Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark said April 17 that the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet helped ease fuel shortages the U.S. Navy faced in the war with Iraq. Getting enough aviation fuel to the region was a major challenge in the war, but the Super Hornet, the Navy's new strike aircraft, reduced the burden because of its extended range over legacy aircraft, Clark said in a luncheon speech at the Navy League Sea-Air-Space Exposition.
SALE: The Boeing Co. said April 17 it has agreed to sell its Corinth, Texas aerospace wiring facility to Labinal Inc., part of the French Snecma Group Co. The sale, which is subject to U.S. regulatory review, is expected to close by the end of May. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Credit analysts with Standard & Poor's raised a key credit rating for Orbital Sciences Corp. as a result of the company's settlement with its bankrupt subsidiary, Orbital Imaging Corp. (Orbimage). Under the settlement, Orbital will pay Orbimage $2.5 million following the launch of the OrbView-3 satellite. Orbital has agreed to pay additional penalties totaling up to $5 million if the satellite is not launched by April 30 or checked out by August 1.
ITT Industries said it will upgrade 12 Boeing Global Positioning System Block IIF satellites under a contract worth up to $31 million. In an April 17 announcement, which had been expected (DAILY, April 10), ITT said the contract calls for the addition of two new transmitters and associated power amplifiers, modulators and converters to create a flexible power system that can be used to overcome jamming.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has introduced legislation aimed at promoting the development of advanced materials for future aircraft, such as the 7E7 under development by Boeing's Renton, Wash.-based Commercial Airplanes unit. Cantwell's bill would create an FAA center of excellence at the University of Washington to conduct research on advanced structural materials, including composites and new aluminum alloys. Her legislation would authorize $500,000 in fiscal 2004 to set up the center.
The role of the $5.7 billion Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program is growing to become a vital routing system on the networked battlefield, and the Pentagon is close to naming Internet Transfer Protocol (ITP) 6 as the new military standard, a senior U.S. Defense Department official said April 16.
The Navy's DD(X) next-generation destroyer program is on schedule to meet its program milestones despite being held up for nearly four months, senior officials with Northrop Grumman's Ship Systems sector said April 16. The delay was the result of a protest filed by Bath Iron Works and its partner, Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems, contesting the $2.9 billion DD(X) contract award to Northrop Grumman and its partner Raytheon (DAILY, May 10, 2002). The General Accounting Office overruled the objection in August 2002.
SUPPLEMENTAL SIGNED: President Bush signed the fiscal 2003 supplemental appropriations bill into law on April 16, providing $62 billion for the military for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the global war on terrorism. Meanwhile, in a speech at Boeing F/A-18 facilities in St. Louis, Bush praised the aircraft's performance in the war with Iraq. "We've applied the new powers of technology - like the F-18s - to strike an enemy force with speed and incredible precision," Bush said.
The U.S. Air Force is weighing the fate of the Space Surveillance System, with options under consideration ranging from termination to modernization, a service spokesman said April 16. The Air Force is studying whether the ground-based system, also known as the Space Fence, duplicates other systems and deserves to be canceled or whether it provides unique capabilities that should be continued and even upgraded, the spokesman told The DAILY. The review could be completed in about a month.
BALL AEROSPACE & TECHNOLOGIES CORP. of Boulder, Colo., has been selected to build the spacecraft and conduct mission operations for NASA's Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) program, a super-cooled infrared telescope designed to create a full-sky, infrared map. Ball Aerospace's spacecraft will be based on its RS300 bus, part of a family of small, low-cost remote sensing spacecraft buses, the company said. WISE is intended to help the James Webb Space Telescope identify which objects to observe after it is launched in 2010.
AEROSONIC, Clearwater, Fla. Charles M. Foster Jr., retired from Teledyne Technologies, has been elected to the board of directors. He also will serve on the company's audit committee. ATHENA TECHNOLOGIES, Manassas, Va. James W. Blanchard has been appointed president and CEO. BAE SYSTEMS NORTH AMERICA, Rockville, Md.
The program to build the LPD-17 amphibious assault ship is back on schedule and the first ship will delivered for less than the Navy's latest estimated cost, senior officials with Northrop Grumman Ship Systems sector said April 16. "The program is under control," Ship Systems President Philip Dur told defense reporters at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space Exposition in Washington.
NEW DELHI - France's Alcatel is negotiating with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to set up a satellite-based navigation system. An Indian space ministry official said Alacatel and ISRO are discussing collaborating on the $100 million Gagan project, which would be linked to the Global Positioning System, Russia's Glonass system and Europe's Galileo (DAILY, Dec. 5, 2002).
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The challenges of replacing the U.S. Air Force's aging space infrastructure may prompt the service to stick with upgrades, at least for the time being, according to one analyst.
Flight tests continue on the Marine Corps' H-1 helicopter upgrade program as program officials prepare for a Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) meeting in August that will decide whether to proceed with low-rate initial production. It will be the first DAB meeting for the program since it was certified by Pentagon acquisition chief E.C. "Pete" Aldridge Jr. last May, after significant cost growth put the program in violation of the Nunn-McCurdy Act (DAILY, May 3, 2002).
The Pentagon plans to ask Congress to reprogram tens of millions of dollars so the V-22 Osprey's joint program office can convert one of its Bell-Boeing aircraft from the Marine Corps MV-22 configuration to the Air Force special operations variant, the CV-22, a program official said April 16.
The U.S. Air Force plans to sign a $3.5 billion contract with Lockheed Martin to buy 20 F/A-22 Raptors and award $630 million to Pratt & Whitney for 40 F-119 engines, the service announced April 16. Both contracts are included in the Lot 3 production cycle and were approved March 27 by the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB).
Northrop Grumman last month conducted the first flight of its RQ-8A Fire Scout vertical takeoff and landing tactical unmanned aerial vehicle (VTUAV) in which the aircraft was fully operated from the Marine Corps' S-788, a Humvee-mounted ground control station (GCS), the company said April 16.
In the build-up for the war in Iraq, the Office of Naval Research used a new quick response procedure to answer urgent warfighting needs, a senior Navy official said April 15. Rear Adm. Jay M. Cohen, chief of naval research, described three technologies, including two unmanned aerial vehicles and a cruise missile, that were certified within weeks of being requested and shipped to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).
The Navy's MH-60R multi-mission helicopter recently completed three weeks of developmental testing at the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) in the Caribbean, Lockheed Martin announced April 15. The tests, which began last month, primarily evaluated the helicopter's radar, acoustics, and electronic surveillance measures (ESM) systems to verify their expected performance individually and as an integrated unit. The aircraft logged over 125 flight hours during the tests.
PRAGUE - The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence is disputing a Czech newspaper report that it is negotiating the possible sale or lease of used Tornado F-3 fighters to the Czech Republic. The daily Pravo claimed April 15 that Britain could supply up to 14 Tornado aircraft by 2006 under a Czech-U.K. inter-governmental agreement.
Northrop Grumman's newly released design for an operational Naval Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV-N) probably also could fulfill the Air Force's UCAV requirements as they stand today, according to a company official. Kenny Linn, director of business and strategy development for the air combat systems unit of Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems, unveiled the company's design for an operational UCAV-N at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space Exposition in Washington April 15.
Two of three industry teams competing for the contract to design the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) have proposed surface-effect ship designs, company officials said April 14. A third team has chosen an advanced semi-planing mono-hull form based on the design of a 1,000-ton ship that won the transatlantic speed record in 1992. The semi-planing hull form was chosen after studies were conducted on more than one dozen hull forms, said Carol Hulgus, vice president of programs for Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems.
