Rapid Fire March 22, 2012: Satellite Acquisition Challenges Known

* The GAO published its latest report on the Pentagon’s space acquisitions.They recognize some areas of progress but they also think there is still “an array of challenges” to confront. * The Pentagon is still working on spelling out its cyber doctrine. * SAIC announced results for its fiscal year 2012 which ended on Jan 31, 2012. Total revenue decreased by 3% to $10.6B, dragged by a 10% drop in defense solutions to $4.2B (39.6% of total revenue). Behind these results is the $500M settlement with the City of New York over the CityTime contract; otherwise revenue on the defense side would have lost a single percentage point from the previous fiscal year. The total defense backlog stood at $7.1B at the end of January, 30% of which is funded. * Embraer reached [PDF] $5.8B of revenue in 2011 – an 8.2% growth rate. The company’s results reflect the challenges of emerging economies last year, with appreciation of the national currency against the US dollar combined with rapidly-increasing labor costs. Defense grew by $30B to $852B in sales or 14.7% of the total, behind executive aviation and dwarfed by commercial planes which have gained most last year. The defense backlog […]