Harris to Develop Light Weight Communication Satellite System
Filed under: Contract Awards, Harris Corporation, S&T, Satellites, U.S. Air Force, development program, space
The US Air Force awarded Harris Corporation a contract to study the development of a light weight (under 400 kilos) communications system that is capable of being deployed aboard satellites. The SunHearald.com website has the press release. The award is part of the Air Force’s Operationally Responsive Space Office (ORSO) programs. There was no value given for the award. Read more
DARPA researches robot drug sniffing dogs
Filed under: Contract Awards, DARPA, Evolved Machines, S&T, development program, logistics
DARBA awarded Evolved Machines a contract to work on developing an artificial olfactory system. The $5 M plus contract will advance research by combining that done at various sites into one. The goal is to develop an advanced robotic system to detect various smells and odors. Applications may include drug or explosive sniffing as done by dogs currently. It could also be used to monitor cargo and high value targets such as water supplies.
See the press release at MarketWatch.com.
DoD buys vaccines
Filed under: Contract Awards, Department of Defense, S&T, Syntiron LLC, development program, logistics, medicine
The Department of Defense plans to buy vaccine technology for protection against three bacterial infectious diseases. Syntiron LLC who through a sister company manufactures animal vaccines has been working with the Federal Government to develop and adapt this technology for human vaccines. The tree targeted diseases are anthrax, a variant of the plague and a highly mortal bacterial infection spread through water. The contract is worth almost $4 M and reflects the greater emphasis on protective measures against WMD.
See the press release at PharmaLive.com.
Solid quarter for Orbital
Filed under: Earnings, Orbital Systems, S&T, Satellites, development program, space
Orbital reported their third quarter results today. Revenues were up slightly while earnings were down. The company did report strong bookings and their back log is significant at over $2 B. The company saw increased activity in the launch vehicle and advanced space programs. There was a decline in satellites and space services. Orbital provides a variety of space related services to US DoD, Department of Energy and NASA.
See the full press release at MarketWatch.com.
Metal Storm continues to market in the US
Filed under: Australia, Industry Analysis, Metal Storm, Promotions, S&T, development program
The Army of the United States Association (AUSA) held their national convention last week. One of the key parts of this is exhibits by a large number of defense contractors, big and little. Metal Storm the Australian company that is developing rapid fire electronic gun systems attended. They have received some contracts with the US Military to work on their systems. Metal Storm uses multiple barrel system with a stack of ammunition in them. By firing electronically they can launch all of the ready rounds very quickly. Rates of fire for their larger systems are very impressive and their is a lot of potential for them. No nation yet has committed a large sum to buying these systems, which range in size from 9mm to 40mm; although it is probably scalable to larger rounds.
See the press release at MarketWatch.com.
Here is a link to the demonstration video they used at AUSA.
Missile Defense corruption
Filed under: Alabama, Alaska, Congress, MDA, S&T, SMDC, U.S. Army, crime, development program, missile defense
Last year the US Government arrested two employees of the US Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) on charges that they were taking bribes to steer contracts to selected companies. Now the New York Times has done some further research on the issue and have found out that the main figure, the head of SMDC S&T center, had created a whole scheme to make Congress fund a large test program that would then be self-perpetuating. As part of this he broke Federal law by lobbying Congress directly.
The scheme he concocted was one that when I worked supporting the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), now Missile Defense Agency (MDA), never made much sense to me. The MDA had an issue with testing the systems against long range targets. They targets required could not be tested in the United States as there was no range big enough to hold them. The Navy invested in improving their range on the West Coast of Kuaii in Hawaii that faced a broad open area. Targets would be air launched and fired into the range. The Army looked at building a launch facility on Midway to fire that targets at their main range in Kwajalien. The gentlemen at the core of the scandal, Mr. Cantrell, worked a proposal directly with Congress and various contractors to build a facility in Alaska on Kodiak Island and then use an old Navy helicopter carrier to fire the targets at Kodiak. This never really made sense due to its cost and the creation of all new facilities and modifying the ship at some cost.
Ultimately the idea went nowhere, although a launch facility has been built at Kodiak which supports Air Force operations right now. MDA made the sensible decision to begin testing US Army systems in Hawaii using the range there. Now that it turns out the Mr. Cantrell and various Senators using the earmark system was doing this for personal gain.
See an article in the Huntsville Times here.
National Cancer Institue contracts for basic research
Filed under: Contract Awards, S&T, SAIC, development program, medicine
The National Cancer Institute contracted with SAIC to run the Federal Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) in Frederick, MD. The 3 year contract will allow SAIC to conduct basic research on cancer and HIV cures and treatments. While SAIC is known primarily for supporting the US military they have been doing this work for over 10 years.
See the press release at IT News Online.
Good overview on Federal contracting to researchers
Filed under: Congress, Federal Budget Process, S&T, development program
While most people think of Defense when it comes to contracting as that dominates the headlines, the Federal government hands out money for many things. Research is one of the areas that they buy a lot off. It discusses the difference between grant and contract research. The biggest is that with a contract the government is buying research on a specific problem. A grant funds more basic research.
For more on this the Chronicle of Higher Education.
McCain’s contracting proposal makes no sense
Filed under: Congress, Contract Awards, Department of Defense, Federal Budget Process, S&T, development program, production program
In the first Presidential Debate on Friday, Senator McCain restated one of his favorite reforms of government spending - require Firm Fixed Price (FFP) contracts for all work. Currently FFP contracts are used to buy hardware and services when the price and schedule are known. The contractor agrees to this as they will make profit on each unit sold. Cost Plus contracts are used for development or for things where the cost is not known. During World War II Cost Plus contracts were used almost exclusively and some abuse did occur. For R&D contracts it is hard to do a FFP as the total time and cost required to develop a system or new capability has often proved to be beyond the estimation capability of the best government or contractors can do. Senator McCain’s proposal will not work, as you will have a situation where no one will bid on the work as they know they won’t make any money on it.
See FCW.com for the story.
India steadily increases defense spending
Filed under: England, India, Military Aviation, S&T, development program, logistics, production program
The headline on this article in the Daily Telegraph is a little misleading once you read it. India is on a path to more then double defense spending in the next twenty years, where it will be higher then the current UK’s budget. For India to exceed Britain’s budget it would take the UK holding spending steady, and actually adjusted for inflation, reducing it. It is certainly possible to imagine that the UK, and the US for that matter, may have to reduce spending as the budgetary reality catches up to them regarding the cost of social services and deficit spending. The other point of the story the money that India is putting into updating and modernizing their military by moving to buying advanced Western weapons rather then relying on Russian and indigenous producers is probably more important then the amount of spending.
The article by David Blair and Thomas Harding can be found here.
AEGIS BMD Project Office Film of Test
Filed under: Raytheon, S&T, U.S. Navy, development program, missile defense
This is a test several years ago that laid the foundation for the recent successes in the program.
Royal Navy awards test contract
Filed under: Contract Awards, England, QinetiQ, S&T, SETA, development program
The British Ministry of Defence and Royal Navy awarded QinetiQ a contract to provide test and ship design support. QinetiQ used to be the part of the British military providing test services they are contracting to get access to facilities they built and used for several decades. This fifteen year, $300 M contract will allow ship and submarine models to be tested in QinetiQ’s tanks.
See Telegraph.uk.com for more on this contract.
SECURE COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS AWARDED BBN TECHNOLOGIES SUBCONTRACT FOR SPEECH-TO-SPEECH TRANSLATION SYSTEM HARDWARE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT - PRESS RELEASE
Filed under: Contract Awards, DARPA, IT, S&T, Secure Communication System, development program
SANTA ANA, CA — August 25, 2008 — Secure Communication Systems, an innovator in rugged handheld and deployable computer systems, announced today it has been awarded a subcontract by BBN Technologies to provide research and development (R&D) services in support of advancing Spoken Language Communication and Translation System for Tactical Use (TRANSTAC) performance on ruggedized portable and mobile systems. The BBN subcontract is part of a broader initiative of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) TRANSTAC Speech-to-Speech (S2S) Translation program, to create bidirectional, free-form, speaker independent, S2S translation systems. Read more
Navy invest in WMD detection devices
Filed under: Contract Awards, Fairway Medical Technologies, S&T, U.S. Navy, development program
Fairway Medical Technologies received a small contract from the Navy to look at using their technology to detect chemical agents. The contract is worth about $800 K, and is part of a much larger research project for the Navy. This is to design a hand-held detector for the battlefield.
For some more see this at the Houston Business Journal.
CACI reports
Filed under: CACI, Department of Defense, Earnings, IT, S&T, SETA, logistics
In the continuing trend of large defense contractors resulting improved results, CACI had a 13% growth in earnings compared to the equivalent quarter a year ago. Forbes.com reports. CACI is a leading provider of services to the US intelligence community, especially the Defense side. They also provide other services to the US government such as IT and logistics management. Revenue growth was even more impressive, surging over 20% on large intelligence contracts.
For more see the story at Forbes.com.
Preparing for the downturn
Filed under: Congress, Department of Defense, Federal Budget Process, IT, Massachusetts, Raytheon, S&T, development program, missile defense, production program
The Boston Herald writes today about how the various defense companies in Massachusetts are planning for the expected cuts in the defense budget with the end of the fighting in Iraq. While it is certainly expected that the US defense budget will decline beginning in FY09 with either a Republican or Democrat administration, it will probably be slow. The biggest shift will be away from Operations & Maintenance (O&M) funding to more new systems. It will also be interesting to see if the Army and Marines will get smaller after several years of growth. Obviously the biggest player in Massachusetts is Raytheon, they may be cushioned a bit, as they tend to make high-tech weapon and C4ISR systems.
For more see the article “Massachusetts companies brace for wind down in Iraq”.
Army tests FCS parts
The Army conducted an exercise in July to test out parts of the FCS. See an article here. The neat thing about this is not the actual test or exercise but the photo of the soldier holding the control system for one of the remote vehicles used. The controller looks like a PlayStation one. It has been reported that these are the type of controllers being designed as the current generation of troops are familiar with them and can use them rather easily.
DARPA awards net security contract
Filed under: BBN Technologies, Contract Awards, DARPA, IT, S&T, development program
BBN Technologies won a contract from the DARPA to develop network monitoring software. See a press release here. Under the contract as part of the Scalable Network Monitoring program, BBN Technologies will work to build software that will adjust to the size of the network to monitor for attacks and inspect use. The contract is worth over $4 M.
