MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd., now readying the Radarsat-2 Earth observation satellite for launch in 2003, said it will study the feasibility of a Radarsat-3 satellite for the Canadian Space Agency. Radarsat-3 would fly for seven years, collecting detailed digital information on Earth's landmasses, particularly the Polar Regions, according to the Richmond, B.C., company.
Lockheed Martin announced at an ATC meeting in Maastricht, The Netherlands, that it is now officially in the commercial air traffic control radar business. Richard Schubert, VP, said the company's first commercial air traffic control radars will be used for airport surveillance at several sites in Colombia. The Naval Electronics&Surveillance Systems-Radar Systems facility in Syracuse will build three terminal airport surveillance radars and provide a fourth secondary surveillance radar under a $15 million contract.
The Air Force Research Laboratory's Propulsion Directorate has awarded the joint venture team of Aerojet and Pratt&Whitney's Chemical Systems Division a $9 million contract for the Integrated High Performance Rocket Propulsion Technology (IHPRPT) Phase II Demonstration Program. Aerojet will receive about $4.5 million of the contract award, the company announced yesterday.
CAE of Toronto announced a new contract with Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Ltd. (DRAGONAIR) for a convertible A330/340 full flight simulator. The estimated list price for this type of simulator is about $13 million U.S. The simulator's delivery is epxected before June 2002.
An article in The DAILY of Feb. 20 about A-10 aircraft modification misstated the location of Lockheed Martin Systems Integration due to an editing error. It is located in Owego, N.Y., not Oswego, N.Y.
A German appeals court yesterday ruled in favor of the expansion of the Airbus Hamburg assembly site. The ruling was essential for final assembly and interior outfitting work of the Airbus A380 to be allocated to Hamburg.
A U.S. Air Force Milstar II military communications satellite is ready for liftoff Saturday from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., aboard a Titan IV launch vehicle.
Standard&Poor's assigned its triple B minus rating to Northrop Grumman Corp.'s $1.5 billion senior unsecured debt to be issued under Rule 144A, with registration rights. Proceeds will be used to partially fund the acquisition of shipbuilding and information technologies company Litton Industries Inc. Should that acquisition not occur, the company will use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, including the payment of about $1 billion, in 2002, to cover deferred taxes due at completion of the B-2 program, Standard&Poor's stated.
General Dynamics' Ordnance and Tactical Systems unit, Marion, Ill., has won a $3.2 million U.S. Army add-on contract to produce more than 380,00 rounds of 20mm ammunition.
Northrop Grumman Corp. will provide five AN/SPQ-9B shipboard radars, plus an update kit for a sixth radar, under a $22.5 million U.S. Navy contract. The company said its Oceanic and Naval Systems business unit, headquartered in Melville, N.Y., will build and deliver five lightweight configuration, low-rate initial production radars and one lightweight antenna engineering change kit to covert a previously delivered SPQ-9B heavyweight antenna radar to the more efficient configuration.
The Air Force has awarded Spectrum Astro Co., Gilbert, Ariz., $15.4 million for spacecraft development, sensor integration, launch support, and on-orbit support for the Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS). The contract is part of a $50.9 million total potential contract award.
The Senate Armed Services Committee announced yesterday it will hold a confirmation hearing Tuesday for Paul Wolfowitz to be deputy secretary of defense. President George W. Bush said Feb. 5 that Wolfowitz was his choice to be the No. 2 official at the Defense Dept. (DAILY, Feb. 6). Wolfowitz was undersecretary of defense for policy in the first Bush Administration, and his current nomination has received bipartisan praise.
LEAVING HASC: House Armed Services Committee member Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced Wednesday that he will run for the Senate in 2002 rather than seek re-election to the House. Graham, a former Air Force lawyer, hopes to succeed retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.).
Gen. John P. Jumper revealed his Air Combat Command's newest concept of operations here, called Global Strike Task Force (GSTF), calling for an F-22/B-2 initial strike package designed in part to address anti-access problems seen during the 1990s. GSTF, the Air Force's contribution to the joint Global Reconnaissance Strike plan for warfighting, has been presented here as the service's second phase of transformation, following its Expeditionary Air Force (EAF) concept.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. announced its Sikorsky Support Services Inc. (SSSI) subsidiary has been awarded a contract to service aircraft for the Navy's Tactical Air Warfare Program. The one-year contract, with six one-year options, is worth more than $100 million over seven years. SSSI will provide support for F-5E/F Tiger II aircraft located at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nev., and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz. The fighter jets are used as adversary aircraft and fly against "Strike U" aircraft during combat training exercises.
Britain's government is ready to extend its own efforts in multilateral defense cooperation and to raise the profile of such efforts among its partners in NATO and the Western European Union. In a new policy paper issued yesterday, the Defense Ministry said that "now is the right time to extend ... cooperation," adding that "conditions are now right to build on" decades of success in this arena.
The U.S. military could ease the strain on American aircraft enforcing the Southern No-Fly Zone in Iraq by scaling back surveillance of the area and threatening to bomb Iraqi airfields if Saddam Hussein undertakes significant hostile action, a Brookings Institution scholar said yesterday.
Last week's U.S. and British air strikes in Iraq have paradoxically given the Bush Administration ammunition for scaling back the Defense Dept.'s planned purchases of tactical aircraft, an aviation expert said yesterday. The apparently successful attack on Iraqi air defenses was achieved with just two dozen strike aircraft, a tiny fraction of the 3,700 or so Joint Strike Fighters, F-22s and F/A-18E/Fs that the Pentagon plans to buy.
PRIMEX Technologies, St. Petersburg, Fla., is being awarded a $72,162,074 modification to firm-fixed-price, multi-year contract DAAA09-99-C-0021, for 46,196 M831A1 TP-T 120mm cartridges and 103,966 M865 TPDSCS-T 120mm cartridges. The M831A1 is the high explosive training round and the M865 is the kinetic energy training round. Both rounds have inert projectiles and both rounds are used in live-fire training for M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams tanks. Work will be performed at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, Middletown, Iowa, and is expected to be completed by Oct. 31, 2004.
Moves by the U.K.'s Babcock International engineering services group to widen its military base have resulted in a 60.9 million pound ($87.7 million) bid for two of the Hunting group's four defense equipment and support subsidiaries. With an operating profit of 5.8 million pounds on a 55.2 million pound turnover in 1999, these are being offered for disposal to allow Hunting to buy the U.S. Vinson company and further its aim to become the world's biggest supplier of oil and gas drill casings.
BAE Systems has joined with Boeing to form a consortium for the Ministry of Defense's Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) project, a private finance initiative program potentially worth 5 to 7 billion pounds ($7.2 to $10 billion). BAE Systems was one of three international contenders shortlisted for the project. The program calls for providing a complete air-to-air refueling (AAR) service to the RAF - including contractor ownership, management and maintenance of the aircraft - plus provision of training facilities and some personnel, for 25 years.
Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc., Pascagoula, Miss., is being awarded a not-to-exceed $105,511,641 cost-plus-award-fee letter contract modification for repair and restoration of USS Cole. Work will be performed in Pascagoula, Miss., and is expected to be completed by February 2002. Contract funds in the amount of $500,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Arlington, Va., is the contracting activity (N00024-01-C-2302).
The release of a General Accounting Office (GAO) report that found considerable shortcomings with the Marine Corps MV-22 tiltrotor aircraft should be taken with a grain of salt, according to Pentagon sources familiar with the program. While the report faults the V-22 program for inadequate testing and evaluation, specifically in areas where the Bell Boeing aircraft is susceptible to vortex ring state, the Marines defend their beloved program. Several program insiders told The DAILY to consider the source and bias of the report.
Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), co-chairman of the House Electronic Warfare Working Group, plans to push for increased EW spending later this year, a spokesman told The DAILY yesterday. Pitts, a former EW officer in the Air Force, is concerned about shortfalls across the military in electronic attack and protection capabilities, spokesman Gabe Neville said. Among Pitts' concerns is identifying an eventual successor to the Navy's aging EA-6B Prowler, the only airborne radar jammer available to protect Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy aircraft.
The Boeing Company, St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $16,652,011 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost type line items contract for organizational, selected intermediate and as an over and above item, limited depot level maintenance for aircraft operated by the Adversary and Strike Squadron based at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nev. Work will be performed in Fallon, Nev., and is expected to be completed by February 2002. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
