In the face of competition, including the Airbus 380 launched yesterday, and uncertainty over issues such as the fate of the Joint Strike Fighter program, Boeing is sticking with the three-part strategy it used successfully this year. In 2001 and beyond, Boeing again will "run healthy core businesses, leverage our strength into new products and services, and open new frontiers," Chairman and CEO Philip M. Condit said Monday in an interview with editors of The DAILY and other Aviation Week publications.
Cosmonaut Yuri Gidzenko will use manual controls to redock a Progress supply vehicle at Space Station Alpha, after an automatic rendezvous and approach that will allow engineers in Moscow to gauge how well a software patch has fixed the problem that prevented the capsule from docking automatically when it first arrived at the Station last month.
DYNAMICS RESEARCH CORPORATION of Andover, Mass., won a $3.6 million task order, covering the first year under a five-year deal, to provide services to the Aeronautical Systems Center (ASC) at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. DRC will continue to handle work for the Airborne Sensors and Data Links Division, Reconnaissance Program Office.
Rolls-Royce announced orders for the AE 3007 engine worth $315 million. South African Airlink placed a $235 million order for up to 70 of the engines to power its Embraer RJ-135 regional jets, while British Regional Air Lines has awarded Rolls-Royce an $80 million repair and overhaul contract to maintain its fleet of AE 3007-powered Embraer RJ-145s. The AE 3007 powers the Embraer RJ-135, RJ-140 and RJ-145 regional aircraft for which 1,200 orders have been placed by customers in 18 countries, Rolls-Royce said.
The pilot of a C-130E that crashed last year in Kuwait killing three airmen and injuring seven others won't face court-martial charges of dereliction of duty and negligent homicide, as 314th Airlift Wing commander Brig. Gen. Paul Fletcher has decided to drop the court-martial in favor of administrative Article 15 proceedings.
Weekend U.K. press reports that one of the Royal Navy's three V/STOL aircraft carriers was being retired from service, together with its GKN Westland Sea King ASW helicopter squadron, were denied on Monday by the Ministry of Defense.
Motorola has won a $22.3 million U.S. Army contract for the Tactical Air Space Integration Systems (TAIS), an air-ground battlespace management system. "TAIS is a giant leap forward," said Lt. Col. Cory Mahanna, product manager for Air Traffic Control. "Now the Army has a very valuable and useful digitization tool to aid the commander and his staff in obtaining real time situational awareness of the battlefield airspace."
The Aerospace Industries Association is preparing to send the Bush-Cheney transition team a series of position papers on such topics as aerospace exports and the new commission on the aerospace industry. The AIA plans to send the advisory documents to the transition team by week's end, AIA President and CEO John Douglass told The DAILY Monday.
EarthWatch Inc. suffered another setback following launch on a Russian vehicle Monday, when the QuickBird 1 imaging satellite was lost after its Cosmos-3 rocket failed to place it in its proper orbit.
Motorola Inc., dba Systems Solution Group, Huntsville, Ala., is being awarded a $19,440,593 firm-fixed-price/cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for Tactical Airspace Integration System production and supporting services. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Ala., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2006. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were five bids solicited on June 9, 2000, and one bid was received. The U.S. Army Aviation&Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (DAAH01-01-C-0034).
Northrop Grumman Corp., Rolling Meadows, Ill., was awarded on Dec. 12 a $36,841,067 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract to provide for 17 AN/ALQ-135 Band 1.5 Internal Countermeasures Sets applicable to the F-15 aircraft. The work is expected to be completed December 2001. At this time, $1,048,920 of the contract funds have been obligated. Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-98/C-0037, P00024).
The year-end budget package approved by Congress last week would require the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization to buy at least 40 PAC-3 missiles with already appropriated funds. A House aide told The DAILY Monday that lawmakers included the provision because they were concerned that the Defense Dept. was going to buy fewer than the 40 PAC-3 missiles that it had been expected to buy.
Short- and medium-range missiles deployed on surface ships could emerge by 2015 as a cheaper, more accurate alternative to intercontinental ballistic missiles for delivering weapons of mass destruction to the U.S., according to a report released Monday by the National Intelligence Council. David Wright, a scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told The DAILY that it would be difficult to defend the entire U.S. against short- or medium-range missiles launched from ships, since the U.S. has a large coastline and many ships in its ports.
First flight Dec. 16 of Lockheed Martin's X-35C Joint Strike Fighter carrier variant begins what company officials are saying will be fast-paced flight-test schedule. Joe Sweeney, the company test pilot who made the flight from Palmdale, Calif., to nearby Edwards AFB, said Navy Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP) flights were slated to begin by mid-week. "We intend to get into that fairly aggressively," he said. A second flight was planned for yesterday or today.
Following its selection in August as preferred contractor, Raytheon Systems Ltd. was awarded a $145 million contract on Monday for the first stage of the Ministry of Defense's Successor Identification Friend or Foe (SIFF) program. The effort will eventually involve replacement SIFF installations between late 2001-2009 in more than 1,000 tri-service platforms of some 40 different types, including warships, submarines, combat, transport and support aircraft, helicopters and missile systems.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn., is being awarded a $105,913,612 modification as part of firm-fixed-price contract DAAJ09-97-C-0005 for 14 UH-60L/S-70A Black Hawk aircraft, seven configured to the Colombian Army and seven configured to the Colombian Air Force. Work will be performed in Stratford, Conn., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2001. This is a sole source contract initiated on July 17, 1997. The U.S. Army Aviation&Missile Command, Huntsville, Ala., is the contracting activity.
Nuclear and rocket scientists have joined forces here to push a scheme to use nuclear-tipped missiles to protect the earth from Earth-crossing asteroids.
Raytheon Company, Tucson, Ariz., is being awarded a $64,300,285 cost-plus-incentive/award-fee-letter contract for the Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) of the Navy Standard Missile (SM-2) Block IVA. The contract includes long-lead-time materials, vendor qualification and obsolete parts in support of 22 missiles and related efforts. Work will be performed in Tucson, Ariz. (92%), Andover, Mass. (6%), and Camden, Ark. (2%) through December 2003. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Co., San Diego, Calif., is being awarded an $11,048,881 to provide for design, fabrication, and demonstration of a five kilowatt ground demonstration thermionic (TI) power system utilizing the major components of the High Power Advanced Low Mass (HPALM) solar TI power system. A TI power system converts heat energy to electrical energy. This project will demonstrate a system that would condition electrical power to the form that would be used onboard a military payload. Funds will be obligated as individual delivery orders are issued.
NASA mission managers were set to decide today whether questions about the mechanism that drops burned-out Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) during Space Shuttle launches will force them to slip the next launch to Space Station Alpha. In a telephone "tagup," spaceflight managers also were to decide whether to go along with a Russian request to give the Progress supply capsule that failed in its first automatic docking attempt with Alpha a second try. Decisions on both pending issues were expected this morning, according to an agency spokesperson.
Lockheed Martin Federal Systems, Gaithersburg, Md., is being awarded a $6,400,000 modification to a cost-plus-award-fee contract to provide for the negotiated settlement arising from the termination of the Operational Support Contract (OSC) supporting the Ground Control Segment for the Global Positioning System (GPS) Block IIF satellites, and for equitable adjustment for additional test effort required prior to termination.
The Lockheed Martin F-22 program has received an early Christmas gift with the postponement of the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) meeting until Jan. 3, allowing the program an additional two weeks to meet six remaining exit criteria.
The Defense Dept.'s acquisition process remains "expensive and vulnerable to fraud, waste and mismanagement" despite efforts to reform it, according to the Pentagon's Office of Inspector General.
Defense, Inc., Burlington, Mass., was awarded on Dec. 8, a $12,000,000 cost-plus-award- fee contract to provide for design, construction, installation, test and support of a radar site at Tres Esquinas, Colombia. The work is expected to be completed April 2002. There was one firm solicited and one proposal received. Solicitation began December 2000; negotiations were completed December 2000. Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom AFB, Mass., is the contracting activity (F19628-01/C-0011).
Northrop Grumman Corp., Baltimore, Md., was awarded on Dec. 12 a $16,000,000 indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract to provide for research and development support for the Advanced Sensor Program. This effort will improve sensor systems in clutter by exploiting advanced processing architecture and developing advanced processing technologies. At this time, $2,000,000 of the contract funds have been obligated. Further funds will be obligated as individual delivery orders are issued. The work is expected to be completed December 2004.
