UPGRADING: DRS Technologies will provide system electronics and interfaces for upgrading U.S. Air Force MH-53J Pave Low III helicopters to the MH-53M Pave Low IV configuration, the company said Oct. 10. The work is being done under a $4.8 million contract from Modern Technologies Corp.
SPOTTING MOONS: The European Space Agency is planning Eddington, a space telescope with a precision photometer that it predicts not only could find planets outside our solar system, but could detect moons orbiting those planets. Eddington, named after astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington, is scheduled to launch in 2008 and will seek planets by detecting the drop in light when a planet passes in front of its parent star.
SUPPLEMENTAL DEBATE: The full House and Senate are expected to consider their versions of the $87 billion fiscal 2004 supplemental appropriations bill during the week of Oct. 13-17. Among the matters that could come up during those debates is a proposed amendment by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) that would provide $655 million to install anti-missile devices on the 300 aircraft in the Civil Reserve Aviation Fleet (CRAF) (DAILY, Oct. 1).
NEW DELHI - Officials from India, Israel and Russia signed an agreement Oct. 10 completing Israel's sale of Phalcon radars to India, a deal worth roughly $1 billion. The three radars will be mounted on Russian-built Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft to serve as airborne early warning systems, with each combination costing about $350 million. The radars will be able to track up to 60 targets over an 800 kilometer (500 mile) radius.
IRAQ BOUND: The U.S. Army's new Stryker vehicles are being shipped to Iraq for their first operational assignment, where they will support 3,600 soldiers from I Corps' 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, the Army says. The troops will begin their assignment in Iraq in the next few weeks. The vehicles, from the Fort Lewis, Wash.-based Stryker Brigade Combat team, began rolling onto ships Oct. 9 for transport to Iraq.
As NASA awaits the final mishap report on the loss of its Helios solar-electric unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the agency is mulling the scope and future of its high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) UAV research programs.
NASA has awarded the Mission Operations and Mission Services (MOMS) contract to a team led by Honeywell Technology Solutions Inc. (HTSI) of Columbia, Md., the aerospace agency said last week. The five-year contract, which includes two one-year options, could be worth up to $900 million. HTSI will support NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., for spacecraft flight operations; mission data collection and distribution; and other work.
AEGIS CONTRACT: Lockheed Martin's Maritime Systems & Sensors unit of Moorestown, N.J., has been awarded an $812.6 million contract to continue developing the Aegis Weapon System for use in the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (Aegis BMD) system, the Pentagon announced late Oct. 10. The work will include upgrades to the missile launching system and the command-and-control system. The contract will support the initial version of Aegis BMD, which the Defense Department wants to begin deploying by 2005, and also will fund engineering analysis for future versions.
The NetFires program, which is developing non-line-of-sight fire for the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS), is on track for an early 2004 contract award to begin the system development and demonstration (SDD) phase, according to Army and industry officials. The SDD contract award, likely to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, probably will be made in or around January, said Steve Altman, director of business development at NetFires LLC, the Lockheed Martin-Raytheon joint venture that is designing the missiles and launcher for NetFires.
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: Mid-sized defense companies could grow more than large companies in coming years due to the increasing importance of new product development, according to senior aerospace and defense analyst Byron Callan of Merrill Lynch. "While cycles of demand will be the main near-term determinant of revenue in commercial aerospace and defense, we strongly believe that new product development will be a critical differentiating factor among the companies we follow," he says.
Oct. 14 - 16 -- Call For Papers, Precision Strike Technology Symposium 2003, The Kossiakoff Conference Center, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Laboratory, Laurel, Md. Abstracts due by Friday, June 6, 2003. To send abstracts, email [email protected], fax (301) 475-9367 or contact Leslie Mueller at (301) 475-6513. Oct. 15 - 17 -- Interoperability Technology Summit, 3-Day Conference & Exhibition, Doubletree Hotel Crystal City, Arlington, Va. For more information visit www.idga.org
IDIOTIC: Current export control restrictions on U.S. satellite equipment are "idiotic," according to Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board. "The restrictions on the export of satellite technology are idiotic. They are in the process of destroying an American industry and it's an important American industry," Perle says. Loral Space & Communications is one company that has suffered from the restrictions, he says.
TRANSFORMATION ASSESSMENT: Rep. William "Mac" Thornberry (R-Texas), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, plans to give a speech Oct. 15 assessing the Bush Administration's efforts to transform the military. Thornberry's address, which will take place at the Heritage Foundation, is entitled, "Ready for the Missions of the 21st Century?"
Changes are needed in the way funding is allocated for new research and development projects, a group of industry executives and independent analysts said Oct. 9. "It seems to me that the best way to invest research funding is for the government to have as little say as possible about how it will be spent," said Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board.
A team of industry representatives is scheduled to make its first recommendations in early November on the reference model for building an open digital architecture for the U.S. military, according to an industry executive. The team will make its recommendations at the third meeting of the Net-Centric Operations Industry Forum (NCOIF), a group of 25-30 commercial and defense companies brought together by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA).
Northrop Grumman announced Oct. 9 that it stands to lose about $300 million in 2004 sales as a result of the U.S. Navy's decision to delay the planned refueling and overhaul of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) by one year, to November 2005.
RESPONSE: NATO will inaugurate its new NATO Response Force Oct. 15 in Brunssum, the Netherlands, when Gen. James Jones, supreme allied commander, Europe, hands the NRF flag to the Joint Operational Commander, Gen. Sir Jack Deverell, the alliance says. NATO is forming the force to respond quickly to security problems and to help beef up the alliance's military capabilities (DAILY, Oct. 7). The force is scheduled to reach full capability by the fall of 2006, when it is to be ready to deploy in five days, and sustain itself for 30 days, NATO says.
ROCKET ORDER: General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products will produce Hydra-70 70mm rockets, motors and warheads for the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force until March 2006 under a $98.6 million order, the company said Oct. 9. The order extends deliveries on a contract awarded to the company in 1999. The rockets can be fired from Apache and Cobra helicopters, F-16s and other platforms, the company said.
In a possible first step toward eliminating the need for certain aircraft to carry fuel, NASA engineers have conducted the first flight of a laser-powered model airplane, the aerospace agency announced Oct. 9.
JOINING UP: Canadian companies will participate in Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) said Oct. 8. The CSA contributed $11 million to the development and validation phase of Galileo, allowing Canadian companies to respond to requests for proposals from the program. Galileo, a joint initiative of the European Commission and ESA, is scheduled to be fully deployed in 2008 with a constellation of up to 30 satellites.
