GENOA — Finmeccanica’s first-half results confirm that the company is recovering financially, but its growing debt is becoming an issue for management. Giuseppe Orsi, chairman and CEO, says Finmeccanica will dispose of assets worth €1 billion ($1.2 billion) before the close of the year, which should allow the company to reduce its debt. At the end of June that debt stood at €4.6 billion, an 11% increase over the same period of 2011. And the Italian economic crisis casts further doubt on the company’s debt situation.
WEBSTER FIELD, Md. — The U.S. Navy plans to award Northrop Grumman a contract in August to integrate the Telephonics RDR-1700 maritime surveillance radar onto the MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter to meet an urgent operational requirement.
The Obama administration more clearly told federal contractors on Aug. 1 not to issue their employees notices of potential job losses that would take place if steep across-the-board budget cuts are instituted early next year.
WEBSTER FIELD, Md. — The U.S. Marine Corps wants to extend the deployment of two Lockheed Martin/Kaman K-Max unmanned cargo helicopters in Afghanistan through the second quarter of 2013, based on the success of operations so far. Already extended twice, the military utility assessment begun in December 2011 currently is scheduled to continue through September of this year. “The Marine Corps has indicated a requirement to extend the capability,” says Eric Pratson, cargo UAS team lead at Naval Air Systems Command (Navair).
With a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report questioning U.S. Navy shipbuilding cost and operational assumptions, the service is defending its plan and estimates. The Navy projects that buying the new ships in the 2013 plan will cost a total of $505 billion over 30 years, or an average of $16.8 billion per year, CBO notes. CBO estimates that the cost for new-ship construction under the 2013 plan will total $599 billion through 2042, or an average of $20 billion per year
Despite the very public alarm bells rung recently over the breathing problems affecting F-22 Raptor pilots, Japanese officials have shown no concern about basing the jet fighters in their country, U.S. Air Force officials say. This is in stark contrast to the consternation displayed by Japanese officials because of recent flight accidents involving the V-22 Osprey as the U.S. Marine Corps deploys the tiltrotors to the region.
CYBER ALTERNATIVE: While Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and his co-sponsors of the controversial Cybersecurity Act of 2012 put their final touches on their bill in hopes of garnering more support for it, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce isn’t budging in its opposition. The Chamber’s main concerns with the legislation include the fact that “owners and operators of critical infrastructure would be evaluated by third-party members,” according to a July 25 document. R.
WEBSTER FIELD, Md. — Insitu has begun flight tests of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ RQ-21A small tactical unmanned aircraft (Stuas). Developed from the company’s Integrator commercial UAS, the RQ-21A made the 1-hr. flight on July 28 from an Insitu facility in Boardman, Ore. With six months left to run under its 27-month engineering and manufacturing development contract, the program is on track, says Boeing subsidiary Insitu. Development and operational testing will begin in August at NAS China Lake, Calif.
At the House Armed Services Committee on Aug. 1, the defense industry will be watching for clues about how the Obama administration plans to implement a penalty devised by Congress to force lawmakers to reduce the federal deficit. The penalty, known as sequestration, triggers a $1 trillion across-the-board government cut come January 2013, unless lawmakers reach a larger deal on deficit reduction.
LOS ANGELES and WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has awarded an array of contracts for the Phoenix program, which aims to demonstrate the salvage and reuse of components, such as antennas, from dead satellites. The cost-saving concept is based on creating new space resources by repurposing equipment already in geosynchronous orbit. To demonstrate the scheme, Darpa plans to piggyback payload orbital delivery system (PODS) devices on a sample commercial communications satellite in 2015-16.
CYBER BULLYING: The controversial Cybersecurity Act of 2012, sponsored by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), is still stuck in the U.S. Senate even though numerous revisions have been made to make it more agreeable to all parties. So far the bill has 90 amendments waiting to be discussed, with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as the number one contributor. A frustrated Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is skeptical it will pass. “We cannot let this bill die because of partisanship, and that is what’s happening,” Reid said July 31.
The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee (SAC-D) has forwarded to the full committee a $604.5 billion U.S. defense spending bill for fiscal 2013 that for the second year in a row comes to the aid of a Lockheed Martin missile defense program.
THE PENTAGON — There is no single “smoking gun” that caused breathing trouble for F-22 Raptor pilots, but rather a “mosaic” of interrelated cockpit equipment issues that led to a chain reaction of glitches resulting in symptoms similar to hypoxia, says Maj. Gen. Charlie Lyon, Air Combat Command’s director of operations.
BEIJING — BAE Systems will upgrade 134 F-16s for the South Korean air force, making a rare incursion into a combat aircraft market that has long been reserved for U.S. companies. But a U.S. unit of the British company will do the work, which covers design and integration of a package comprising a new radar, mission computer, Link 16 datalink, a new navigation system, multi-function displays, Raytheon AIM-120C and AIM-9X air-to-air missiles, and wind-corrected munitions dispensers. The navigation system will use inertial measurement and GPS.
U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus should stick to his job and get out of the biofuel business, says Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “You are the Secretary of the Navy, not the Secretary of Energy,” McCain says in a July 27 letter to Mabus, in which he also tells the secretary to avoid “politically driven demonstrations,” referring to a recent Pacific Rim exercise that, McCain says, apparently featured green-painted ships and aircraft as well as baseball hat souvenirs.
Defense research agency has developed its first submarine-launched ballistic missile, plans to develop a new range of missiles to boost the country’s military
FT. PICKETT, Va. — CSC is offering customers video-by-the-hour unmanned-aircraft surveillance services, using assets originally acquired for a U.S. Navy contract. “If you want video, tell us where. You don’t have to buy anything or train for anything,” Bob Frizelle, CSC vice president and general manager for mission systems, told potential customers during a demonstration of its UAVs at Fort Picket, Va., on July 26.
