Loral Skynet's Telstar 18 satellite has reached its on-orbit testing slot of 142 degrees East longitude, parent company Loral Space & Communications said July 13. The satellite, which carries 16 Ku-band and 38 C-band transponders, ultimately will be located at 138 degrees East longitude. It is slated to enter service in August to provide cable programming, Internet and other services across Asia.
MOSCOW - EADS Astrium and Tesat-Spacecom GmbH of Germany will team with the Russian Institute for Space Device Engineering (RNII KP) to produce satellite systems and subsystems and related ground equipment. The joint venture, announced last week during Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting here with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, will be incorporated in Moscow, with 51 percent of the shares owned by RNII KP. The goal of the still-unnamed firm is to develop and build satellite communications and related equipment.
The planned deployment or cancellation of several new military devices is highlighted in a Pentagon "reprogramming" proposal recently submitted to Congress.
AIR FORCE General Atomics-Aeronautical Systems, San Diego, Calif., is being awarded a $36,940,499 fixed price incentive firm contract to provide for four MQ-9A Air Vehicles. At this time, $27,705, 374 of the funds have been obligated. This work will be complete by December 2006. Solicitation began March 2004 and negotiations were completed July 2004. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-02-G-4035).
Aerospace component manufacturer TransDigm, of Cleveland, has completed the acquisition of Avionics Instruments Inc., of Avenel, N.J., the company said July 9. Avionics Instruments designs and builds power conversion devices for military and commercial aircraft, and will enhance TransDigm's market position for those products, the company said. TransDigm was founded in 1993 with the simultaneous acquisition of the Adel, Aeroproducts, Controlex and Wiggins businesses, the company said, and has been expanded since by further acquisitions.
Some aerospace and defense companies are expected to meet or exceed second quarter earnings expectations, Stephens Inc. Investment Bankers said July 12. Second quarter earnings results, which are just starting to emerge, will continue to be released through July and August.
BAE Systems will deliver the first AN/ALR-94 baseline digital electronic warfare system for the F/A-22 Raptor fighter to a Lockheed Martin-Boeing avionics integration lab in October, according to Herbert Archer, BAE Sytems' program manager.
It might not be in L-3 Communications' best interest to acquire defense electronics company DRS Technologies, especially if L-3 raises its bid above $42 per share, said industry analysts. "There are a significant number of electro-optical houses and a select number of premier electro-optical houses out there," Jim McAleese, defense analyst at law firm McAleese & Associates, told The DAILY. "L-3 doesn't need DRS."
GAO RECHRISTENED: An investigative arm of Congress, formerly known as the General Accounting Office, is now the Government Accountability Office. It's still known by the same initials: GAO. President Bush last week signed a bill that included a provision renaming GAO to reflect its role in holding the government accountable for its actions, a GAO spokesperson said July 12.
NASA has organized a series of internal and external analyses of the future of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in anticipation of presenting a full range of options to Administrator Sean O'Keefe next month. NASA predicts that without servicing, Hubble could become inoperative in as little as three years, after its batteries or stabilizing gyroscopes fail. Under pressure from Congress to keep the observatory operating for as long as possible, NASA has chosen to begin pursuing a robotic servicing mission that would launch in 2007.
MORE SUPPORT: General Dynamics Information Systems will continue its support of the U.S. Joint Forces Commands' Joint Experimentation Program and Joint Futures Lab under a five-year, $479 million contract. The work, which will be performed in Suffolk, Va., includes exploring, testing and evaluating "new combinations of military doctrine, organization, training, materials, leadership, personnel and facilities," the company said. General Dynamics has supported the program and futures lab since 1998, the company said.
NEW DELHI - India plans to increase its defense spending by $2.3 billion this year, and in a major step toward free-market reforms, will raise its foreign direct investment (FDI) cap in civil aviation from 40 percent to 49 percent. "FDI has the potential to add a competitive edge," finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in announcing the budget from the new government, which replaces an interim budget produced by the previous government. It covers the fiscal year that began in April.
DIGITALGLOBE has announced that the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (DMR) will include its QuickBird satellite imagery in its geographic information system data to help manage and protect the state's coastal marine resources. DMR's Comprehensive Resource Management Plan covers six Mississippi counties and was created to handle increased demands on marine resources in the wake of the Mississippi Gulf Coast's growing casino industry.
FUTURE MISSIONS: The Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) at the European Space Agency's European Space Technology Research Center is identifying space missions that "sound like science fiction," ESA says. Among other things, the ACT is studying the feasibility of using satellites to generate electricity from sunlight and beam it to Earth, and "tumbleweed" robots that would roam across the surfaces of other planets.
The U.S. aerospace industry has lost more than 500,000 jobs in the last decade while production employment fell 58 percent, a trend that an aerospace labor group says could be made worse by the use of offsets in defense transactions. "When those work packages go offshore, we will be conceding production technology and capacity we have never held ourselves," said Stanley Sorscher, a labor representative with the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace.
SIRENZA MICRODEVICES, INC. has announced the introduction of a variety of radio frequency (RF) components. They include: DC-20 GHz InP HBT Gain Blocks; DC-3500 MHz Mixer family; Frequency Multipliers and Dividers; Narrow Band and Broadband VCOs operating up to X Band; 20-100 GHz Double Balanced Schottky Diode Mixer family; and 2-16 GHz, 1/4 Watt Distributed Amplifier. The new products were showcased at the IEEE-MTTS Symposium and Exhibition earlier this month.
JACOBS SVERDRUP will be awarded a contract worth more than $48 million by NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., to provide support services for facilities maintenance and operations and aerospace testing. The contract covers ARC's wind tunnels, thermophysics testing complex, and other aerospace testing complexes. Jacobs Sverdrup, an advanced technology company based in Tullahoma, Tenn., will provide testing services for NASA programs such as space science initiatives, the Crew Exploration Vehicle, the X-37, and the space shuttle return to flight effort.
