SITUATION: Defense planning efforts in East Asia have been markedly influenced by China’s bellicose response to the detention of a Chinese fisherman for ramming a Japanese naval boat in disputed waters.

Navy Contracts are not easy to land and even harder when the competition for those contracts is fierce. Viaspace subsidiary Ionfinity pulled out all the stops and has been awarded a $786,000 Phase II contract for its proposal entitled “Miniature Electronic Sniffer for Navy Vertical Take off Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (VTUAVs)” by the Navy’s Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program.