The U.S. Air Force is reshuffling authority for nearly all non-space acquisition programs, centralizing management mostly within the three product centers. The actions, unveiled in an announcement issued late Aug. 20, consolidate the duties of program executive officers (PEOs) with the heads of the Air Armament Center (AAC), Aeronautical Services Center (ASC) and the Electronic Systems Center (ESC). The new policy takes effect Oct. 1, an Air Force spokeswoman said.
With the ultimate goal of enabling an automated aerial refueling (AAR) demonstration in 2005, NASA is gathering data on U.S. Navy-style hose/drogue refueling, a process whose physics are not well understood, according to AAR Project Manager Gerard Schkolnik. "The state of the art right now for Navy-style refueling ... hasn't changed in 50 years," Schkolnik told The DAILY. "The system that flies today, in large part, has evolved by trial and error with no real understanding of the physics or the science.
The Missile Defense Agency's Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (Aegis BMD) system failed to shoot down its target in a June test because a valve became stuck in a newly upgraded portion of the interceptor missile's warhead, according to U.S. Defense Department officials. The kinetic warhead on the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor separated from its booster and tracked the target missile as planned. But the warhead later began spinning and lost sight of the target, DOD said in a statement released late Aug. 19.
BUYBACK: Northrop Grumman Corp. will repurchase up to $700 million worth of its outstanding common stock over the next 18 months, the company said Aug. 20. CEO and President Ronald D. Sugar said the move "reflects our high degree of confidence in the company's operations, financial performance and outlook." The buyback will be financed mostly with cash from operations.
LOCKHEED MARTIN said its first F-16 Fighting Falcon was delivered 25 years ago this week. Since the first production delivery in 1978, 4,092 F-16s have been produced in factories in five countries, the United States, Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey and Korea. There is a backlog of 325 aircraft on order that are expected to be delivered by 2008, the company said.
Various technical issues continue to delay the first flight of the X-50A Dragonfly unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which remains in ground testing at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. A joint effort of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Boeing, the Dragonfly is a hybrid helicopter with an unusually wide rotor that can be slowed down and stopped in flight, allowing the UAV to fly as a fixed-wing jet (DAILY, April 12, 2002).
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - The U.S. Defense Department is nearing a decision on what kind of sea-based platform it will use for the terrestrial portion of the Missile Defense Agency's boost-phase interceptor missile program, a program official said Aug. 20. The most likely choice is a cargo ship, an Aegis-radar-equipped warship or a submarine, according to Terry Little, director of the program, known as Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI).
Two weeks into a competitive selection process, Northrop Grumman unveiled a nine-member team Aug. 20 that is vying to win a $400 million developmental contract for the battle management suite of the future E-10A Multi-sensor Command and Control Aircraft (MC2A).
X-45C SYSTEMS: Hamilton Sundstrand will provide systems for primary electric power generation and power conversion to the Boeing Co. for its X-45C Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV), the company said Aug. 20. The program will use Hamilton Sundstrand's 270-volt DC power generation, power conversion and controls technology, the Windsor Locks, Conn.-based company said.
ARROWHEAD GLOBAL SOLUTIONS, McLean, Va. Maj. Gen. Howard J. "Mitch" Mitchell (USAF, ret.) has joined the company as vice president, Western operations, based in Colorado Springs, Colo. CAE SIMUFLITE, Dallas/Fort Worth Tom Stelter has been named vice president and general manager, succeeding Jeff Roberts, who is now based in Montreal as CAE's executive vice president of aviation training. Ned Carlson, Bob Jordan and Pedro Pirela have been named regional sales managers. CSIS, Washington
ANTENNA WORK: EMS Technologies of Atlanta will begin work on a navigation antenna for the Anik F1R spacecraft, which Astrium is building for Telesat Canada of Gloucester, Ontario. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The antenna will include an L-Band multi-element directing array, EMS said. The Anik F1R will be based on Astrium's Eurostar 3000 bus and will carry 24 C-band and 32 Ku-band transponders.
European Union commissioners on Aug. 19 approved the takeover of the Italian aerospace company Avio, formerly FiatAvio, by the Carlyle Group and Finmeccanica. Under the proposed takeover deal, Carlyle will control 70 percent of Avio's share capital with Finmeccanica controlling the remaining 30 percent. Finmeccanica and the Carlyle Group announced last month they planned to buy Avio for an estimated 1.5 billion euros ($1.76 billion). The deal was to be financed through a combination of debt and equity (DAILY, July 3).
BETTER MAPS: Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Information Technology sector will help provide U.S. Army commanders with enhanced digital battlefield maps under a new contract, the company said Aug. 19. The work could be worth $7 million the first year and up to $100 million over a decade, the company said.
The U.S. Department of Defense's top 73 weapons programs increased by $111.5 million, or 0.01 percent, in the June 2003 reporting period, according to the latest quarterly Selected Acquisition Reports (SARs) update. The Pentagon releases a full SAR list to Congress annually along with the Administration's budget request, and issues quarterly updates on programs that have a 15 percent cost increase or a schedule delay of at least six months (DAILY, Aug. 19).
With the backing of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Pyramid Vision Technologies Inc. is trying to merge unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imagery with maps and other sources to create a coherent real-time picture of the battlefield and give context to otherwise confusing data.
SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM: Oerlikon Contraves Inc. will provide an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system to provide surveillance to help protect Canadian troops in Afghanistan, the company said. The work will be done under a $30 million contract from the Canadian government. The company's principal subcontractor is France's Sagem, and the company will base its system on the Sperwer UAV, Oerlikon said. The system will include four air vehicles, two control stations, one launcher, spare parts and training and support, the Quebec-based company said.
The credit ratings for DRS Technologies could be lowered depending on the terms of a deal to acquire Integrated Defense Technologies, credit analysts with Standard & Poor's said. DRS Technologies has announced plans to acquire Integrated Defense Technologies (IDT) in a cash and stock deal worth nearly $550 million (DAILY, Aug. 18).
MOSCOW - Nearly 500 Russian firms and about 150 international companies are demonstrating their aircraft and products at the sixth MAKS International Aviation and Space Salon near here. Two hundred aircraft are scheduled to perform flight demonstrations at the show, which runs through Aug. 23.
The V-22 Osprey program has invested more than $40 million in fiscal 2003 to implement about 30 cost reduction initiatives, and is reviewing 100 more ideas under a strict return-on-investment formula, a Boeing executive said. The freshly minted affordability plan, which calls for spending more than $150 million over the next three years, reflects the program's goal to slash the aircraft's unit price from $74 million to $58 million by 2010, a 21 percent reduction.
An alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) that faced a funding crisis earlier this year passed a Phase 3 Critical Design Review (CDR), company and government officials said. The F136, built by the General Electric Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team, easily cleared the milestone event in the engine's two-year, $453 million pre-system development and demonstration (SDD) phase, company officials said in a statement.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala.- Hundreds of proposals are being considered for enhancing the overall U.S. ballistic missile defense architecture, an industry official said Aug. 19. Ideas being examined for just 2008-2009, also referred to as Block 2008, total more than 200, said Jim Evatt, senior vice president and general manager for missile defense systems at the Boeing Co. Boeing is one of several companies helping the U.S. Missile Defense Agency integrate a host of missile defense systems.
Rough ocean weather has delayed the launch of NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) from Aug. 23 until Aug. 25 at the earliest. The weather is delaying a ship that is scheduled to track the second stage of SIRTF's Delta launch vehicle from an observation point in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Project Manager David Gallagher told The DAILY.
