Motorola Systems Solutions Group has won a $44.8 million contract from the U.S. Army to design and integrate 64 Tactical Operations Centers (TOCs) over the next five years, the company announced. The TOCs are mobile battlefield command and control centers formed by loading data processing equipment and digital communications onto tactical vehicles.
The Dept. of Defense is almost ready for the new year, having certified most of the U.S. military's 10,000 systems as Y2K compliant. Operational testing is complete on 98% of DOD's 2,000 mission critical systems and about 94% of defense computer systems. Several hundred systems remain to be repaired, replaced or tested.
Paul R. Kuhn has been named president and chief executive officer of Kaman Corp., and will succeed Charles Kaman, who continues as chairman of the board of directors. Kuhn, 57, will assume his new position Aug. 2, and will also become a director at that time, Kaman Corp. said. He was previously senior vice president, operations, aerospace engine businesses, for Coltec Industries, which recently merged with BFGoodrich.
Boeing has won an $81.2 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to convert 227 AGM-86B nuclear Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCMs) to AGM-86C Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (CALCMs). The order, funded by the emergency supplemental approved by Congress in April to pay for the air campaign against Yugoslavia, "replenishes the CALCM fleet to and beyond previous inventory levels," according to a written statement prepared by the AF.
The U.S. Air Force Low Cost Autonomous Attack System (LOCAAS) seeker is set to undergo numerous captive flight tests next month at Nellis AFB, Nev., on a Cessna 421C, according to program leaders. The tactical seeker is a key part of the LOCAAS program, which is charged with developing a miniature, air-launched munition that can operate autonomously and has a unit cost of less than $33,000. If the program can meet that challenge, the AF plans to buy up to 12,000 units over three years.
Separate U.S. Air Force investigations have concluded human error was to blame for mishaps that caused the loss of an $800 million advanced Milstar communications satellite and left a new Global Positioning Systems spacecraft so wet from rainfall that it had to be returned to the factory for disassembly and testing.
LOCKHEED MARTIN has won U.S. Air Force approval to restart low-rate initial production of the Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser (WCMD). The $9.3 million contract award, made Tuesday, comes after validation of the design of a locking pin, which was required to fix problems with the weapon's deployable fins at supersonic speeds. The program had been halted for about a year until flight tests of a fin-lock design could be completed. The kits will be strapped onto 696 existing cluster munitions.
The Senate on Wednesday passed the fiscal year 2000 intelligence authorization bill with an amendment creating a new semi-autonomous agency to oversee the Dept. of Energy's nuclear weapons development efforts. The amendment to create the Agency for Nuclear Stewardship was offered by Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) in response to the numerous reports of Chinese espionage at the national laboratories. The amendment passed 96-1, with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) as the sole opponent.
AUSTRALIA has asked to buy 71 Raytheon AN/APG-74 radars and interface blanking units for its fleet of Boeing F/A-18 fighters, the Pentagon said. Congress has 30 days to review the $255 million deal.
EDO CORP. is working under a $1.5 million subcontract from Smiths Industries' Signal Processing Div. to develop and manufacture a new underwater acoustic array for the submarine force of the Swedish Navy. EDO, based in New York, said the subcontract calls for development and delivery of six sensor arrays and associated protective domes. The work will be performed by EDO's Electro-Ceramic products facility in Salt Lake City. Production is slated to be completed in 2000.
Northrop Grumman Corp. has won an $8.5 million contract from Science Applications International Corp. to provide 11 AN/ALQ-131 Block II conversion kits to the Belgian Air Force. "The ... conversion provides improved performance, reliability and maintainability and offers international customers ... a cost-effective methods to ensure compatibility with the U.S. Air Force," said Bill Ober, vice president of RF Electronic Warfare Programs at Northrop Grumman's Defensive Systems Div. in Rolling Meadows, Ill.
Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor 01 flew at 1.5 Mach Tuesday afternoon without afterburners, demonstrating its ability to cruise at supersonic speeds. The "supercruise" milestone was crossed two months ahead of schedule and just a week after the House Appropriations Committee cut all the program's procurement funding from the U.S. Air Force's fiscal year 2000 budget. The committee left $1.2 billion in research and development funds for the F-22, but re-directed $1.8 billion to buy additional Boeing F-15s, Lockheed Martin F-16s and Lockheed Martin C-130Js.
SENSYS TECHNOLOGIES INC., Newington, Va., said it received notification of a $2.1 million competitive award from the U.S. Navy, through Lockheed Martin, to provide a precision superheterodyne RF direction finding system.
Kazakhstan wants Russia to hand over a percentage of the estimated $85 million it makes on each commercial space launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the head of the Kazakhstan Space Agency said Tuesday as the two former Soviet Republics continued to thrash out their differences over control of the sprawling launch complex Russia leases on Kazakh territory.
The Pentagon, in a package of appeals to Congress, rejected authorizers' recommendations for a number of military satellite programs. The package is the second to arrive on Capitol Hill in the past few weeks in an effort to sway defense authorization conferees as they put the finishing touches on their fiscal year 2000 spending bills.
EVANS&SUTHERLAND COMPUTER CORP., Salt Lake City, will supply visual systems for three GR4 Tornado simulators under a U.K. Royal Air Force contract worth almost $30 million, the company reported.
A Boeing Co. team has been chosen over teams led by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Systems Co. as the preferred tenderer for Australia's $1.3 billion Project Wedgetail, a system of early warning and control aircraft to provide surveillance of sea approaches to the country. Negotiations on the contract should be completed by the end of the year, Boeing said yesterday.
WILL TRAFTON, president of International Launch Services, told a Senate committee yesterday that launch quotas undermined the viability of IKEA, an arm of ILS, the U.S.-Russian joint venture that supplies the Proton launch vehicle. If IKEA fails, he said, the joint venture to build the RD-180 engine used in Lockheed Martin's version of the EELV would fail as well. Trafton also said that Lockheed Martin had not sold a Proton competitively since 1997.
The Joint Strike Fighter program is blazing a new trail for international sales of U.S.-based military equipment. Although it is still in the concept development stage, JSF already depends on international suppliers from the U.K., the Netherlands, Denmark, Turkey and Germany, and the list is growing as Boeing and Lockheed Martin build teams to compete for the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) contract to be awarded in 18 months.
Israel has requested 42 AIM-120B Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and various support. The $18 million sale, which must be approved by Congress, is expected to go to Raytheon Systems Co., Tucson, Ariz. The missiles are to be carried by Israel's Boeing F-15s to enhance their air-to-air self-defense capability and to increase interoperability with U.S. forces, according to the Pentagon.
Northrop Grumman Corp. reported $113 million in second quarter net income yesterday representing a 22% increase from the $93 million net income reported in the same period of 1998. The 1999 results represented $1.64 a share, up from $1.34 per share in the second quarter of 1998. Increased revenue at the Integrated Systems and Aerostructures (ISA) sector and the company's Logicon information technology units paced a 6% increase in sales, which were $2.3 billion for the quarter compared to $2.1 billion last year.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is heading a new Pentagon effort to design a space tanker to refuel satellites. It would deliver fuel that would power satellites for dynamic flight and orbit changes. The idea promises to reduce the fuel cost of satellites and make it less expensive to move space assets between orbits.
International Space Station managers at NASA's Johnson Space Center suspect carbon dioxide buildup in certain areas of the orbiting facility caused headaches and other symptoms experienced by Space Shuttle crew members working there during the most recent Station assembly mission, according to a program spokesman.
