Raytheon, Texas Instruments, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas already have "beta site" efforts under way to implement the new Single Process Initiative (SPI) intended to cut acquisition costs by block changes eliminating mil spec restrictions throughout a given contractor facility, Paul G. Kaminski, under secretary of defense for acquisition, told a Pentagon news briefing Friday.
The U.S. Air Force has completed a study to upgrade the F-117 Night Hawk aircraft, but is keeping its recommendations secret. "This is what we recommend to happen to the airplane," an Air Force official told reporters yesterday, but he refused to disclose what the recommendations actually entail. Some of the proposals could quickly turn into acquisition programs, while others might require further study.
WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORP., Sunnyvale, Calif., received an additional $6.3 million from the U.S. Navy for support of alteration of U.S. and U.K. Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) Vertical Support Group (VSG) equipment. The Dept. of Defense said in announcing the award on Nov. 30 that it brings the cumulative value of the contract to $40.5 million.
DELEX SYSTEMS INC., Vienna, Va., is in line to provide the Anti-Surface Warfare Tactical Training Program to the Egyptian Navy. U.S. Naval Air Systems Command said in a Nov. 22 Commerce Business Daily notice that Delex is the only company able to carry out the work under the required schedule.
Senators overseeing the intelligence community continued to voice concern Friday over the possible effect on U.S. weapons programs of information gained from the former Soviet Union during the career of convicted spy Aldrich Ames. They were responding to a statement the day before by Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch. He said intelligence from sources now assumed to have been friendly to the Soviets affected weapons program only "on the margin."
The Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (T-UAV) fits the Army's UAV requirements better than the slightly larger Hunter, but its funding won't influence what the Pentagon plans to do with Hunter, a senior Army official said. "The Army feels like, in stepping back with some debate inside the Army, that [the T-UAV] is probably better suited to Army needs when we're in an affordability crunch, than continuing with the core-level system," Gilbert Decker, the Army's acquisition executive told The DAILY Friday.
The U.K. Defense Ministry launched the competition for a future medium-range air-to-air missile, or FMRAAM, issuing a request for proposals last week, defense procurement chief James Arbuthnot confirmed in Parliament Thursday night. The SR(A) 1239 requirement should result in a "formidable" beyond- visual range interception capability for the Eurofighters being built for the RAF, which will carry both FMRAAMs and British Aerospace's short-range ASRAAM.
U.S. NAVAL UNDERSEA WARFARE CENTER Division, Newport, R.I., plans to award a firm fixed price contract to build, test and deliver an antenna assembly for the Submarine Satellite Information Exchange Subsystem (SSIXS). "This contract will include Provisioned Item Ordering, Engineering Services, and Options to buy approximately sixteen additional Assemblies," the center said in a Dec. 4 Commerce Business Daily notice.
SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL CORP., Washington, D.C., said it will provide engineering support for the Royal Saudi Naval Forces (RNSF) command, control and communications system under a $166 million contract. SAIC said it will provide support and engineering for a major system upgrade which integrates RSNF information and messages into an open systems architecture based on the U.S. Navy's Joint Maritime Command Information System.
A large spacecraft associated with Russia's abortive moon landing program of the early 1970s is expected to reenter the atmosphere after almost 25 years in orbit, and the U.S. Space Command says it's big enough that some pieces will reach the earth's surface. Space Command trackers predicted Cosmos 398 will reenter on Sunday, measuring its radar cross section at 13 square meters-"a size large enough to give it a chance of surviving reentry."
LOCKHEED MARTIN said David S. Osterhout has been appointed vice president of Washington operations. Osterhout, who was also elected a corporate officer, will succeed Dan A. Peterson, who is retiring Jan. 31, 1996, after 27 years with Lockheed Martin and the former Martin Marietta Corp. Osterhout, 56, is currently Lockheed Martin's vice president for defense and legislative affairs in the corporation's Washington office. He assumes his new post on Feb. 1.
Gulfstream Aerospace on Wednesday handed G-IV business jet engine sole-source Rolls-Royce another bulk engine order, taking production of the Tay 611 small turbofan into the next century with a commitment worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars. The new contract also answers industry speculation that with the introduction of the new G-V business jet - powered by BMW Rolls-Royce's BR710 turbofan - the G-IV and G-IV SP might begin to wind down.
LORAL FEDERAL SYSTEMS, Owego, N.Y., won a $5.1 million Army contract yesterday for Lot 1 production (13 items) of the radio frequency interferometer for the fire control radar of the Apache Longbow. Other major awards included $5.6 million from the Navy to Cray Research, Eagan, Minn., for high-performance computing (with options that could bring the total value to $15.2 million) and $12.9 million, also from the Navy, to GPS Technologies, Arlington, Va., for technical support on fleet ballistic missile submarines.
HOUSE MEMBERS voted 227-190 yesterday to accept the VA, HUD and independent agencies appropriations bill they rejected a week ago, moving the bill a step closer to President Clinton's expected veto. A Senate aide said the bill, which contains $13.8 billion for NASA, likely will come to the Senate floor early next week, but Clinton is expected to veto it in a dispute with Capitol Hill over funding for environmental programs and national service. In that case, a continuing resolution set to expire Dec. 15 would cut the NASA figure 1.92% (DAILY, Dec. 7, page 374).
This is the first in an occasional series on how companies are complying - or not complying - with Defense Secretary Perry's 1994 directive to use COTS in preference to mil specs. E-Systems is using the approach of mil-specing the container, not the contents, to maximize the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware in its ground station portion of the Tier II Plus unmanned aerial vehicle program.
Kaman Corp. said that Charles Kaman, chairman and CEO, will resume the title of president of the corporation. The position was held by Harvey S. Levenson, who in September announced his intention to retire at the end of this year. Levenson will continue to serve as a consultant to the company, and as a director.
As U.S. trade representatives prepared to negotiate launch quotas with Ukraine in Europe next week, Hughes was reported near a deal yesterday with Boeing for 10 flights on its Sea Launch vehicle based on the Zenit booster built in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. Spokesmen for Boeing and Hughes declined to comment yesterday on the report by the Long Beach Press-Telegram that the satellite-maker's board of directors had approved a 10-launch contract with Boeing worth more than $1 billion. One source said an announcement could come as early as next week.
Northrop Grumman executives decided to extend a planned holiday shutdown of plants in four states to avoid building up excess jetliner component inventories as the strike at Boeing continues into its third month, company officials confirmed yesterday.
Defense Secretary William Perry today is scheduled to make the long- awaited announcement on DOD policy regarding the Single Process Initiative, a method of implementing his June 1994 directive to reduce reliance on military specifications and apply commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) procurement across the defense industry.
Advanced, prototype mine-clearing equipment, including remotely controlled vehicles, will be tested in Bosnia on a strictly experimental basis, defense officials said yesterday. The officials emphasized that long-established mine-clearing techniques will be the primary mode of coping with the estimated 3 million mines in the area. However, a few radio-controlled vehicles with magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) equipment and infrared cameras happened to be with U.S. forces in Germany, and the R&D community wants to try them out in Bosnia.
The U.S. Air Force's F-22 fighter is still more than a year away from first flight, but testers are already assessing what they must do to show whether it can meet its mission. "We've come a long way on the F-22 IOTE [initial operational test and evaluation] concept" but "we have a long ways yet to go," said Lt. Col. Erwin C. Catts, who heads the F-22 effort for the Air Force's Operational Test and Evaluation Center at Kirtland AFB, N.M.
An Ariane space launch vehicle with four liquid-fueled strap-on boosters orbited two telecommunications satellites Wednesday night from the European launch center at Kourou, French Guiana. Liftoff of the Ariane 44L came at 6:23 p.m. EST, boosting France's Telecom 2C and India's 2C satellites to geosynchronous transfer orbit, according to Arianespace, the European launch consortium.
Hughes Aircraft Co. is in line for a go-ahead from the Naval Surface Weapons Center to continue development of the Rapid Airborne Mine Clearance System Anti-Mine Munitions (RAMICS AMM) program. The company launched the effort under a $3 million exploratory development contract (DAILY, April 27, page 150), and the Navy said in a Dec. 7 Commerce Business Daily notice that Hughes is eligible to proceed on a sole source basis because it is the only company to have demonstrated all phases of the program.
Most U.S. special operations forces deployed to Bosnia will be ground personnel, but their airborne counterparts stand ready for night operations and combat search and rescue, a senior Defense Dept. official said yesterday. The main SOF contingent will be provided by the Army, but some Air Force special forces and Navy SEALs will also be available if necessary, Allen Holmes, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict, told reporters during a breakfast meeting in Washington.
A reported communications glitch forced Japanese engineers to beef up the supports on the Automatic Landing Flight Experiment (ALFLEX) during a test yesterday of the stability and positioning gear on the testbed for Japan's planned HOPE unmanned space shuttle. In a joint statement from Tokyo, the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) and the National Aerospace Laboratory (NAL) cited an on- board communications "non-conformity" in yesterday's decision to conduct a helicopter hang test using three cables instead of one as originally planned.
