CSC---Defense Stocks
Computer Sciences Corp offers IT services. The company offers a broad array of professional services to clients in the global commercial and government markets. Its service offerings include outsourcing, systems integration and management consulting/ professional services, including e-business solutions. In addition, Computer Sciences licenses sophisticated software systems for select vertical markets and provides a broad array of end-to-end e-business solutions, that meet the needs to large commercial and government clients. The company has major operations throughout North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Some of the company's clients include AT&T Consumer Services, duPont de Nemours, US Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center.
OK Jill here is my homework......in the local paper yesterday......???
Proposed intelligence center could boost Huntsville research
$43M Redstone facility would monitor global missile development
09/28/01
By SHELBY G. SPIRES
Times Aerospace Writer shelbys@htimes.com
Huntsville companies and research labs are using years of acquired military and space expertise to develop specialized tools that military leaders hope will be able to detect enemy missiles.
This capability may lead to a new industry here: companies that develop and build sensors that can ferret out enemy missiles on the ground and help destroy them before launch.
The Defense Intelligence Agency wants to put a $43 million center at Redstone Arsenal to monitor missile developments around the world. The center could further develop advanced sensor work in Huntsville.
The current Senate appropriations bill includes $4 million for concept development, cost estimation and design of the Measurement and Signature Intelligence Test, Evaluation, and Acquisition Support Center on Redstone Arsenal.
The center would be used to collect the missile information.
Local companies already have special research departments working to develop advanced computer programs and sensors that can pull together information gathered by ships, submarines, aircraft and satellites, and tell the Defense Department if a missile is real or a decoy and what kind of payload it may have.
This information would be monitored and collected by the intelligence center. DIA already has a similar facility at Redstone - the Missile and Space Intelligence Center. This is planned as a separate operation.
Although the center would bring only 150 jobs initially, the DIA contracts would bring millions to local companies and perhaps create civilian jobs, said Mike Ward, a legislative liaison for the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce.
"These (programs) have tremendous applications in the defense world," Ward said. "If you know what to look for in terms of where a missile is, and what it looks like, then you can use that in missile defense."
Even though the proposal is in an initial stage, the center could encourage other businesses to invest in this type of work and help Huntsville develop another area of research, Ward said.
The term for the speciality is "software discrimination." Advanced computers can quickly process data collected from a variety of sources about enemy locations. If a change is made, the computer will pick it up and notify its operators that a missile may be there.
The sensors are good enough to tell if the missiles contain nuclear weapons and if they are laden with special decoys to fool a missile defense screen.
Ward said these were an outgrowth of years of missile defense work. "We have some of the best in the world at doing this," he said.
Computer Sciences Corp., formerly Nichols Research, in Huntsville works on a number of sensor programs geared toward missile defense, said Mike Scherr, CSC's director of operations in Huntsville.
"This is our bread and butter here. It dates back to the 1970s and Nichols (Research)," Scherr said. "Nichols was founded on the technology of missile detection and missile defense."
Scherr said most of the programs are highly classified. "We really can't get into the specifics of the programs or what they do, other than to say we do that work here," Scherr said.
CSC has $300 million to $350 million in Pentagon missile defense contracts that are related to sensor work, Scherr said.
The University of Alabama in Huntsville has similar programs in the works.
UAH runs a research center at the arsenal that can measure the velocity of models shot through a large gun-like device. This is used to gather information on the speed and friction given off by objects such as missiles and rockets traveling through the sky, said Ray Garner, UAH spokesman. "We call it the 'Big Gun,' " Garner said. "We've done some work with NASA and the Army with it."
John Pike, an independent defense expert, said the center would be "very useful" in tracking missiles around the world.
American intelligence agencies want to know what other nations are up to when it comes to missile construction. This information is key in diplomatic circles when State Department officials are trying to persuade other nations to impose sanctions on enemy states with threatening missiles.
And some defense treaties rely on sensor detection to enforce the specifics of the treaty.
"(It's) absolutely key for addressing the discrimination question, as well as understanding worldwide missile developments more generally," said Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org and a former staff member of the Federation of American Scientists.
Pike said the Air Force runs a similar center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The Air Force uses that facility to analyze enemy aircraft and missiles.
"It sounds like this new center would be rather more extensive and ambitious," Pike said. |
