The military space business rollercoaster of recent years may soon disappear as a glut of satellite replacement programs tapers out over the next decade, an industry analyst said Oct. 14. The value of unclassified military space contracts in fiscal 2002 jumped 170 percent over fiscal 2001, according to a new report by the Teal Group. The increase continues a series of up-and-down years for military satellite makers and space services providers.
NEW DELHI - The United States and Pakistan will conduct joint military exercises in Pakistan beginning Oct. 15, the first such exercises since Washington lifted sanctions against Islamabad in September 2001. The exercises, dubbed "Inspired Gambit," will involve a U.S. infantry company and a Pakistani infantry battalion, U.S. embassy officials said.
The newly-completed fiscal 2003 defense appropriations conference report adds hundreds of millions of dollars to the Bush Administration's budget request to upgrade or refurbish legacy aircraft, including the Air Force B-2 bomber, Army CH-47 helicopter and Navy F/A-18 Hornet. Such increases are not uncommon for a defense appropriations bill, as they not only address unmet military needs but also allow lawmakers to help companies they represent.
Astronauts completed the third and final spacewalk of the STS-112 mission to the International Space Station on Oct. 14, finishing the installation and checkout of the station's newly installed truss segment. David Wolf and Piers Sellers installed fluid jumpers to allow ammonia coolant to flow between the already installed Starboard Zero truss and the new Starboard One truss segments, among other tasks.
A decade of looming international instability will be good for the NATO alliance and Europe's defense industry, NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson said in London Oct. 14. Describing his vision of the alliance in 2015, Robertson said member nations will be spurred into bumping up defense investments and consolidating the industrial base by a "guaranteed supply chain of instability.
NEW DELHI - The Indian navy has set up an overhaul center for its fleet of Sea Harrier maritime attack aircraft. The center is being set up at the naval aircraft yard at Kochi in southern India, at a cost of $64.5 million. A senior Indian navy official told The DAILY that the Sea Harriers' Pegasus engines, built by Rolls-Royce, previously had to be sent to company facilities in the United Kingdom for repairs and overhaul.
EW TESTING: The Air Force's CV-22 Osprey completed electronic warfare testing in the Benefield Anechoic Facility (BAF) at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., earlier this month, the Air Force said. The Air Force tested the Suite of Integrated Radio Frequency Countermeasures, which includes the radar warning receiver and electronic countermeasures.
ROUGH LANDINGS: European Space Agency scientists have prepared upcoming space probes for some rough landings, although they still may encounter some surprises, ESA says. The Huygens probe, on its way to Saturn's moon Titan, can withstand temperatures of up to 18,000 degrees Celcius (32,432 degrees Fahrenheit) in front of its heat shield, about three times as hot as the sun's surface.
The Federal Communications Commission's action last week to block the acquisition of Hughes Electronics by EchoStar Communications could mean more orders for satellite manufacturers, according to two industry analysts. However, unveiling a new subscriber-based broadband satellite service network might be more difficult for two entities rather than one large one, they said.
A House-Senate panel has approved provisions that could spur the commercial production of new spacecraft and would limit production of the F/A-22 Raptor until certain conditions are met.
MIDEAST SUPPLIERS: Aerospace and defense industry watchers may want to consider what would happen if relations broke down between Arab states, the United States and the United Kingdom following a war with Iraq, a report from Merrill Lynch says. One result could be that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would reduce arms purchases, according to senior aerospace and defense analyst Byron Callan. "This might impact Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, who are in the midst of supplying F-16 Block 60 fighters to the UAE," Callan says.
The Department of Defense should report to Congress how many "nontraditional" defense contractors are participating in Section 845 agreements, which DOD uses to attract such contractors, the General Accounting Office said in a report. The agreements generally are not subject to procurement contract regulations. In addition to attracting companies that aren't traditional defense contractors, DOD also views the agreements as "a way to test creative procurement strategies" such as using teaming arrangements and consortia, according to the GAO.
NASA is confident it can assuage environmental concerns over nuclear-powered spacecraft by launching them with their reactors "cold" and activating those reactors once in space, according to NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe.
YESTERDAY'S DARPA: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) head Tony Tether says he's making progress in returning his agency to its roots in high-risk, "far side" technologies. As defense science and technology (S&T) budgets declined during the 1990s, "DARPA was being pressured more and more to fill the gap in what I would call the product improvement S&T area," Tether says.
A new study by Forecast International/DMS predicts military customers will spend some $32.7 billion from 2002 to 2011 on developing and buying airborne and space-based electro-optical systems. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are expected to be one of the largest market segments for electro-optical (EO) systems, according to the report.
SEA-BASED TERMINAL: Although the fiscal 2003 defense appropriations conference report denies the Missile Defense Agency's $90 million request for a new sea-based terminal missile defense system - a program lawmakers say was not well defined - development of a sea-based terminal capability still could be aided by two upcoming flight tests for the Sea-based Midcourse Defense (SMD) program, according to a Defense Department official.
NASA'S BOOKS: NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe says the agency's bookkeeping already is showing improvement after the Oct. 1 rollout of a new integrated financial management system at Marshall Space Flight Center and Glenn Research Center. Previously, the most up-to-date financial information available to NASA leadership was data on the previous quarter, O'Keefe says. "There isn't a company [out there] that would survive beyond the next quarter if the best you could do on your actuals was last quarter's returns," he says.
The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) is searching for a new facility in Mississippi in a move to expand its growing presence in the North American defense market, an EADS spokesman said Oct. 11. "EADS is considering a facility in Mississippi," said EADS North America spokesman Lawrence Stein. "The where, what and when have not been disclosed."
ICBM WORK: TRW ICBM Systems, of Clearfield, Utah, was awarded a $233.4 million contract modification to perform the second year of work on refurbishing propulsion systems on all three stages of the Minuteman III, the Defense Department announced Oct. 11. The deal exercises an option for the second full rate year of production on the Minuteman III Propulsion Replacement Program.
FIRST FLIGHT: Lew Aerospace of Las Vegas plans to fly its Inventus unmanned aerial vehicle for the first time on Oct. 21 from a nearby dry lake bed, the company said Oct. 10. The Inventus System One (S-1) is a reconnaissance system using a flying wing platform, with a maximum loiter time of 30 hours, a range of 2,000 miles and a maximum altitude of 10,000 feet, the company said. The UAV has a single-unit cost of $269,000.
Oct. 14 - 18 -- The 9th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems. Lakeside Center at McCormick Place, Chicago, Ill. For more information visit www.itsworldcongress.org. Oct. 15 - 17 -- The Precision Strike Association presents the 2002 Precision Strike Technology Symposium, the Kossiakoff Conference Center, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md. Email [email protected] or go to www.precisionstrike.org.
COMPANY SPECIFIC: Funding allocations in the fiscal 2004 defense budget should give industry watchers a better feel for which companies are likely to perform well in the long term once the Iraq situation is settled, according to a report from Deutsche Bank. "With this budget, the [Department of Defense] should more clearly hone its transformation initiative and, more importantly, begin to cut back on its acquisition plans in some areas in order to remain on budget in later years," senior aerospace and defense analyst Christopher Mecray says.
