Switzerland awards contract to
Lockheed Martin for Portable Radars
Lockheed Martin has signed a contract with the Swiss
Defence Procurement Agency to provide 24 Portable Search and
Target Acquisition Radars (PSTAR). They will be used for
short-range air defense throughout Switzerland. PSTARs,
which are made at Lockheed Martin's facility in Syracuse,
N.Y., are currently deployed in five countries.
Typically, PSTAR interfaces with a weapons system such as a
Stinger anti-aircraft missile. "Currently, our Stinger fire
unit is coordinated by human observers who are dependent on
daylight and high visibility," said Kurt Kohler, the Defence
Procurement Agency program manager. "PSTAR meets our
requirements for working well under any visibility and it
will replace our human observers to keep Stinger alerted 24
hours a day." The PSTARs, which will be delivered from July
2004 to December 2004, are the first of a next generation
radar system called PSTAR-Extended Range (PSTAR-ER). "Its
range is expanded from 20 km to more than 30 km while still
fitting into the same small package," said Paul Garvey,
Lockheed Martin program manager, "plus our customer will
have enhanced display, and command and control capability."
General Dynamics awarded $18.3m
ammunition contract add-on
General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, a
business unit of General Dynamics, announced that the U.S.
Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command at Picatinny
Arsenal, N.J., has awarded an $18,360,000 modification to an
existing contract for the production of 180,000 rounds of
25mm M919 Armor-Piercing, Fin Stabilized, Discarding
Sabot-Tracer (APFSDS-T) ammunition. This award brings the
total contract value to $119 million for the M919 program.
This contract will be managed out of General Dynamics’
Marion, Ill. production facility.
General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems is the sole
contractor and systems integrator for the M919; after the
planned FY03 production, the company will have delivered
approximately 2.2 million rounds to the U.S. Army. The M919
round was developed to replace the M791 and provides
enhanced lethality and survivability to the Bradley Fighting
Vehicle. According to Major General Paul Eaton, Commanding
General, U.S. Army Infantry Center (USAIC), "The M919 is the
only 25mm ammunition that allows the Bradley Fighting
Vehicle to achieve overmatch capability against current and
future threat vehicles."
Boeing demonstrates new
network-centric warfare capability
As part of its Weapon System Open Architecture, or WSOA,
program, The Boeing Company has demonstrated an
internet-like connection – between a command and
control-type aircraft and a strike fighter – that allows
real-time airborne collaboration for strikes on
time-critical targets. An objective of the WSOA program is
to demonstrate how mission critical information can be
quickly exchanged between strike and C2 platforms in the
prosecution of time critical targets by employing quality of
service based resource management technologies enabled by
open systems.
The demonstration was performed by the Boeing F-15E1
Advanced Technology Demonstrator and 737 Avionics Flying
Laboratory equipped for command and control, or C2,
operations. Aircraft operators shared and annotated target
images and intelligence data in real time, using the
Department of Defense's Link-16 tactical data link. This
allowed the operators to respond to an emerging threat by
successfully re-planning a mission during flight. "Employing
Weapon System Open Architecture technology will provide the
same level of confidence in dynamic target scenarios as in
pre-planned scenarios against fixed targets," said Dr. David
Corman, WSOA program manager in Network Centric Operations
of Boeing Phantom Works. "It also provides the foundation
for connecting current weapon systems to the evolving
network-centric battlespace." "Useable target imagery was
received within the first 20 seconds, and there was no doubt
about the target's location," said Rick Junkin, Boeing F-15
weapon systems officer on the flight.
