19 Sep 06. The Team JCA partnership of Raytheon and EADS CASA North America has established a public-private partnership agreement with Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania to work together on a logistics approach to the Joint Cargo Aircraft program. The Joint Cargo Aircraft is a joint Army and Air Force program that will provide ground forces with an intratheater lift capability to haul important cargo and troops to support combat operations. Team JCA is offering the combat-proven C-295 transport aircraft for the JCA requirement. The C-295 is in service with coalition partners around the world and is the only combat-proven and FAA-certified aircraft being offered for the JCA program. Under the agreement, Team JCA would work with Letterkenny to define the Army’s maintenance requirements.
15 Sep 06. The Pentagon has reiterated its support for merging the government rocket launch businesses of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., and antitrust authorities are likely to vote in two to three weeks on the plan, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. Pentagon procurement officials recently sent the U.S. Federal Trade Commission a detailed explanation of why they believe the deal should go through even though it would leave the government with only one satellite launch provider, this source said. The companies have said the proposed merger to create the United Launch Alliance would save taxpayers up to $150m annually. The savings would come from eliminating redundant overhead for launches of U.S. military, intelligence and other government satellites.
18 Sep 06. Russia intends to boost its military technical cooperation with African countries, including by establishing maintenance centers for Russian-made armaments and equipment, state arms exporter Rosoboronexport said Monday. The enterprise, which is Russia’s sole state intermediary in the sphere of military production exports and imports, said it was seeking as a priority to expand the geography, range and volumes of Russian armament and equipment supplies to regional markets, including Africa. The Soviet Union supplied arms to many African countries in the ideological standoff with the West, and Russia has been seeking to re-establish contacts under President Vladimir Putin. Rosoboronexport announced it had signed deals worth $7.5 billion with Algeria in March. “The enterprise’s cooperation with traditional importers of Russian weapons – Algeria, Libya, Angola, Ethiopia and Uganda has been boosted,” the spokesman said, adding that relations with Morocco, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique and Burkina Faso were also developing well.