Rapid Fire 2011-05-02: Mil Payloads to Piggyback Civ Sats

* Osama Bin Laden is killed by US Navy SEALs… in a Pakistani mansion about 40 miles outside Islamabad. No SEALs killed, but 1 American helicopter was damaged and then destroyed by the SEALs. A Pakistani helicopter may have also gone down. Unfortunately, Ayman-al Zawahiri, the brains of the operation, is still alive. * General Dynamics Electric Boat receives $1.2 billion to begin construction of the 14th Virginia-class submarine, SSN-787, part of Block III with a revised bow design. * Russia lays out its vision of European missile defense. * Angola & Kenya may become the next customers for IAI’s Heron-1 UAV or UAV services, joining export customers like Brazil, India & Turkey, and rent-a-UAV customers like Australia, Canada & Germany. * Saab sees potential Gripen jet fighter orders in Brazil, Romania, Croatia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. All are possible. Likely is another matter. * Pentagon looks to place military payloads on commercial satellites in order to reduce costs. On the other hand, they’re not moving to take advantage of Iridium NEXT’s slots, which would seem to be a natural opportunity. But Iridium is just 1 of 7 firms in the new “Hosted Payload […]