DDG 105: The U.S. Navy will provide about $400 million each for DDG 105 and DDG 106, new DDG 51-class Aegis guided-missile destroyers, according to the shipbuilders. Northrop Grumman's Ship Systems sector will get $401.5 million for building the DDG 105, and General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works will get $409 million for the DDG 106, the companies said Jan. 2. The money is part of previously awarded multiyear contracts.
The General Accounting Office has endorsed NASA's decision to move space shuttle orbiter major modification (OMM) work from California to Florida, saying NASA's expectations of cost savings were based on "sound" reasoning.
Cubic Defense Applications, owned by Cubic Corp. of San Diego, will provide an electronic warfare (EW) simulator to the Danish air force, the company said Jan. 2. The simulator, the High Density Signal Simulator (HIDESS), will allow the Danish air force to test advanced radar warning receivers and other EW equipment, the company said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. HIDESS, which can emulate standard radar, pulse Doppler or continuous waveform signals, is part of a line of new EW products the company is introducing.
Discussions with the State Department over possible fines for passing sensitive spacecraft technology to China during the mid- and late 1990s still are ongoing, officials with the Boeing Co. said Jan 2. The primary responsibility for paying any fines lies with Hughes Electronics Corp., Boeing officials said. Boeing bought the company's subsidiary, Hughes Space and Communications, in October 2000 and renamed it Boeing Satellite Systems.
MOSCOW - Workers are finishing repairs to Building 112 at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which was heavily damaged when its roof collapsed in May, killing eight (DAILY, May 14, 2002). Clean rooms used by contractor Starsem should be ready for use by mid-February, when the European Space Agency's Mars Express is slated to arrive for preparation for its May or June launch. A government commission said overloading the roof with more than 10 tons of new roofing material played a large role in the collapse. Launches
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A study of a follow-on ICBM will begin in 2003 or 2004 and all basing modes will be considered, according to Brig. Gen. William L. Shelton, director of plans and programs for Air Force Space Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base here. "We will begin an analysis of alternatives within the next year or two to determine what the follow-on ICBM should look like," Shelton told The DAILY.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's transformation agenda enters its third year poised for a new focus on implementing the broad budgetary and strategic reforms imposed since 2001, according to defense officials and analysts. By the end of 2002, the goals of the Army, Navy and Air Force seemed to draw closer to the transformation vision pushed by Rumsfeld's civilian leadership team. The latest round of budget negotiations indicates a clear shift in thinking, said Loren Thompson, executive director of the Lexington Institute.
The year ahead promises fewer moments of the high suspense that dominated 2002 for several of the Pentagon's highest-profile aerospace programs, but a handful of critical events are in store over the next 12 months. It was only a year ago that three blockbuster aerospace programs appeared to have an uncertain future. Make-or-break events were on the calendar for the RAH-66 Comanche, V-22 Osprey what was then called the F-22 Raptor.
Analysts and NASA officials agree that 2003 will be a crucial year for the agency as it enters the most difficult period of space station construction and continues its push to re-establish financial credibility in the eyes of Congress. "The year ahead will be the most complex so far in the history of the International Space Station [ISS] and its construction in orbit," NASA Station Program Manager Bill Gerstenmaier said in a statement. "The station literally becomes a new spacecraft with each assembly mission."
Army and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) officials are to decide in mid-May whether the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program will move forward into the system development and demonstration phase. The LSI team hopes to begin awarding development contracts soon after the Army and DARPA give the approval to move forward, said Jerry McElwee, Boeing's program manager for the FCS program.
As the Department of Defense (DOD) prepares to double spending on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) next year, officials warn that UAVs could become the victims of their own popularity if new capabilities are piled on without regard to affordability. "There's lots of stuff that UAVs can do, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all of those things are cost effective," said Diane Wright, deputy director for air warfare at the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). "We need to figure out how to balance that out."
FIRST FLIGHT: The first C-5 Galaxy modified under the C-5 Avionics Modernization Program made its first flight Dec. 21, ahead of its planned February first-flight date, Lockheed Martin said Dec. 23.
Congress faces no dearth of defense and NASA issues in 2003. When lawmakers reconvene in early January, they will have to make several key personnel decisions affecting aerospace programs. The chairmanships of the Senate Armed Services airland and seapower subcommittees and the House Science space subcommittee are up for grabs, and the House Armed Services Committee may revamp its subcommittee structure to make it more like that of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The process for reviewing export licenses to sell dual-use and munitions items overseas, especially to European allies, likely will come under closer scrutiny next year, according to Joel Johnson, vice president of International Affairs for the Aerospace Industries Association. Johnson said the commerce, state and defense departments have made great progress over the past 18 months in clarifying which items should be on the State Department's Munitions List and which should be included on the Commerce Department's Control List.
Monday, December 16, 2002 NAVY Raytheon Electronic Systems, El Segundo, Calif., is receiving an $18,350,000 firm-fixed-price order under previously awarded contract (N00383-01-G-100A) for purchase of AN/APG-73 radar receivers used on the F/A-18 aircraft. Work will be performed at El Segundo, Calif., and is to be completed by December 2004. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Inventory Control Point, Philadelphia is the contracting activity. ARMY
NASA has awarded funding for nine investigations under its Instrument Incubator Program (IIP), which develops technology for smaller and less expensive earth science remote sensing instruments. The selected proposals focus on measurements of Earth's coastal regions, sea-ice thickness and snow cover, pollution effects, water cycling and other areas. The funded proposals came from researchers at NASA centers, aerospace companies and universities. Total funding for the investigations over three years is about $22 million, NASA said.
ANTI-MISSILE DEPLOYMENT: Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary of defense for readiness under President Reagan; former Sens. Gary Hart (D-Colo.) and Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.); and two Nobel laureates are urging President Bush to reconsider his decision to begin deploying a national missile shield in 2004. In a letter to Bush, they say the technology for such a shield is not mature enough to be fielded and the resources that will be used for the deployment would be better spent on curbing the proliferation of biological, chemical and nuclear materials.
NSF FUNDING: The National Science Foundation has cleared a major hurdle toward doubling its budget over five years, but several more things must happen before the funding increase becomes a reality. President Bush signed a bill Dec. 19 that authorizes boosting the NSF's budget to $9.8 billion by fiscal 2007. Proponents of the legislation say more spending on basic research is needed to preserve the nation's technological edge. But the NSF will not get the additional money until lawmakers provide it in the foundation's annual appropriations bills.
Jan. 14 - 16 -- Naval Institute and AFCEA West 2002-From Change to Transformation, San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, Calif. For more information contact Kim Couranz at (410) 295-1067 or visit [email protected]. Jan. 23 -- Precision Strike Association presents Winter Roundtable 2003 - Global Strategy for Joint Precision Strike. Crystal Gateway Marriott, Salon A, 1700 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, Va. For more information call Leslie Mueller at (301) 475-6513 or email [email protected].
MULTIPLE LAUNCH: A Dnepr-1 launch vehicle delivered five satellites and a prototype lunar orbiter to orbit Dec. 20 from Baikonur Cosmo-drome in Kazakhstan. The vehicle inserted the Italian UniSat-2; the Saudi Arabian SaudiSat-1C; the Argentinian LatinSat-A and B and the Ger-man Rubin-2. It also launched TrailBlazer, a prototype of a commercial lunar imaging spacecraft slated to launch next year for the TransOrbital company of the U.S.
BIT OF RESERVE: U.S. special operations troops soon may own a surplus of AC-130 gunships and MH-47 helicopters, a senior defense official says. The fiscal 2004 budget request proposes continuing the replacement of special operations aircraft lost, damaged or aged by Operation Enduring Freedom, and adds some, the official says. "There'll be an effort to get them a bit of a reserve in terms both of helicopters and fixed-wing assets," he says. Overall, special operations accounts also will gain funds to boost manpower, especially at the headquarters level.
