18 Apr 05. The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $14,500,000 firm-fixed-price contract to provide persistent Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle services for a Naval Expeditionary Strike Group deployment and Gulf Oil Platform security in direct support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Global War on Terrorism. Work will be performed onboard a
Navy vessel in the Pacific, and is expected to be completed in February 2006. Contract funds in the amount of $14,500,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity (N00019-05-C-0045).
18 Apr 05. What’s in it for the Turks? In making its choice Turkey’s Defense Ministry chose the Israeli companies over their US and French rival bidders. For its part, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI), based in San Diego, California, offered its RQ-1 Predator UAV to the Turkish military. The Turks have already operated the I-GNAT UAV, a forerunner to the Predator.
Under the contract, IAI will supply the medium altitude, long endurance (MALE) Heron UAV, while Elbit will provide the GCS and communications systems. The agreement includes 10 GCSs, and between 30 and 40 UAVs. The systems are intended for use by all three branches of the Turkish military – air force, army and navy. According to industry officials, a Turkish aerospace subsidiary Tusash will be Elbit and IAI’s domestic partner. In the past Turkey has also bought the Harpy lethal UAV from Israel. (Source: Al Jazeera)
18 Apr 05. Mirach 100/5 to Enter Service in France. Galileo Avionica, a Finmeccanica Company, has announced that after qualification tests the high performance subsonic Mirach 100/5 target system will operate in Biscarrosse and Levant island for the CELM (Centre d’Essais de Lancement de Missiles). (Source: Galileo Avionica)
20 Apr 05. Boeing and a team of industry and academic researchers demonstrated a series of advanced network-centric technologies at a joint military exercise held at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. The technologies were developed under sponsorship from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The team used ScanEagle, a long-endurance UAV developed and built by Boeing and The Insitu Group, for the demonstration. During the live-fire exercise, two airborne ScanEagle UAVs, carrying embedded autonomous control software, performed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) roles to find, identify and track ground targets; provided timely and accurate aim points for delivery of U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force The autonomous control software technology utilized for the demonstration was developed as part of DARPA’s Program Composition of Embedded Systems (PCES) program. The embedded PCES technology enables a UAV in the field to autonomously map its own path without operator input. At present, an operator on the ground has to plot the UAV’s course via waypoints to ensure the vehicle reaches and remains in the proper position to accomplish its assigned task.
19 Apr 05. FLIR Systems, Inc. has received a contract from the US Army Research Development & Engineering Command (RDECOM), Communications-Electronics Research Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC), Night Vision & Electronic Sensors Directorate (NVESD), valued at approximately $13m for the development of an advanced stabilized electro-optical infrared system for use on lightweight UAVs. The award represents a phase two award resulting from a down-select among three phase one awardees. The contract involves the development of a purpose-built, very small and lightweight stabilized thermal imaging system that will offer long range performance, color visible imaging and advanced laser capabilities. Work will be performed at the Company’s facility in Billerica, Massachusetts, commencing immediately and spanning a three year perio