Wyle Laboratories Inc. received an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ), with work ordered using cost-plus-fixed-fee (CPFF) term Technical Area Tasks (TAT) Delivery Orders, for the Reliability Information Analysis Center (RIAC). The contract has a 36-month base period with one 24-month option period, and the estimated cost and fixed fee for the entire 5-year period is $13.6 million.
Raytheon Co. Electronics Systems in Goleta, CA, received a $13.6 million modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-04-C-0123), exercising an option for the seventh full-rate-production lot of 15 AN/ALR-67(V)3 Radar Warning Receiver (RWR) systems for the U.S. Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. While quantities were not given, a previous DID article noted a previous $44 million modification for 42 receivers.
The AN/ALR-67(V)3 RWR is a radar warning receiver that provides visual and aural alerts to F/A-18E/F aircrew upon detection of ground-based, ship-based, or airborne radar emitters. It is designed to enhance pilot situational awareness by providing accurate identification, lethality, and azimuth displays of hostile and friendly emitters. Work will be performed in El Segundo, CA (39%); Forest, MI (27%); Goleta, CA (16%); Lansdale, PA (10%); Portland, OR (5%), and McKinney, TX (3%), and is expected to be complete in December 2007. The Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, Md. issued the contract.
Canadian Commercial Corp. of Ottawa, Canada received a $5,074,949 firm-fixed-price delivery order against a previously awarded contract (M67854-01-D-3053) to provide 91,403 pairs of gloves for the Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology (JSLIST) program. This works out to USD $55.53 per pair.
JSLIST is a joint service chemical protective ensemble development based on a 1993 Memorandum of Understanding between all four services, but the Marine Corps is the lead service for the JSLIST program. When combined with the Chemical Protective Mask, the JSLIST provides protection against chemical and biological agents, radioactive fallout particles, and battlefield contaminants.
Harris Corporation received a $6.6 million research and development contract from the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) to develop and demonstrate the Jigsaw Laser Radar (LADAR) 3D-imaging test-bed system for use on a DP-5X Helicopter UAV.
Laser Radar (LADAR or LIDAR) is similar to millimeter wave radar, but uses lasers to scan and processes the signal echoed from targets, in order to create a 3-D virtual picture of the area. Due to its capability to scan large areas with very high precision, and its ability to gradually build a detailed picture of the area under surveillance, LADAR sensors are usually employed on loitering systems which can look at the target from different angles and match them to templates stored in its onboard processors. As the technology progressed, people also realized that they could use the ladar to look through cover such as trees, towers and camouflage.
The U.S. Army is heeding lessons learned from corporate America by building data centers to consolidate local enterprise application servers now running at hundreds of Army bases nationwide. The plan, announced earlier this month at an Army IT conference, will start later this year with an effort over 12 to 18 months to create two data centers, each hooked up to four bases. Over the next four years, all application servers running at all U.S. bases will be networked together in up to six data centers.
The U.S. Navy has launched its first enterprisewide IT asset management initiative, which is expected to help it make more-effective decisions on the thousands of disparate systems it has deployed worldwide. Since January, the Navy has been using hosted iGovern software from Mountain View, CA’s BDNA Corp. to scan the IP addresses of hardware and software residing in U.S. facilities on its sprawling MCI Inc. network. The data is then stored in an Oracle repository.
Systems and Electronics Inc., St. Louis, MO received a $7.2 million modification to a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for systems technical support and logistics services in support of the M707 Knight Vehicle System.
SEI’s Knight is a precision targeting system consisting of a laser designator / rangefinder, thermal imager, digital command and control, blended inertial / GPS navigation and targeting, and a machine gun. Its mission is to provide precision far target location and laser target designation for both artillery and air-delivered general purpose and precision-guided munitions. The M707 Knight system is mounted on M1025A2 HMMWV jeeps for both heavy and light division forward observers, as well as the Stryker Fire Support Vehicle for the new Brigade Combat Teams. The system was designed from the outset to be both platform and sensor independent.
Recently, DID ran an article about the growing global tactical radio market over the next decade. Niche specialist Ultra TCS in Montreal, Canada recently received a CDN $29 million (USD $23.5 million) contract from its Korean manufacturing licensee Huneed Technologies, its manufacturing licensee in the Republic of Korea. The contract is for upgrade kits for its Frequency Hopping Line Of Sight AN/GRC-512 (V) radio, adding increased traffic capacity and newly developed specialized components. Interoperability with the original AN/GRC-512(V) radio is maintained.
DID will be held over for a day while we upgrade our infrastructure. We expect to return tomorrow.
The JLENS is a set of radars and sensors mounted on an aerostat blimp and capable of networking via Cooperative Engagement Capability to enhance both air and missile defense. And a recent Air Force Study gave the thumbs-up to greater use of blimps in the U.S. military.
Raytheon Co. in Bedford, MA just received a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment System (RAID), a smaller version of the JLENS aerostat that has been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. When equipped with infrared sensors as well, the JLENS adds anti-terrorist surveillance capabilities to its portfolio. The U.S. DoD’s June 14/05 release cited a figure of $36.3 million, while Raytheon’s June 21/05 release cites a $48.4 million contract to provide 41 RAID systems plus systems engineering and life cycle support.
