AIR FORCE ManTech SRS, Technologies Inc., Arlington, Va., is being awarded a $15,329,241 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to provide systems engineering, product assurance, program safety, systems security, risk management, and launch integration management. This effort supports the Launch and Range Systems Directorates. The location of the performance is El Segundo, Calif. The work is to be completed by March 23, 2013. SMC/LRK, El Segundo, is the contracting activity (FA 8811-20-C-0002, P00011).
FORT EUSTIS, Va. — Bids are due April 1 for trade studies to define the mission-system capabilities and technologies for the U.S. Army’s planned Joint Multi Role (JMR) rotorcraft. The Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD) is planning a two-phase JMR technology demonstration, beginning in fiscal 2013 with air-vehicle development and flight testing.
The House will take up Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget resolution this week. It is likely to pass in the Republican-controlled House, despite a push by some GOP lawmakers to further reduce the overall amount of spending. The Senate is currently proceeding with levels passed by Congress last August: $1.047 trillion in discretionary spending across the government. Ryan has said the U.S. should spend just $1.028 trillion, level off cuts to defense and buy back the first year of a penalty due to kick in next January without further deficit reduction.
NEW DELHI — India’s soon-to-retire army chief, Gen. V.K. Singh, says he was recently offered a bribe of 140 million rupees ($2.7 million) by a defense lobbyist to clear the purchase of military vehicles. In an interview with an Indian newspaper, Singh says the lobbyist offered the bribe in return for approving the purchase of 600 “substandard” vehicles of a “particular make.” He claims that 7,000 such vehicles were already in use in the Indian army and many have been sold at “exorbitant prices with no questions asked.
The U.S. military is starting to show greater appreciation for maritime irregular warfare (MIW), a recent Rand report says, but the nation’s defense planners need to develop a more complete strategy for such operations. “In light of ongoing U.S. involvement in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the concept of irregular warfare has become prevalent in U.S. defense strategy and doctrine,” Rand says in its report, “Characterizing and Exploring the Implications of Maritime Irregular Warfare,” released this month.
The actions of Congress, the government and businesses have yet to stop the flow of counterfeit defense electronics parts from China. Last year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) set up a fictitious company to buy electronic parts online (Aerospace DAILY, Nov. 9). GAO purchased 16 different parts from 13 Chinese suppliers. All 16 of those parts, including seven used on aircraft such as Boeing’s F-15 fighter and the Bell-Boeing V-22 tiltrotor, were counterfeit.
One of the United States’ little-noticed conventional arms control treaties turns 20 today, while its enforcement continues to rely on aircraft and surveillance gear stuck in the analog age. The Open Skies Treaty enables countries to fly over each other’s territories, assuring signatories that their neighbors are not massing troops along a border, enabling them to monitor rail lines and generally building confidence between nations.
As promised, the U.S. Navy is focusing on taking greater care of its surface fleet, with the release this month of a new manual that details how the service will better maintain most of those ships. The Navy has been making ship maintenance and readiness a higher priority in recent years in the wake of reports and other revelations of more than a decade of degradation and deferred or ignored repair needs.
FRANKFURT — The German government is to acquire a 15% stake in EADS, twice as much as previously planned. The German finance ministry has set aside additional resources in the 2012 federal budget to enable the move, a government official said.
LONDON — Norway has restructured its F-35 procurement plan, signaling it may buy some aircraft early but stretch out the total procurement. The adjustments are part of a new defense white paper unveiled March 23. Norway says the purchase of F-35s is “a key priority” of the new document. The procurement total is set at 52 aircraft; approval of the last six is expected later. The Norwegian government notes that “despite changes made by other partner nations, Norway finds that its previous and robust real-cost estimates remain accurate.”
FORT EUSTIS, Va. — With the value of teaming unmanned with manned aircraft having been proved in combat, U.S. Army researchers are preparing to take the next steps in autonomy and integration. Previous research into hunter-killer teaming of UAVs and helicopters led to systems fielded on the Boeing AH-64D Apache and Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior that give the crews “Level 2” capability to receive imagery directly from UAVs.
Airbus Military has successfully completed receiver qualification of the two primary aircraft-types that the UAE Air Force will refuel from the three A330 MRTT multi role tanker transports that it currently has on order.
U.S. Army researchers are planning demonstrations of technologies to improve the ability of rotorcraft to defend themselves from ground threats while engaging a wider range of targets, including unmanned aircraft. Planned demonstrations include an integrated, remote door-gun and ground-fire warning system. This would provide the crew with 360-deg. situational awareness and allow the helicopter to return ground fire automatically.
INTELSAT 22: The Intelsat 22 communications satellite is slated to launch on an International Launch Services Proton rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on March 25 at 8:10 a.m. EDT (6:10 p.m. local time). Based on Boeing’s 702MP satellite bus, the 6,200-kg (13,700-lb.) spacecraft will carry two Ku-band mobility beams providing coverage of the Indian Ocean region. From its position at 72 deg. East, it will serve the Middle East and eastern Africa with its Ku-band capacity.
In a broadside to the U.S. Navy, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says he is “underwhelmed” by the service’s response to the cost of Ford-class aircraft carriers that has grown by 18% to more than $12.3 billion.
GENEVA — The European Defense Agency (EDA) has elicited member-state support for the idea of pooling air-to-air refueling resources, although a concrete action plan remains to be defined. In a meeting of the steering group of member states for the Brussels-based organization, EDA secured a “political declaration” that countries have the “willingness to support further development of these capabilities and to better coordinate them,” according to an official statement after the gathering.
The U.S. Navy plans to test renewable jet fuel derived from butanol produced from biomass. The biobutanol is being produced by Cobalt Technologies, which has partnered with chemicals company Albemarle to produce the fuel using technology developed by Navy researchers.
GENEVA — Despite some big looming defense deals for the company, Dassault still predicts overall flat sales this year compared with 2011, as its results continue to be weighed down by the weak business jet environment of recent years. That said, there are signs of a business jet recovery, according to Chairman/CEO Charles Edelstenne.
The Pentagon’s procurement slowdown of the F-35 program reduces the concurrency risks that have plagued the effort, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), but larger affordability risks remain a major threat to the stealthy fighter. In a written statement presented to the House Armed Services airland subcommittee on March 20, the GAO’s Michael Sullivan points out that the fiscal 2013 plan is the third year in a row the Defense Department has cut procurement quantities.
Last year’s funding fight between Lockheed Martin’s Medium Extended Air Defense System (Meads) and Raytheon’s Patriot system has a sequel. Eight senators are asking their colleagues to shift funding from the U.S.-European missile defense system into upgrades for the current U.S. Army program.
