A team of industry representatives is scheduled to make its first recommendations in early November on the reference model for building an open digital architecture for the U.S. military, according to an industry executive. The team will make its recommendations at the third meeting of the Net-Centric Operations Industry Forum (NCOIF), a group of 25-30 commercial and defense companies brought together by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA).
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: Mid-sized defense companies could grow more than large companies in coming years due to the increasing importance of new product development, according to senior aerospace and defense analyst Byron Callan of Merrill Lynch. "While cycles of demand will be the main near-term determinant of revenue in commercial aerospace and defense, we strongly believe that new product development will be a critical differentiating factor among the companies we follow," he says.
TRANSFORMATION ASSESSMENT: Rep. William "Mac" Thornberry (R-Texas), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, plans to give a speech Oct. 15 assessing the Bush Administration's efforts to transform the military. Thornberry's address, which will take place at the Heritage Foundation, is entitled, "Ready for the Missions of the 21st Century?"
IDIOTIC: Current export control restrictions on U.S. satellite equipment are "idiotic," according to Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board. "The restrictions on the export of satellite technology are idiotic. They are in the process of destroying an American industry and it's an important American industry," Perle says. Loral Space & Communications is one company that has suffered from the restrictions, he says.
AEGIS CONTRACT: Lockheed Martin's Maritime Systems & Sensors unit of Moorestown, N.J., has been awarded an $812.6 million contract to continue developing the Aegis Weapon System for use in the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (Aegis BMD) system, the Pentagon announced late Oct. 10. The work will include upgrades to the missile launching system and the command-and-control system. The contract will support the initial version of Aegis BMD, which the Defense Department wants to begin deploying by 2005, and also will fund engineering analysis for future versions.
NASA has awarded the Mission Operations and Mission Services (MOMS) contract to a team led by Honeywell Technology Solutions Inc. (HTSI) of Columbia, Md., the aerospace agency said last week. The five-year contract, which includes two one-year options, could be worth up to $900 million. HTSI will support NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., for spacecraft flight operations; mission data collection and distribution; and other work.
BANDWIDTH HUNGER: The military must develop more self-control over its never-ending hunger for increased communications bandwidth, according to Lt. Gen. William Wallace, who commanded the U.S. Army's Fifth Corps during the war in Iraq (DAILY, Oct. 9). "Regardless of how much bandwidth we provide, we will figure out a way to want more," Wallace says. "We've got to figure out a way to be more disciplined in the way that we use bandwidth.
NEW DELHI - Officials from India, Israel and Russia signed an agreement Oct. 10 completing Israel's sale of Phalcon radars to India, a deal worth roughly $1 billion. The three radars will be mounted on Russian-built Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft to serve as airborne early warning systems, with each combination costing about $350 million. The radars will be able to track up to 60 targets over an 800 kilometer (500 mile) radius.
The NetFires program, which is developing non-line-of-sight fire for the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS), is on track for an early 2004 contract award to begin the system development and demonstration (SDD) phase, according to Army and industry officials. The SDD contract award, likely to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, probably will be made in or around January, said Steve Altman, director of business development at NetFires LLC, the Lockheed Martin-Raytheon joint venture that is designing the missiles and launcher for NetFires.
As NASA awaits the final mishap report on the loss of its Helios solar-electric unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the agency is mulling the scope and future of its high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) UAV research programs.
IRAQ BOUND: The U.S. Army's new Stryker vehicles are being shipped to Iraq for their first operational assignment, where they will support 3,600 soldiers from I Corps' 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, the Army says. The troops will begin their assignment in Iraq in the next few weeks. The vehicles, from the Fort Lewis, Wash.-based Stryker Brigade Combat team, began rolling onto ships Oct. 9 for transport to Iraq.
Oct. 14 - 16 -- Call For Papers, Precision Strike Technology Symposium 2003, The Kossiakoff Conference Center, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Laboratory, Laurel, Md. Abstracts due by Friday, June 6, 2003. To send abstracts, email [email protected], fax (301) 475-9367 or contact Leslie Mueller at (301) 475-6513. Oct. 15 - 17 -- Interoperability Technology Summit, 3-Day Conference & Exhibition, Doubletree Hotel Crystal City, Arlington, Va. For more information visit www.idga.org
HUMAN FACTORS: The U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and NASA plan to adopt the FAA's newly revised human factors guide, according to the FAA. Entitled, "Human Factors Design Standard," the new guide replaces and expands on the agency's 1996 guide. It includes air traffic and airway facilities systems and provides a common source of FAA-specific ergonomic design requirements. The new guide includes more than 100 new rules and guidelines and has been reorganized based on information from users, the FAA says.
Changes are needed in the way funding is allocated for new research and development projects, a group of industry executives and independent analysts said Oct. 9. "It seems to me that the best way to invest research funding is for the government to have as little say as possible about how it will be spent," said Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board.
Pratt & Whitney is almost ready to begin testing the first production-configuration F135 engine for the Defense Department's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), government and industry sources said Oct. 10. Pratt & Whitney spokesman Mark Sullivan told The DAILY that the testing will begin "within the next few days," as early as late Oct. 10.
Northrop Grumman announced Oct. 9 that it stands to lose about $300 million in 2004 sales as a result of the U.S. Navy's decision to delay the planned refueling and overhaul of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) by one year, to November 2005.
Finmeccanica and Boeing could begin collaborating on aerospace and defense programs as early as next year, according to an executive with Finmeccanica SpA. The two companies signed an agreement in January to explore possible joint initiatives and growth opportunities in aerostructures, commercial aircraft, aircraft modification, unmanned aerial vehicles, satellite systems, navigation, launch services, defense, missile defense, space infrastructure and avionics (DAILY, Jan. 28).
The FAA has approved language aimed at clarifying that its Office of the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (AST) will regulate the emerging field of commercial suborbital reusable launch vehicles (RLVs) (DAILY, Oct. 6), an FAA source said Oct. 9. FAA Administrator Marion Blakey communicated her approval of the language in a letter delivered to the House Science Committee Oct. 6, the source told The DAILY. The FAA is preparing to publish its conclusions in the Federal Register. "That's in process," the source said.
JOINING UP: Canadian companies will participate in Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) said Oct. 8. The CSA contributed $11 million to the development and validation phase of Galileo, allowing Canadian companies to respond to requests for proposals from the program. Galileo, a joint initiative of the European Commission and ESA, is scheduled to be fully deployed in 2008 with a constellation of up to 30 satellites.
ROCKET ORDER: General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products will produce Hydra-70 70mm rockets, motors and warheads for the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force until March 2006 under a $98.6 million order, the company said Oct. 9. The order extends deliveries on a contract awarded to the company in 1999. The rockets can be fired from Apache and Cobra helicopters, F-16s and other platforms, the company said.
FUNDRAISING: Australia's Metal Storm Ltd. has completed a share purchase plan that raised about $5 million, which it plans to use for research and development programs, the electronic ballistics company said Oct. 9. The company has made "several significant product-related developments recently" and the money will help it "drive these along the path to commercialization," CEO Charles Vehlow said.
