* A governmental commission is investigating whether Russia’s GEO-IK-2 satellite – designed to gather gravitational data to improve guidance of ballistic missiles and launched Feb 1/02 aboard a Rokot rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome – is stranded in a useless orbit.
* Russian parliament ratifies military supply agreement with Belarus.
* New report [PDF] examines US reliance on China as a near monopoly supplier of rare earth metals, which are used in high-tech weapons such as radar, night vision devices, and smart bombs.
* Todd Shipyards gets a 5-year US Navy contract worth up to $80 million to provide drydocking of surface combat ships homeported at Naval Station Everett or visiting the Puget Sound area.
* Telos gets task order to design and build an enterprise-level information transport system at 10 Air National Guard (ANG) locations under the $9 billion NETCENTS contract vehicle.
* Booz Allen Hamilton gets $10.7 million contract to provide IT services to the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.