PRAGUE - Egypt and the Czech Republic will explore "every aspect" of military cooperation, according to Czech government officials. The move follows a Sept. 9 meeting in Cairo between a visiting Czech delegation led by the prime minister, Vladimir Spidla, and Egypt's minister of defense and military production, Mohamed Tantawi. Czech government spokeswoman Anna Starkova told The DAILY via telephone from Cairo that anything that could be considered military cooperation was being examined.
NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are waiting for damage assessments to see how an accident involving the NOAA-N Prime spacecraft will affect the Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) program schedule. The satellite was dropped at Lockheed Martin facilities as it was being turned from a vertical to a horizontal position, because workers had removed bolts from a "turn over cart" without proper documentation (DAILY, Sept. 10), causing "tremendous damage," NASA said.
Nearly 6,473 commercial transports worth nearly $420.6 billion (in 2003 dollars) are expected to be built from 2003-2012, according to a Teal Group forecast released Sept. 10. That compares with 6,351 commercial transports worth nearly $396 billion (also in 2003 dollars) produced over the past 10 years. Of the 6,473 aircraft, roughly 4,503 will be narrow-bodied aircraft worth nearly $171.8 billion. The number of wide-bodied aircraft produced will total nearly 1,970 and be worth about $248.8 billion, according to the report.
All Nippon Airways (ANA) plans to install the Connexion by Boeing mobile Internet service on its long-haul commercial aircraft, Boeing said Sept. 9. Representatives from the companies are defining the levels of service that will be offered and a schedule for the installation. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. "We look forward to bringing the benefits of real-time connectivity to our passengers in the very near future," Shinichiro Ito, ANA's senior vice president for marketing, said in a statement.
The U.S. Marine Corps' top leader in Iraq on Sept. 9 rebutted reports that the Raytheon-made Javelin anti-tank weapon caused problems for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Marine Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, who briefed reporters at the Pentagon, said he was aware of the published reports but could find no evidence the Javelin caused problems during the campaign. "We didn't have any problems with the weapon," Conway said.
The Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) on Sept. 8 awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat a contract modification worth nearly $39.5 million. The contract, which was not competitively procured, calls for Electric Boat to conduct design and development studies and integrate new technologies for testing and deployment aboard existing and future submarines and submarine platforms. Work is to be completed by September 2005.
Nanoelectronics will be a crucial enabler in the continuing move toward taking human beings out of military vehicles, according to James Murday, chief scientist at the Office of Naval Research. By 2020, it is estimated that computers will have the same processing capacity as the human brain, according to Murday. "How well and effectively we use [that] to accomplish our goals remain to be seen, but there's some dramatic changes [coming]," he said in a presentation at The World Nano-Economic Congress in Washington Sept. 9.
Northrop Grumman will continue to support the U.S. Air Force Space Command's Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep-Space Surveillance System (GEODSS) under a $5.7 million contract, the company said Sept. 9. The company's Information Technology (IT) sector will provide operations, maintenance and support services to the Air Force Space Command, 21st Space Wing, for GEODSS sites at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and Maui, Hawaii.
The Pentagon is nearly finished conducting a review of lessons learned at the operational level in the U.S.-led Iraq war, a top military official said Sept. 9. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the study has been focusing on "what happened in theater" at the level of Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the war, and at the levels below him.
A National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) signals intelligence satellite launched on a Lockheed Martin Titan IVB-Centaur rocket at 12:29 a.m. Sept. 9. The $1.5 billion mission had been delayed by more than 18 months. The event marked the final launch for a Titan rocket using older versions of the Pratt & Whitney RL10 upper stage engine. The Titan IVB includes twin 10,000-pound thrust RL10s, which have been in service since 1974. Previous customers have included two Viking lander missions to Mars, Voyagers 1 and 2 and the Cassini mission.
IDECM WORK: The U.S. Navy has awarded BAE Systems a third low-rate initial production contract for the Integrated Defensive Countermeasure System (IDECM) Radio Frequency Countermeasures system (RFCM), the company said Sept. 9. The $46 million contract marks the last LRIP phase for the AN/ALQ-214(V), BAE Systems said.
PRAGUE - The Czech Republic plans to launch a tender for the modernization of up to 18 of its aging Russian-built Mi-24 combat helicopters before the end of the year, The DAILY has learned. Czech defense officials have spent several years talking with their counterparts in Hungary, Poland and Slovakia about a joint Mi-24 modernization project involving dozens of helicopters, in a bid to extend their operational life by up to 35 years.
The Navy plans to continue making it a priority for contractors to consider human performance when designing their equipment, according to a senior official with the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). Those requirements may raise the cost of the equipment initially, but the Navy will save money over the long run through reduced operating and maintenance costs, said Gregory Maxwell, director of NAVSEA's Human Systems Integration directorate.
Lockheed Martin may double the price of the $400,000-or-less AGM-158 Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) if Congress approves a proposal to cut the program's budget next year by as much as two-thirds, a top U.S. Air Force official said.
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite was severely damaged Sept. 6 when it toppled over at a Lockheed Martin facility in Sunnyvale, Calif. As the NOAA-N Prime spacecraft was being repositioned from vertical to horizontal on the "turn over cart" at approximately 7:15 PDT, it slipped off the fixture. The 18-foot spacecraft was roughly three feet off the ground when it fell.
NASA plans to contract with a non-government organization to establish an International Space Station Research Institute. The aerospace agency released a draft statement of work for public comment on Sept. 9 on the institute, which would be a liaison for U.S. science, technology and commercial communities seeking to do research on the station.
The Defense Department is urging Congress to reject proposed funding cuts for several major missile defense and military space programs, saying the reductions would cause significant delays for important new capabilities.
MESA RADARS: Northrop Grumman Corp. will deliver four Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar systems to Boeing for Turkey's "Peace Eagle" airborne early warning and control system, the company said Sept. 8. The work will be done under a $160 million contract and deliveries are scheduled to be completed by June 2007.
NASA officials presented a "playbook" on Sept. 8 for returning the shuttle fleet to flight, although they stressed that the plan's March 11, 2004 target date is just a placeholder. A window between March 11 and April 6 is the first chance NASA could fly a shuttle to stay within new safety requirements, set by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), which call for daylight launches and external tank separations.
