Philippine Security. Raytheon’s Intelligence, Information and Services segment has received a potential two-year, $18 million contract from the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency to
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provide a maritime border security solution to the Philippines. The award is the company’s first border security contract in Southeast Asia. Raytheon will design and construct a National Coast Watch Center, support integration of data from various agencies into the center, and provide acquisition, installation and training on an automatic identification system as well as radio communications for the Filipino government. The contract was awarded under DTRA’s CTR Integration Contract II program, and follows a nearly $36 million award to Raytheon earlier this year to provide a border security solution for Jordan.
Iris Longevity. A recent study by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows that people’s irises don’t typically suffer from aging effects, making them usable for decades for biometric matching. The study follow recent research that shows that recognition of iris images is increasingly difficult after just three years due to aging, NIST says. The NIST researchers reviewed the data but could not find that iris texture itself was changing. The project lead on the testing, Patrick Grother, says he hopes the model used will “be applicable to other biometric aging studies such as face aging because of their ability to represent variation across individuals who appear in a biometric system irregularly.”
Flag Officer Cuts. The Navy’s announcement last week that it plans to scale back flag officer positions over the next several years may only be the beginning if sequestration remains in place, a former senior Navy official tells Defense Daily. Robert Work, who left his post as undersecretary of the Navy earlier this year, says future changes could go much deeper and be much more difficult to absorb. “There is going to be more of these things as the full impact of sequestration sets in, further rounds of consolidations, further rounds of reductions,” he says. The Navy says it was downgrading, eliminating or merging up to 35 flag officer positions to save money. In most cases, posts held by one-star admirals will in the future he filled by lower-paid captains. Others will be downgraded from three-stars to two. Work, who became the CEO of the progressive Center for a New American Security think tank in April, says the changes have a negative impact because experience and talent is critical in the types of jobs affected. On the flipside, however, Work says “sometimes younger officers are more prone to ask questions, to question existing practices.”
Basin Renovations At Carderock. The Navy has completed major renovations to its water basin at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock. The maneuvering and seakeeping basin is used to simulate ocean conditions to assist in the design of ships via scaled models. Carderock replaced the original pneumatic wave-making system with 216 individually-controlled electro-mechanical wave-boards to enhance the capability to create a precise wave environment, Naval Sea Systems Command says. The six-year-long renovation to the 360-foot by 240-foot pool was completed on Aug. 16.
Range Services. The Air Force exercises an $82 million option with CSC for Eastern Range Technical Services (ERTS), according to a Defense Department statement. ERTS will provide operations, maintenance and sustainment of critical range and launch processing systems that support the launch processing mission of the 45th Space Wing and its launch customers at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Work is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2014.
Textron Cluster Bombs. The Air Force awards Textron a $640 million contract modification to provide 1,300 cluster bomb units, according to a DoD statement. This contract includes foreign military sales (FMS) for Saudi Arabia with $410 million in FMS funds being obligated at the time of award.
Firefighting Equipment. The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) awards Certified Stainless Service, doing business as West-Mark, a contract worth as much as $383 million for the procurement of firefighting equipment, according to a DoD statement. The contract is a five-year, fixed price with an economic price adjustment requirements contract. DoD says there were 24 solicitations with 24 responses. Work is expected to be completed by 2018.
Aurora S3. Aurora Flight Sciences delivers a completed Space Suit Simulator (S3) to NASA following the successful completion of a Phase II Small Business Innovative Research effort, according to a company statement. The S3 was developed to meet NASA’s research and training needs. Pressurized space suits impose high joint torques on the astronaut, reducing mobility for upper and lower body motions. Aurora developed a low-profile, lightweight space suit simulator to provide high-fidelity emulation of NASA’s Extra-Vehicular Mobility Unit (EMU). Working with MIT, Aurora tested each of the joint concepts on an anthropometric robot with instrumented joints and verified the torques provided by each of the joints. The completed S3 is adjustable for human subjects up to 95th percentile male and is expected to be used in university field trials this summer.
NASA Kepler. NASA ends its attempts to restore the Kepler Space Telescope to full working order, according to an agency statement. Two of Kepler’s four gyroscope-like reaction wheels, which are used to precisely point the spacecraft, have failed. The first was lost in July 2012 and the second in May. Engineers’ efforts to restore at least one of the wheels have been unsuccessful. The spacecraft needs three functioning wheels to continue its search for Earth-sized exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system. These planets orbit stars like our sun in what is known as the habitable zone: the range of distances from a star where the surface temperature of a planet might be suitable for liquid water.
On The Block. U.K. taxpayers will save about $12 million a year, the Ministry of Defense says, as it consolidates staff next year into its main building. That means the 1902-built Old War Office in Whitehall is going on the block. The building was a focal point for military planning throughout the major conflicts of the 20th century, housing numerous secretaries of state, including Sir Winston Churchill, MoD says. The building will be on the open market once realtors are appointed and it’s expected to attract significant interest from developers. The money from the sale will be invested in defense priorities.
Crash Boom. NASA researchers plan Wednesday to drop a 45-foot-long helicopter fuselage about 30 feet to test improved seat belts and seats and advance experimental techniques and crashworthiness data. An interested audience is expected at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. NASA is collaborating with the Navy, Army and FAA on the Transport Rotorcraft Airframe Crash Test Bed full-scale crash tests at Langley’s Landing and Impact Research Facility. “We have instrumented a former Marine helicopter airframe with cameras and accelerometers,” says lead test engineer Martin Annett. “Almost 40 cameras inside and outside the helicopter will record how 13 crash test dummies react before, during and after impact.” The helicopter will hit the ground at about 30 miles an hour. The impact condition represents a severe but survivable condition under both civilian and military requirements. Another crash test of a similar helicopter equipped with additional technology, including composite airframe retrofits, is planned for next year.
Can You Hear Me? On Thursday, the 21st Signal Brigade at Fort Detrick, Md., holds a 50th anniversary celebration for the Washington-Moscow hotline. With speakers including former American ambassador, Jack Foust Matlock and Sergei Khrushchev, son of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. On Aug. 30, 1963 John F. Kennedy became the first U.S. president to have a direct phone line to the Kremlin in Moscow. Fort Detrick serves as the direct link between the White House and Moscow.
20 Years And Counting. Rep. Jim McGovern Aug. 2 reintroduces the Latin America Military Training Review Act, (H.R. 2989), now with the House Armed Services Committee. The bill would shut down the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC),more easily recognized as the U.S. Army School of the Americas, even though the name was changed more than a decade ago. The bill has 39 cosponsors, all Democrats but one–Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.). There is no expectation the measure will emerge from committee. Similar measures have failed since 1993 despite the long running battle over human rights issues with graduates that has included protests, demonstrations and an uproar over training manuals. The legislation is a focal area for activists and others interested in the institute, the only military school of its kind.