NAVY E-BIZ SETS SAIL: The Navy e-Business Operations Office, chartered only in October, is off to strong start with over $20 million in funding in this year to explore e-business pilot projects. The office's first call for ideas netted more than 300 proposals from across the Navy and Marine Corps. Typical marks of winning candidate projects broad application, quick implementation and a price which typically does not exceed $1 million. Charles Nemfakos, deputy under secretary of the Navy, said the office could reasonably handle about 50 projects in the first year.
A Japanese sounding rocket carried a Canadian instrument in Dec. 4 launch from Spitzbergen, Norway. The instrument, the Thermal Suprathermal Analyzer (TSA), is designed to analyze the complexities of ion composition and distribution in the upper atmosphere, according to the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
Rep. Julian Dixon (D-Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, died Friday of an apparent heart attack in Los Angeles. He was 66. House colleagues praised Dixon, an Army veteran, as a quiet but hard-working and effective lawmaker who was dedicated to national security issues and looked out for his congressional district's defense and aerospace industrial base.
The first Russian RD-180 engine destined to power Lockheed Martin's new Atlas V booster on its inaugural flight has been delivered to the company's Denver facility and will be installed in January.
SIKORSKY AIRCRAFT CORP., Stratford, Conn., won a $14.6 million fixed-price U.S. Navy contract for services supporting the Special Progressive Aircraft Rework associated with the VH-3D and VH-60 Presidential helicopters, the Pentagon said Friday. It said work will be carried out at the company's Stratford, Conn., facilities, and is expected to be completed by September 2001. Contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The contract was awarded by Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md.
TETRA TECH INC., Pasadena, Calif., announced that it was awarded $37.5 million in two new contracts to support environmental management efforts at Dept. of Defense sites. The contracts cover Wright-Patterson AFB and all Army Materiel Command bases, the company said yesterday. Both contracts are five-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity agreements that will begin immediately.
Lockheed Martin's X-35C carrier variant (CV) of the Joint Strike Fighter is expected to make its first flight late this week. The X-35C, which has been developed to meet U.S. Navy specifications, is in final preparations for first flight and will likely begin taxi runs today or tomorrow. Company test pilot Joe Sweeney, a former U.S. Navy test pilot, is slated to be at the controls of the aircraft for its first flight from Palmdale, Calif.
WELDON BOOSTERS: Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) has amassed more than 100 letters of endorsement for his bid to become chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, according to his congressional office. Among those endorsing him is former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Central Intelligence Agency head James Woolsey, former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Watkins (USN-ret.) and former Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre. Weldon is waging a vigorous campaign for the chairmanship in hopes of upsetting his more senior opponent, Rep. Bob Stump (R-Ariz.).
Bath Iron Works Corp., a unit of General Dynamics, and Ingalls Shipbuilding, part of Litton Industries, received substantial boosts to their baseline DDG 51 Class multi-year contracts from Naval Sea Systems Command. Bath received a $660.8 million contract modification, which provides money for fiscal 2001 multiyear ships, the DDG 99 and DDG 101. The deal covers the construction of DDG 51 Class Aegis destroyers. Work, slated to be completed in August 2006, will be carried out at the company's shipyard in Bath, Maine.
A National Reconnaissance Office data relay spacecraft is enroute to geosynchronous orbit following a Dec. 5 launch from Cape Canaveral on an International Launch Services (ILS) Atlas IIAS. The Atlas-Centaur with four solid rocket strap-on boosters lifted off from Launch Complex 36A at 9:47 p.m. EST. It placed the Boeing spacecraft into an initial 20,241 x 146 n.m. transfer orbit inclined 26.5 degrees. The satellite is using its own propulsion system to climb to geosynchronous orbit.
The U.S. Marine Corps' newest attack helicopter, the AH-1Z Super Cobra, completed its first flight yesterday at the Bell Helicopter Textron's Fort Worth, Tex., facility. U.S. Navy Capt. Tom Curtis, H-1 program manager, said the flight marked a major milestone for the entire H-1 upgrade program team. "Z1's first flight represents the culmination of four years of initial development work and begins an entirely new phase for the H-1 team," Curtis said.
Lockheed Martin said it has won a $54 million contract from the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) to provide four more AN/FPS-117 radars to supplement the eight systems now used by the ROKAF for air surveillance. The company will team with Korea's LG Innotek Ltd. (LGIT) to deliver the radars by 2003. The first two radars will be produced at Lockheed Martin's facility in Syracuse, N.Y. LGIT will participate in production of the third and fourth.
Students at the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, Edwards AFB, Calif., have evaluated a new handling qualities design tool that the AF said could help prevent pilot-induced oscillations in future aircraft. Six students examined equipment known as the open-loop onset point criterion. It is designed to help engineers more accurately predict the likelihood of the oscillations in rate limiting conditions - when control surfaces are operating at their maximum capacity - the AF said.
Raytheon Co. said it has completed work on the Canadian Automated Air Traffic System (CAATS), designed to help air traffic controllers meet increasing demands. A two-year implementation process will follow.
A facility to restore the stealthy skin of the B-2 bomber is being built at Whiteman AFB, Mo. The 53,000 square foot building, due to be completed in November 2002, will ensure "the combat capability and lethality of the B-2 stealth bomber," said Lt. Col. Don Sparks, deputy commander of the 509th Logistics Group at Whiteman. Contractors in California now perform the B-2 skin restoration work, the Air Force said.
The Senate passed the fiscal 2001 intelligence authorization bill late Wednesday after dropping a requirement that the National Reconnaissance Office handle contracts separately from the Air Force to launch reconnaissance satellites.
The Pentagon is setting up five information warfare teams staffed by Reserve forces under a new scheme approved by Deputy Secretary of Defense Rudy de Leon. The Reserve forces, largely due to their experience with technology in the civilian sector, are well suited to handle information warfare tasks, de Leon believes. The project also aims to mix the Reserve and active forces more efficiently.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark is depending on the Joint Strike Fighter to replace aging Navy planes and resolve mounting reliability problems associated with flying what is now the oldest fleet of aircraft in the service's history. "I'm counting on the Joint Strike Fighter," Clark told a group of reporters at a breakfast in Washington this week. He said the commonality in parts the JSF will afford will solve several problems which ultimately affect readiness.
Switzerland has chosen the EADS CASA 295 over the Lockheed Martin-Alenia Aerospazio C-27J as the military transport aircraft to be proposed to Parliament as part of the 2001 procurement bill, EADS said. If the deal is approved, it would be the first export sale of the plane. "The lower cost of the C-295 was finally the driving factor for its selection against the C-27J," EADS said. The contract signature for two C-295s and full in-service support from EADS CASA is expected in October 2001, with deliveries scheduled for 2003, EADS said.
ELBIT SYSTEMS' Elop Electro-Optics Industries Ltd. subsidiary won a $5.75 million contract to supply 48 laser designators for the U.S. Navy's F/A-18 aircraft. The systems are to be delivered in February 2002.
Honeywell completed a successful first round of testing of its multi-purpose-core (MPC) technology demonstrator engine, the company announced this week. The engine met all expectations for the first run, including starting performance, stability, vibration, rotor dynamics, combustor performance, rotor clearances and secondary flows.
The U.S. Army's kinetic energy anti-satellite (KE-ASAT) program is in a "state of disarray," plagued by staff upheaval, poor record keeping and questionable spending practices, the General Accounting Office says in a new report.
Alenia Marconi Systems, the defense electronics joint venture of Italy's Finmeccanica and the U.K.'s BAE Systems, won a $375 million contract to upgrade the U.K. Royal Navy's Seawolf short-range air defense system on Type 22 and 23 frigates. "We are absolutely delighted to win this major contract which is vital to the Royal Navy's continued effectiveness and cements Alenia Marconi System's position as a world class supplier of naval radar systems," said Alex Hannam, managing director of the company's radar division.
Arianespace is postponing until the beginning of next week the launch of Eurasiasat 1. The satellite had been slated for launch on the night of Dec. 8-9, but Arianespace cited the need "to perform complementary checks" at the Kourou launch site in French Guiana "on the Flight 137 Ariane 4 launch vehicle.
Pentagon sources told The DAILY that U.S. Navy acquisition chief Lee Buchanan was prepared this week to approve full-rate production of the MV-22 Osprey for the U.S. Marine Corps, provided stipulations were added. According to a source, Buchanan was willing to approve the fiscal year 2001 production of 16 MV-22s, but wouldn't give his approval for the FY '02 lot until additional maintenance and reliability improvement data was provided to him by manufacturer Bell Boeing.
