U.S. plans to sell more than $1.1 billion worth of military services and equipment to Saudi Arabia have met resistance from American lawmakers who have questioned the Middle Eastern country's commitment to fighting terrorism. One potential deal, worth $900 million, is largely to train the Saudi national guard but would provide some equipment, including "interoperability radios" and various spare parts, a congressional source told The DAILY Oct. 28. Vinnell Corp., a Northrop Grumman subsidiary, would be the prime contractor.
PAYLOAD SYSTEMS INC. of Cambridge, Mass., has been awarded a two-year, $600,000 contract to develop a Mars Orbiting Sample Retrieval Testbed based for NASA's Mars sample retrieval mission, the company said. The testbed will be based on the Synchronized Position Hold, Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) testbed, a series of self-contained satellites that can navigate autonomously within a designated area. The SPHERES project is scheduled to be delivered to the International Space Station this year.
Lockheed Martin Corp. on Oct. 28 reported a 23 percent increase in third-quarter sales, but net earnings fell due to a charge totaling nearly $83 million. For the quarter, net sales rose from $6.5 billion a year ago to about $8.1 billion this year. Net earnings fell from $290 million a year ago to $217 million. In a conference call with investors and analysts, company officials said the decline was due to a nearly $83 million after-tax charge for the early retirement of debt.
TESTING: GE Aircraft Engines has completed all qualification testing of its higher-thrust F110 engine, the F110-GE-132, for the Lockheed Martin Block 60 F-16E/F, the company said Oct. 27. The engine has been cleared for operational service on the aircraft. Flight tests of the Block 60 F-16 are scheduled for late this year.
GENERATOR SELECTED: Quantum3D of San Jose, Calif., will provide its Independence Image Generator to Lockheed Martin for use in F/A-22 Raptor air combat simulators, the company said Oct. 27. Earlier this year, Lockheed Martin also picked Quantum3D's image generator for use in F-35 Joint Strike Fighter air combat simulators, and it is providing graphics subsystems to drive F/A-22 avionics displays. The Independence series of generators has a resolution of up to 2,048 by 1,536 pixels, the company said.
The market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is expected to be worth about $10.6 billion over the next 10 years, according to a revised report from Forecast International/DMS. The Oct. 27 report, entitled the "Market for UAV Reconnaissance Systems," says successful U.S. military actions around the world have sparked more interest in UAVs. U.S. operated UAVs have seen action in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Yemen and most recently, Iraq, the report says.
PANAMA CITY, Fla. - The first use of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and dolphins in combat mine-clearing operations was highly successful, said Capt. Michael P. Tillotson, who commanded Naval Special Operations Task Force 56 in Operation Iraqi Freedom. However, a lack of understanding of mine countermeasures (MCM) by senior commanders produced unrealistic expectations of when humanitarian aid could be delivered through the Port of Umm Qasr, and intelligence shortfalls emerged, he said.
House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) and Ranking Member Ralph Hall (D-Texas) are urging NASA to defer the development of the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) until the government has agreed on a vision for space exploration. In an Oct. 21 letter to NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, Boehlert and Hall said the OSP program "will not be successful on its current track," and expressed doubt over the validity of NASA's OSP budget estimates.
The U.S. Navy has awarded a $100 million contract modification to General Dynamics for work on the fire control systems for the Ohio-class ballistic missile and cruise missile submarine variants.
ACCEPTED: The Danish air force accepted three new C-130J-30 Hercules transport aircraft in an Oct. 21 ceremony at Lockheed Martin's Marietta, Ga., facility, the company said. The aircraft will be outfitted with Denmark-specific equipment and are scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of 2004.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is working to re-establish communications with its Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS) II, known as Midori-II, which went mysteriously silent on Oct. 25.
NEW DELHI - To counter India's airborne early warning capabilities, Pakistan plans to buy an unspecified number of FT 2000 surface-to-air missiles from China. India recently signed an agreement with Israel and Russia to install three Israeli Phalcon radars on Ilyushin Il-76 to serve as an airborne early warning system (DAILY, Oct. 13), prompting Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to request a weapon system from China to counter that capability, a Pakistani diplomat here said Oct. 27.
PANAMA CITY, Fla. - Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) highlighted the need for sea basing, which is intended to free U.S. forces from dependence on other nations for overflight, transit, and basing support in future conflicts, said Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael T. Hagee. Sea basing will require inter-service cooperation and major technological advances by industry to become a reality, he said last week at the National Defense Industrial Association's Expeditionary Warfare Conference here.
PRAGUE - Germany has followed Turkey and the United Kingdom by pulling out of a bidding process to supply 14 used supersonic aircraft to the Czech Republic. The Czech ministry of defense said Oct. 27 that German defense minister Peter Struck had written to his Czech counterpart, Miroslav Kostelka, to say Germany is not able to meet conditions attached to the process. No further details about the letter were released.
SPACE HEARINGS: Several congressional hearings the week of Oct. 27-31 will scrutinize space programs. On Oct. 29, the Senate Commerce Committee's space panel will examine the International Space Station, including safety concerns that have surfaced recently (DAILY, Oct. 24). Also on Oct. 29, the House Science Committee will look at organizational and management challenges at NASA in the wake of the Columbia space shuttle disaster. The House Science Committee's technology panel will meet Oct.
The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) announced Oct. 24 it is seeking U.S. suppliers to help build its A400M military transport. The announcement followed an A400M supplier conference held in Washington last week. More than 30 U.S. companies attended the event, as did representatives from the departments of State, Commerce and Defense.
SUPPLEMENTAL CONFERENCE: House and Senate negotiators tentatively are scheduled to meet Oct. 28 to finish the $87 billion fiscal 2004 supplemental appropriations conference report, which would fund military operations and reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq. Completion of the FY '04 energy and water appropriations conference report, which could include funding for nuclear weapons development, may occur later in the week.
ASSISTING TECHNOLOGY: The European Space Agency's SMART-1 lunar scout spacecraft will become the first to use gravity assists in conjunction with a solar-electric ion engine, ESA says. Gravity assists, which use planetary gravity to accelerate or brake spacecraft, first were used by NASA's Pioneer 10 in 1973 and have become a standard part of spaceflight used by all ESA interplanetary missions. SMART-1 will combine gravity assists from Earth with its ion engine, which uses electrically charged gas for propulsion.
ATK Thiokol Propulsion engineers have started detailed analyses of the first test of a space shuttle solid rocket motor with five segments instead of the usual four, according to a company spokesman. The goal of the Oct. 23 static test, which apparently met or exceeded all objectives, was to push various components of the motor beyond normal limits to help engineers verify safety predictions for the four-segment motor, the company said in an Oct. 24 announcement.
