USA INFORMATION SYSTEMS, INC., has been awarded a competitive multi-year contract by NASA to provide "one-stop" electronic access to technical standards products and related document sets for use by NASA employees and supporting contractors at NASA locations including Headquarters, nine field centers, three facilities, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. USA systems, of Virginia Beach, Va., will provide the services for the NASA Agency-Wide Full-Text Technical Standards System, one of the three major systems in the NASA Integrated Standards Initiative.
Goldman Sachs has lowered its rating on Northrop Grumman from "outperform" to "market perform." The downgrading was a result of "potential dilution and distraction over a bid for Newport News Shipbuilding, Inc., analyst Howard Ruben said in a report. A Northrop Grumman deal with Newport News "may not produce the benefits for Northrop or the U.S. Navy that a General Dynamics Corp.-Newport News deal would."
Aerojet General Corp., Rancho Cordova, Calif., is being awarded a $10,098,435 (estimated) cost-plus-fixed fee contract to provide for research and development of an advanced reusable rocket engine for space maneuver vehicles. At this time, $6,000,000 of the funds have been obligated. This solicitation was posted on the Electronic Post System; four firms submitted proposals. The work is expected to be completed by November 2002. Solicitation began in August 2000; negotiations were completed April 2001.
DRS Technologies Inc., a leading supplier of rugged computers and combat display systems, announced May 14 it was seeking acquisitions as a means to obtaining additional contracts with the U.S. Air Force. Mark Newman, company chairman, president and chief executive officer, said during the Aerospace Finance Conference in New York that contracts with the Air Force currently account for only 2 percent of DRS's business.
McDonnell Douglas Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Boeing Co., St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $30,361,887 modification to previously awarded cost-plus-incentive-fee contract (N00019-00-C-0307) for the development, manufacture and delivery of ten 8"x10" display heads and 43 8"x10" display processor kits for the F/A-18F aircraft. Work will be performed in Albuquerque, N.M. (41%); St. Louis, Mo. (36%); and Minneapolis, Minn. (23%), and is expected to be completed by December 2005. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
President Bush announced May 14 that he intends to nominate Peter W. Rodman to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. Rodman, currently Director of National Security Programs at the Nixon Center. He has been a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and at the Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute. From 1987 to 1990 he served Presidents Reagan and Bush as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and NSC Counselor.
McDonnell Douglas, St. Louis, Mo., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Boeing Co., is being awarded an estimated $251,920,440 two-year performance-based logistics contract to provide full logistics support of approximately 850 components unique to F/A-18 E/F aircraft. Some examples of components being procured and supported include servocylinders, valve assemblies and circuit card assemblies. The contract contains options which, if exercised, will bring the cumulative value of this contract to a potential value of $770,000,000. Work will be performed in St.
The Bush Administration's request for $338 million to begin implementing the Coast Guard's aircraft and ship modernization program cleared its first legislative hurdle May 10, receiving approval from the House Transportation Committee's Coast Guard panel as part of a $5.4 billion fiscal 2002 Coast Guard authorization bill. The full committee plans to consider the bill May 16. The Senate version of the authorization bill and the House and Senate transportation appropriations bills have yet to be considered.
The Joint Strike Fighter program, with Boeing and Lockheed Martin in competition for a winner-take-all contract, is relying on global partnerships to shore up international support for the JSF as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld continues his strategy reviews.
Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $12,857,675 firm-fixed-price contract to provide for fleet upgrade for 22 F-16 aircraft. This upgrade includes incorporation of interface software for the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile and the Advanced Identity Friend and Foe system. This effort supports foreign military sales to Bahrain. The work is expected to be completed by January 2003. Solicitation began January 2001; negotiations were completed April 2001.
Information and computer network warfare techniques will play increasing roles in warfighting tactics as the Air Force moves forward with effects-based operations, according to a service official. Gaining effective control over a system rather than destroying it is the premise of effects-based operations (EBO). The concept moves the focus to alternative means to achieve desired results and away from complete annihilation of a system to render it useless.
Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), the new ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services procurement subcommittee, plans to make increasing the military's shipbuilding rate his top priority, an aide told The DAILY May 14. "My boss is a fan of shipbuilding," said Stephen Peranich, legislative director to Taylor, whose congressional district is home to Northrop Grumman Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding.
NAVCOM TECHNOLOGY INC., a subsidiary of Deere&Co. of Moline, Ill., is working with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory of Pasadena, Calif., on a new global positioning technology that could help farmers be more productive. Tractors will be equipped with receivers providing instant location information. The technology will allow farmers to navigate fields at night and when visibility is poor, and will also let them calculate and map precisely where their fields may need more water, fertilizer and weed control, saving time and money.
The U.S. Army is sorting through responses to a request for information on radar and communications intelligence systems that could be used on an Airborne Reconnaissance Low (ARL) aircraft slated to replace one that was lost two years ago on a classified mission in Colombia. The responses originally were due March 31 (DAILY, March 5), but the deadline was extended to April 15 because of some last-minute industry inquiries, said Richard Wittstruck, deputy product manager for the Aerial Common Sensor program at Ft. Monmouth, N.J.
TRW INC. AND FUJITSU MICROELECTRONICS INC. have completed flight production of extremely high density, digital integrated circuits for the TRW-built Astrolink communications payload. Astrolink International LLC is a global broadband communications system. Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems is the prime contractor for the Astrolink space segment. The Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), the key technology for Astrolink's on-board processing, were designed by TRW and fabricated by Fujitsu in 19 months.
Rep. Edward Schrock (R-Va.), whose congressional district is home to Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, plans to seek $30 million in the fiscal 2002 VA-HUD appropriations bill, which funds NASA, to pay for military aircraft noise reduction research at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. Schrock plans to submit his funding request to the House Appropriations VA-HUD subcommittee as early as May 15, an aide said.
AVTEC SYSTEMS INC. of Fairfax, Va., has announced that its Programmable Telemetry Processor (PTP-EX) system has been selected by the Swedish Space Corp. (SSC) and Universal Space Network for the Coriolis mission ground station operations. SSC, of Solna, Sweden, has joined forces with USN, of Horsham, Pa., to create PrioraNet, a worldwide network of ground stations that provides Earth-orbiting satellites with communications and ground support.
General Electric Aircraft Engines, General Electric Co., Lynn, Mass., is being awarded a $399,936,740 modification to previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-99-C-1175) to fully fund the fiscal year 2001 full rate production of 78 F414-GE-400 install engines and device kits, eight spare engines, eight fan modules, 10 high pressure compressors, six combustor modules, eight high pressure turbine modules, eight low pressure turbine modules, and eight afterburner modules for the F/A-18E/F aircraft.
Raytheon Aerospace Co., Madison, Miss., is being awarded a $6,999,962 modification to previously awarded firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N00019-00-D-0272) for the procurement of 18 flight safety upgrade kits for the C-12 aircraft to include trafficalert and collision avoidance system, enhanced ground proximity warning system, weather radar and radar altimeter system kits. In addition, 78 commercial and 78 Navy-unique C-12 maintenance manuals will be procured. Work will be performed in Wichita, Kan. (75%), and Madison, Miss.
By funding the troubled V-22 program despite its many deficiencies and problems, the Pentagon is illustrating what's wrong with its acquisition process, a defense policy analyst said May 11. "The V-22 is a prime example of a failed acquisition system," said Ivan Eland, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute, a public policy think-tank in Washington, D.C. Eland described the defense industry as "socialist," with government-owned facilities and programs that continue to be driven by politics.
Britain's Tornado strike-reconnaissance aircraft SR(A) 417 mid-life upgrade program (MLU) has achieved full operational clearance after a prolonged test and development program. The program was carried out by the Ministry of Defence's Evaluation&Research Agency (DERA), the Royal Air Force Strike Attack Operational Evaluation Unit and contractor BAE Systems.
'IT'S A BIRD, IT'S A PLANE':The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle community is making progress in navigating its way through the channels of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) towards establishment of flight certification rules. The growing presence of UAVs has forced the FAA to figure out how the aircraft fit with Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs). At a May 7 meeting attended by representatives from interested parties from the UAV establishment, including the U.S. Air Force and U.S.
BOEING'S first C-17 Globemaster III for the United Kingdom Royal Air Force will depart for its U.K. base, Brize Norton, on May 23, the Boeing Co. announced. The U.K. is leasing four C-17s.
In a report released May 10, the General Accounting Office (GAO) determined that the U.S. State Department is not fully tracking the outside activities of former Soviet Union weapons scientists doing U.S.-sponsored research. Through research centers in Russia and Ukraine, the U.S. sponsors peaceful research projects for scientists who previously worked on the Soviet Union's programs to create weapons of mass destruction.
Boeing's Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) X-32B landed at Patuxent River Naval Air Station May 11, where it will begin the final phase of test flights to validate its direct-lift short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (STOVL) capability. The X-32B recently completed its first airborne transition from conventional to STOVL mode (DAILY, Apr. 5). Its predecessor, the X-32A, demonstrated both aircraft-carrier and conventional-takeoff-and-landing objectives before completing its test program Feb. 3.
