-22 Raptor, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV), Space Based Radar, Space Based Infrared System-High (SBIRS-High) and Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) programs, according to Air Force and Defense Department budget documents.
SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS, INC. of West Palm Beach, Fla., will develop and supply cryogenic fuel switches to the Boeing Co. for Delta II and Delta III launch vehicles under a $600,000 contract.
A Washington nonprofit group and the Congressional Budget Office are at odds over whether a new CBO report shows that a layered missile defense program would cost $238 billion or more. The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation placed portions of a CBO report on the estimated costs of selected missile defense systems on its website, wwww.shieldofdreams.org, before the report's Jan. 31 release. The center said the report shows that missile defense could cost $238 billion or more over the next 15 years.
KNIGHTHAWK ALIGHTS: The Navy plans to introduce the Sikorsky MH-60S Knighthawk helicopter in a Feb. 8 ceremony at NAS North Island, Calif. The aircraft, with a cockpit designed by Lockheed Martin, will replace the aging CH-46 Sea Knight. Its primary missions will be carrier battle group logistical support such as movements of bombs, supplies and personnel, and amphibious ready group search and rescue operations, the Navy said.
The Bush Administration's fiscal 2003 NASA budget is expected to propose cutting spending over the previous year by 13 percent for the International Space Station and 2 percent for the space shuttle, a congressional source told The DAILY Feb. 1. The FY '02 VA-HUD-NASA appropriations act provided about $2 billion for ISS and $3.3 billion for the shuttle.
RAMOS DELAY: The scheduled fiscal 2005 launch of the two satellites in the Russian-American Observation Satellite (RAMOS) program will be delayed by a year, to FY '06, due to congressional funding cuts and slower-than-anticipated progress in negotiating a government-to-government agreement with Russia, according to a spokeswoman for the Defense Department. Without explanation, the FY '02 defense appropriations act cut $20 million from the Bush Administration's request for RAMOS.
GLOBECAST, the broadcast services division of France Telecom, has leased additional Ku-band capability on Loral Skynet's Telstar 5 satellite to expand delivery of its direct-to-home World Television service and other services. "GlobeCast has been one of the leading forces in the industry to develop a strong marketplace for foreign broadcast networks across North America, helping to position Telstar 5 as the key satellite for world television programming in America," said Terry Hart, president of Loral Skynet.
BYE BYE, BIG BIRD?: Although formation flight techniques for satellites could allow cooperative microsatellites to take over many functions of today's large satellites, there likely will always be a market need for "big birds," according to Russell Carpenter, lead flight dynamics and navigation engineer for formation flight at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "I doubt that we'll ever see them go away completely," Carpenter says.
With the smallest requested dollar growth compared with the Army and Air Force - $9.5 billion - "the Navy will continue to do what is working for us," according to a senior Navy official, who described the Navy and Marine Corps' $108.3 billion FY 2003 budget request.
NASA'S JET PROPULSION LABORATORY in Pasadena, Calif., is releasing new topographical data of the continental United States. The data was gathered during the February 2000 Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), which was aimed at creating the world's best topographic map. Included in the data are three-dimensional images and animations of California. "The release of the California mosaic and continental-U.S. SRTM is a tantalizing preview of things to come from this program," said Michael Kobrick, JPL's SRTM program scientist.
The absence of two major programs from the Missile Defense Agency's slate allows for increases in other programs, including the sea-, air-, and space-based boost-phase intercept programs, according to a senior defense official. The Bush Administration's fiscal year 2003 defense budget request includes $7.763 billion for missile defense programs, down slightly from the enacted FY '02 level of $7.775 billion.
ANDREWS SPACE&TECHNOLOGY of Seattle will perform market analysis, business planning, systems engineering and launch vehicle design services in support of Northrop Grumman's second-generation Reusable Launch Vehicle program. The work will be done under a $15.7 million contract that Northrop Grumman was awarded in December by NASA for its Space Launch Initiative program. Andrews Space&Technology's part of the work is worth about $1.8 million.
QDR QUESTIONS: One thing to look for in 2003 budget numbers is linkage between the Administration's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and funding provided to achieve the plans laid out in the document, according to military analyst Andrew Krepinevich, who heads the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Finding this may be difficult because the QDR is vague on how to achieve the military's operational goals, he says. "The 'what' is there in the QDR, but the 'how' is not there," Krepinevich says.
