3 Sept 02. Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] received a $131.7m funding increment to continue its leadership of the Battle Management/Command and Control/Communication (BM/C2/C) program for the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) Missile Defense National Team.
The contract runs through December of 2003 and funds the team’s efforts to devise and field an operational structure that seamlessly and effectively links the numerous sensors, weapons and command and control systems currently utilized in the individual U.S. missile defense programs, or elements. Other BM/C2/C team members include TRW, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon. In addition to leading the National Team’s BM/C2/C program, Lockheed Martin serves as a member of the Systems Engineering and Integration team.
29 Aug 02. Thales Optronics UK has signed the LTTS contract in Australia to provide a thermal sighting systems for the Australian Army’s Leopard tanks.
ADI Limited, will be Thales’ major subcontractor on the project responsible for aspects of system design, installation of the major thermal sights and through life support.
3 Sep 02. Boeing announced that Kuwait’s ministry of defense signed a letter of offer and acceptance with the U.S. Department of Defense to buy 16 AH-64D Apache helicopters.
Once the foreign military sales agreement is complete, the U.S. Army will contract with Boeing and other team Apache industry members on behalf of Kuwait for the aircraft and equipment, which is expected to approach $900m. Production and delivery information wasn’t disclosed.
30 Aug 02. Colombia decreed a Peso579bn ($210m) increase in 2002 military spending, as the new government tackles a cocaine-fueled guerrilla war, the presidency said. President Alvaro Uribe’s government enacted the measure using special emergency powers decreed on Aug 12 for 90 days.
To help pay for this, Uribe has used his emergency powers to decree a one-time 1.2 percent tax on assets worth at least $60,000, which is designed to raise about $800m.
About 86 percent of the $210m in resources would be delivered to Colombia’s Defense Ministry to buy new equipment, repair aging infrastructure as well as other “activities related to strengthening national security,” it said. More than 10 percent of the money would be delivered to the national police, CNE said.
28 Aug 02. Exostar, the global Internet exchange for the aerospace and defense industry, announced that Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) and RS Electronics have selected Exostar’s integration solution, MachineLink, to receive orders from selectedA&D customers.
Procurement orders from customers generated through Exostar and processed through MachineLink will be routed directly into CSC and RS Electronics’ internal order management systems, maximizing the value of
their “back-end” legacy systems. Another benefit of automated order receipt is the avoidance of operator error that can occur when orders are received and entered manually. Fewer errors made possible by fully automated transactions ultimately provide cost savings for both customer and supplier.
3 Sep 02. Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA – News) launched a contract manufacturing business using laser sintering technology to make small lots of complex, hard- to-manufacture parts.
Boeing said the first contract will be to supply parts to Boeing for environmental control system ducts of military aircraft. The business, called On Demand Manufacturing, Camarillo, Calif., has been operating as a Boeing unit since June. Its factory is operating two laser sintering machines from 3-D Systems Corp., Valencia, Calif., with plans to order more.