Rapid Fire 2011-04-04: AGM-114R | EMATTs

• Russia to move Navy headquarters from Moscow to St. Petersburg by 2012, the Defense Ministry said.

• Where is DoD’s billions of dollars in FY 2012 cybersecurity spending going? Nextgov takes a look.

• Providence Equity Partners agrees to acquire SRA International, a Fairfax, VA-based defense consulting firm, for $1.88 billion in cash.

• Global aerospace and defense sector reaches $646 billion in revenue and $58 billion in operating profit in 2010, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

• Thailand dispatches its carrier, HTMS Chakri Naruebet, to evacuate tourist flood victims stranded on southern islands. The carrier has been criticized as a “tourist attraction,” due to its low operational use, and the operating cost issues associated with that may also bear on Thailand’s bid to buy small SSK U206A submarines.

• Voice of Russia: “A rapprochement between Moscow and Brussels on Euro-ABM issues is indeed a complicated matter, but it is not hopeless, the Russian envoy to NATO believes…”

• New all-platform, all-target AGM-114R Hellfire II missile completes proof-of-principle tests, heading into system qualification. It will replace 4 of the 6 current missile variants (AGM-114K/ K-A/ M/ P)

• Environmental assessments are holding up efforts by American Ordinance to shift munitions production from the Milan Army Ammunition Plant in Tennessee to the Army’s Iowa Ammunition Plant, the GAO finds. Under a 2008 US Army contract, American Ordinance is renovating the Iowa plant at its expense and will be allowed to sell munitions commercially from the plant.

• The Netherlands defense sector is expected to decline from $12.2 billion 2009 to $10.9 billion in 2015, iCD Research predicts.

• Lockheed Martin snags $5.4 million US Navy contract to provide MK39 Expendable Mobile Anti-submarine Warfare Training Targets (EMATTs) for air and surface crew anti-submarine warfare training.