Boeing awarded U.S. Air Force Combat Search and Rescue contract
The U.S. Air Force selected St. Louis-based Boeing’s HH-47 helicopter as the winner of the Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) program competition. The CSAR program calls for initial operational capability of the HH-47 aircraft in 2012. Under the program, which is worth as much as $10 billion, Boeing will build 141 production aircraft and four test aircraft at its Rotorcraft Systems manufacturing facility in Ridley Park, Pa., also home to the MH-47G Special Operations and CH-47F Chinook programs. CSAR-X is a U.S. Air Force initiative to procure capable and survivable aircraft able to recover isolated personnel from hostile or denied territory.
General Dynamics to provide system integration for Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement program
The U.S. Navy awarded General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems in Fairfax, Va., a $13 million contract modification to provide program management, systems engineering, software engineering, specialty engineering, integration and test, integrated logistics support, training, and installation-support functions required for Block 1A, 1B1 and 1B2 of the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP)-a spiral-development block upgrade program for the AN/SLQ-32 Electronic Warfare (EW) system installed on all combatant and auxiliary ships in the Navy. The AN/SLQ-32 has been the Navy’s primary EW and antiship missile-defense system since the early 1980s. “The SEWIP program is providing block upgrades to the fleet using a rapid capability insertion process to improve the electronic warfare capability and to provide an open system that will enable cost effective upgrades,” says Mike Tweed-Kent, vice president and general manager of Maritime Digital Systems at General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems.
Westar to provide technical support services to Army RESET program
The U.S. Army’s Aviation and Missile Life Cycle Management Command (LCMC) in Huntsville, Ala., has awarded Westar Aerospace & Defense Group Inc., in St. Louis a $2.7 million effort to provide technical support services to the Army’s RESET Program, whose goal is to expedite the restoration of helicopters returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to deployable condition. To support the program, Westar will install an enterprise management information system as many as nine RESET sites across the U.S. and in Germany. Called ULLS-A (E), for Unit Level Logistics System-Aviation (Enhanced), the system will provide commanders and aviation support personnel with greatly improved access to readiness and logistics management information, enabling them to make faster and better informed decisions. Westar has already applied ULLS-A (E) software to all Active-Duty, Reserve and National Guard Army Aviation units. Over the past 17 months, the software has been fielded to approximately 80 aviation units and facilities, including five active Army Divisions. This includes the induction into the system of about 1,100 aircraft and the training of some 16,000 users. Westar is a wholly owned subsidiary of London-based QinetiQ.
Northrop Grumman delivers satellite antennas for nuclear arms control
Northrop Grumman Corp. in Carpinteria, Calif., has delivered all V-Sensor deployable antenna assemblies to detect nuclear blasts as an adjunct payload on the Global Positioning Satellite 2F program. The company’s Astro Aerospace unit completed manufacturing and testing this summer of six qualification units and 18 flight units of its V-Sensor deployable antenna assemblies and recently delivered them to its customer, Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M. The “pop-up” antennas are an example of Astro Aerospace’s Storable Tubular Extendible Member (STEM) product line, which can be stowed in compact packages for launch and then opened in orbit. About the size of a pack of cigarettes, these STEM antennas deploy to a length of almost seven feet. They permit detection of electromagnetic pulses as part of nuclear arms control
