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.
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.
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.
Textron Inc. said it has agreed to acquire Tempo Research Corp., a telecommunications test company based in Vista, Calif. Terms of the deal, slated to close in January, were not disclosed but projected 2000 sales of Tempo are $55 million, up from last year's sales of about $27 million. Tempo will become part of Greenlee Textron, a unit of Textron Industrial Products.
Australia's military is getting an immediate A$500 million (US$255.5 million) injection in 2001-02 and a boost of A$1 billion (US$511 million) the following year, signaling good news for several major procurement programs now in limbo.
The General Accounting Office is questioning the cost effectiveness of the Brilliant Antiarmor Submunition/Army Tactical Missile System (BAT/ATACMS) program, six months before the Pentagon is due to decide whether to begin full-rate production of the ground-launched anti-tank weapon.
Alcatel Space said it has won a $1.4 billion euro contract to build France's Syracuse III military communications system. The contract, signed Nov. 30 by DGA, the French procurement agency, calls for in-orbit delivery of a Syracuse IIIA military satellite and upgrades of the current ground segment, Alcatel said yesterday.
Contrasting reports concerning U.S. reaction to the creation of a European rapid reaction force (ERRF) have emerged from the closed meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels on Tuesday. Immediately after the meeting, U.K. Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon issued a statement claiming that his American counterpart, William Cohen, "had again made clear his fundamental support for the European Defense Initiative."
BAE Systems, working with Motorola and Raytheon, said it will carry out one of several concept studies of Project Falcon, the British armed forces' future tactical wide area communications system. The Communications&Defense Infrastructure business of BAE Systems' Avionics Group will investigate a range of technologies, assess potential solutions and make recommendations to the U.K. Ministry of Defense, the company said.
The Dept. of Defense yesterday signed a two-year, $3 million-per-month service contract with Iridium Satellite LLC, a group of venture capitalists buying the bankrupt Motorola-backed communications satellite system, to provide secure mobile telephone communications in remote locations throughout the world.
U.S. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and the Ukrainian Defense Minister Olexander Kuzmuk signed an annual Plan of Cooperation aimed at boosting defense and military contacts between the two countries. The new arrangement, which builds on an agreement signed in 1993, lays out new military and defense activities between the two nations. Joint efforts in 2001 focus on interoperability, professionalization, civil-military affairs, defense structuring and resourcing, and military technical cooperation.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORP. has received a $7.7 million U.S. Air Force contract to provide 24 AN/APN-241 navigation and weather radars for Lockheed Martin C-130H aircraft. Engineering and manufacturing work associated with the program will take place at the company's Baltimore area facilities. Deliveries are slated for completion by June 30, 2002.
Europe*Star, a joint venture of Loral Space&Communications and Alcatel Space, will provide two European telecommunications companies with satellite transponder capacity for broadband Internet services. Communications and Banking Equipment S.A. of Luxembourg (CBL) has leased two transponders on the Europe*Star 1 satellite to launch its StarSpeeder service, which will deliver broadband Internet and IP streaming services to business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets in Europe and the Middle East, Europe*Star said.
Lockheed Martin is working under a $25.5 million U.S. Navy contract option to change the test missile kit for the Trident II D5 fleet ballistic missile. The option, the first of three in a 1999 contract, calls for work to begin immediately and extend through May 31, 2004, Lockheed Martin said.
COBHAM PLC plans to spend $91.8 million to buy the Power&Control business unit of BAE Systems Electronics Limited. The deal, slated to close by the end of the month, significantly adds to Cobham's flight refueling business and will position the company to pursue bigger "packages of work." The BAE unit is located in the U.K., but it includes a product support operation center in the U.S.
Lear Siegler Logistics International Inc., Annapolis, Md., has been awarded a $1.2 billion contract to provide for the Dept. of Defense's Parts and Repair Ordering System (PROS) II program through December 2003, the Pentagon said Tuesday. PROS provides logistical supply and maintenance support to a variety of foreign military sales customers to meet requirements of their weapons systems when organic DOD support is not available or timely, the Pentagon said.
Litton Industries Inc. posted lower first quarter profits but still managed to turn in earnings per share of $0.97, benefiting from recent moves to refocus on core competencies and beating Wall Street analysts' estimates for the first fiscal quarter of 2001.
For fiscal 1999, French aerospace sales rose 2.6% over the prior year to $21.5 billion - with 76% of consolidated sales coming from exports - driven by strength in commercial aircraft, helicopters, engines and equipment. Orders for the year stood at $23.4 billion. Airbus Industrie snagged over 55% of world airliner sales, or about 52% of the total contract value. The company currently has 1,445 aircraft on its order book, worth more than four years of production.
The EROS A1 imaging satellite was launched Tuesday by a Start-1 launcher from Russia's Svobodni Cosmodrome in Siberia, according to ImageSat International N.V. of Tel Aviv. The launch took place at 12:30 GMT (21:30 in Siberia), and the satellite separated as planned from the rocket 15 minutes after launch ignition. Communication was established with the company's ground station in Kiruna, Sweden, after separation. The satellite went into a sun-synchronous orbit at 480 km. The satellite will be commissioned for commercial use in coming weeks.
Ford Motor Co. and The U.K. Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) announced formation of a U.S.-based joint venture, Holographic Imaging LLC, aimed at accelerating the vehicle design process. Using technology in development at DERA, the venture will create a three-dimensional, interactive imaging workstation prototype. Engineers can rely on the multidimensional visual imaging instead of hard models to complete the design process.
American jobs are lost when foreign countries insist on technology transfers and other conditions for buying major defense and commercial systems from the U.S., a labor union representative told the congressionally mandated National Commission on the Use of Offsets in Defense Trade at its first meeting Monday.
Honeywell International Inc. will host a Jan. 10 shareholder meeting to vote on its proposed merger with General Electric Co. Pending stockholder and regulatory approval, the companies plan to move quickly to complete the transaction. Honeywell has agreed to pay a $1.35 billion termination fee if the board changes its recommendation, or if the company's shareholders vote down the merger when there is another valid public offer, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Northrop Grumman is locked and loaded - ready to handle the growing emphasis on cyber-warfare to protect U.S. forces in 21st century conflicts, Chairman and CEO Kent Kresa said yesterday. "There has been a real strategic transformation of the company - from an aircraft company to a systems integration, a defense electronics and an information technology company, three very strong elements in their own right when you think about the future," Kresa told Wall Street analysts at the company's annual meeting in New York yesterday.
Litton Industries Inc. said it has reshaped its Information Systems Group, creating three new divisions from its PRC Inc. subsidiary in the process and capitalizing on its position in defense and intelligence markets. The Information Systems Group, Litton said, will now be composed of four divisions - PRC Government Solutions Division, PRC Defense Systems Division, PRC Maritime and Range Systems Division and TASC Inc.
A Northrop Grumman Corp. team is working under a U.S. Air Force contract to develop software that will improve diagnosis of problems and more accurately predict failures in systems aboard legacy aircraft, including F-16s, F-15s and C-130s.
