NASA officials defended the agency's decision to cancel the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) during a teleconference Feb. 9, emphasizing that the decision was based on safety considerations and will remain final.
Although Congress has given the U.S. Coast Guard a funding boost in fiscal year 2005, lawmakers on a Senate panel told Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge on Feb. 9 that the timeline for revitalizing the fleet is too long. Ridge appeared before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee to answer questions about his agency's $40.2 billion budget request, which would be a 10 percent increase over the current year's level.
JAVELIN: DRS Technologies will produce Second Generation Forward Looking Infrared detectors and other equipment for the Javelin anti-tank weapon system program under a $23.7 million contract form Raytheon Missile Systems Co. Deliveries under the award began in December 2003 and are expected to continue through October, the company said.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Slovakia plans to spend millions of dollars modernizing a dozen MiG-29 fighter aircraft instead of buying new fighters in the short term.
ACQUISITION: United Defense Industries (UDI) has completed its acquisition of the assets of Kaiser Compositek Inc. for $8.5 million, the company said Feb. 9. The acquisition will help the company enhance and expand the development of advanced weapon systems and combat vehicles for the military, the company said. Kaiser Compositek provides composite structures, and its acquisition will help UDI provide lighter weight gun and missile launching systems, the company said.
Opportunities for engine retrofits and other modernization could be worth nearly $3.3 billion over the next 10 years, with just under 80 percent of this amount, or $2.6 billion, for military projects, Forecast International said Feb. 9. The study, entitled "The Market for Engine Retrofit & Modernization, 2004-2013," looks at the issue worldwide, but focuses primarily on the U.S. market, study author Bill Dane told The DAILY.
ITT Industries Inc. plans to buy Eastman Kodak Co.'s Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) business for $725 million to expand its space market business opportunities, the company announced Feb. 9.
NEW DELHI - India has more than doubled its allocation for buying weapons and related equipment from international vendors. The country has set up a three-year "non-lapsable" $5.4 billion defense fund and set aside another $4.8 billion for defense acquisitions in fiscal 2004, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh said Feb. 4 in releasing India's defense budget. This year, out of a total budget of around $14 billion, India earmarked about $4.4 billion for weapons and equipment purchases.
The Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. are expected to compete to be the prime contractor for the Airborne and Maritime/Fixed Station (AMF) cluster of the Defense Department's Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), industry sources said Feb. 9.
Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) has awarded Boeing a $61.8 million contract for the second low-rate initial production (LRIP) block of the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, NAVAIR announced Feb. 9. The contract calls for the production of 12 AESA AN/APG-79 radar systems by the fall of 2005, according to NAVAIR. Boeing is the prime contractor for the F/A-18E/F. Raytheon is building the AESA radar under a subcontract.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is expected in two weeks to send the final criteria for base realignment closure and (BRAC) recommendations to congressional defense committees, marking the beginning of a process that analysts say can have mixed impact on defense contractors. Congress has a month to approve the final selection criteria after Rumsfeld delivers them on Feb. 16. In March, President Bush is scheduled to nominate his choices for the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission, an independent panel.
The U.S. Army is using virtual reality to improve and integrate its training for convoy and urban operations, according to Lt. Col. Joseph Giunta, the Army's program manager for Ground Combat Tactical Trainers. Deficiencies in convoy training have been highlighted as more convoys come under fire in Iraq, according to Giunta.
DIRECTED ENERGY: The U.S. Army is eyeing mid-March as the likely time for a summit on directed energy weapons. Brig. Gen. Robert Lennox, deputy commanding general for operations at Army Space and Missile Defense Command, has been trying to organize the event to coordinate the service's formulation of requirements for directed energy systems (DAILY, Dec. 12, 2003).
NET-CENTRIC ACCELERATION: It is unlikely that some net-centric warfare programs the U.S. Department of Defense has accelerated since Sept. 11, 2001, will be deployed soon, says a senior defense analyst. "The United States has had research and development programs on the drawing board that would have taken 10 years to build and [that it] now wants out in a matter of three or four years. That's the plan, but I doubt that will happen," says Richard Sterk, Forecast International's electronics group leader and senior defense analyst.
ALTAIR: In August and September, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems will deploy its Altair unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with the Canadian military to perform littoral and maritime surveillance off Canada's east coast. After being launched from a main operating base at Goose Bay, Newfoundland, and flown on an instrument flight plan, control of the aircraft and payload will be passed to an Ottawa-based remote operations center for beyond-line-of-sight operations via satellite.
EXPERIMENT: The U.S. Defense Department's Joint Forces Command has an experimental initiative underway that would give combat commanders rapidly deployable command-and-control teams and supporting information systems. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the units would help the military respond to regional conflicts with smaller and more effective joint operational headquarters. Myers described the initiative in testimony submitted to the House Armed Services Committee. The prototype for the unit will be established this year.
The U.S. Army has begun real-world testing of a new system that allows a gun mounted atop a Humvee to be operated from inside the vehicle. Four prototypes of the Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS) were installed on Humvees and sent to Iraq in December for urban missions, including patrols. CROWS, developed for the Army by Recon/Optical Inc. (ROI) of Barrington, Ill., eliminates the need for a gunner to be outside the vehicle, where there is little protection against enemy fire and severe weather.
RIGHT-COST READINESS: Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, says the Navy needs to "learn how to run this business - a warmaking business - better. The leaders in the Navy must understand that readiness at any cost is no longer an option. We need readiness at the right cost." Clark spoke last week at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association and U.S. Naval Institute West 2004 conference in San Diego.
