NASA'S SCIENTIFIC AND ENGINEERING WORKSTATION Procurement (SEWP III) has selected a team of Government Micro Resources Inc. and Cray Inc. for an IDIQ (indefinite delivery and indefinite quantity) contract in the high-performance supercomputer class. Purchases under the five-year government-wide acquisition agreement are available to all federal agencies. Cray believes its multithread architecture and SuperClusters represent the wave of the future for parallel and vector processing.
Space shuttle safety is the title of a hearing this week before the Senate space subcommittee, but space shuttle spending will likely be the topic when Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) gavels the session to order. NASA is staring at a $200-million shortfall for the shuttle in the Fiscal 2002 budget pending on Capitol Hill, and the situation doesn't improve much in the out-years, according to Bill Readdy, the shuttle chief at NASA headquarters.
Six Dutch companies and Pratt&Whitney have signed a memorandum of understanding covering the support of F119-powered Joint Strike Fighters. The Dutch partners are Eldim, Fokker Elmo, Hamilton Sundstrand Maastricht, Urenco Nederland, Stork and Neder-lands Centrum voor Laser Research.
Developers report the start of tethered hover testing of a full-sized exoskeleton flying vehicle that could be used by soldiers or border agents as an unobtrusive look-down platform for patrolling, scouting or searching operations. Called the SoloTrek XFV, the vehicle is a project of Millennium Jet Inc. Designed to make it easy for an operator to achieve vertical takeoff and landing (Vtol) flight, the XFV requires nothing more than strapping it on and taking off, said company founder and CEO Michael W. Moshier.
THE SWEDISH ODIN-1 RESEARCH SATELLITE, launched in February, is carrying the first indium phosphide (InP) integrated circuit in orbit, according to the chip manufacturer, TRW. The low-noise amplifier chip is part of a broadband radiometer being used by the scientific satellite to detect very faint radiation emitted by galactic oxygen. TRW is using InP chips to create smaller, lighter and more sensitive remote sensing instruments.
The Royal Australian Air Force recently introduced BAE Systems Hawk 127 aircraft--modified with cockpits that duplicate the functionality of an F/A-18--to prepare pilots for Hornet conversion training.
Jorge A. del Calvo, a partner in the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop of San Francisco, has been appointed to the board of directors of Berkeley Process Control Inc.
Spanish investigators seeking causes for a CN-235 crash last week near Malaga airport, Spain, are expected to review three recent fatal accidents that involved the same aircraft type. Binter Mediterraneo's CN-235, carrying 44 passengers, two flight crew members and a flight attendant, crashed 1,000 ft. from the airport edge on Aug. 29. Four people on board died, including a pilot, while more than 20 passengers suffered injuries. The airline is a small regional operation that runs five aircraft on short-haul routes.
The Swissair Group plans to sell two more subsidiaries, Swissport and Nuance, in an effort to generate cash rapidly, reduce debt and restore profitability. During the first half of this year, Swissair revenues increased 8% to $4.9 billion, but the company posted $140 million in losses after providing more than $150 million to cover losses from subsidiary LTU. Swissair owns 49.9% of the Germany-based charter operator.
Air Liberte and AOM will be combined into a unified airline and adopt a new identity in the next few weeks. The as-yet-unnamed ``new'' French carrier intends to quickly create a strong corporate structure on the ruins of its predecessors and hopes to restore profitability by 2003, according to company executives. Under the umbrella of Holco, its new owner, it is downsizing to 28 aircraft, cutting jobs, eliminating unprofitable routes and establishing tight cost control.
Hughes Electronics announced a reduction of up to 10% of its U.S. workforce, which now totals about 7,900. The company-wide cuts will result in a one-time charge to third-quarter earnings, according to company officials. CEO Jack A. Shaw attributed the layoffs to ``the strain of the current economic downturn and sluggish economy.''
Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center completed preliminary cryogenic fill tests with a composite liquid oxygen tank designed and built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems-Michoud Operations in New Orleans. The 9.5-ft.-long, 500-lb. tank is the first of its size built at Michoud to be compatible with LOX, and will face thermal and pressure loads as the test series continues. Tanks of composite materials like the carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer matrix used in the Michoud test article hold promise for reducing weight in second-generation reusable launch vehicles.
POLAND HAS COMPLETED final site acceptance of Raytheon's Virtual Tower ATC Simulator System, which adds a tower trainer and expands the radar approach capabilities at the Warsaw facility. The tower simulator gives a complete 360-deg. field of view with four trainer positions. Radar approach training increased from two to six positions, which can be run in parallel and in sync with the tower simulation. Ten pseudo-pilot positions add realism and can be divided between the simulators.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said a restructuring of Thai Airways International is to be completed within a month. Terms of such a sale are unclear. The government has proposed selling 23% of its holdings--13% to the public and 10% to a foreign carrier--but sale to a foreign carrier has generated opposition within the airline.
The US Airways pilots' union is advising its members to vote against a stock incentive plan that would further compensate three of the carrier's senior executives who next month may qualify for a severance package valued at a total of $45 million. The union's ire is directed at Chairman Stephen M. Wolf, President/CEO Rakesh Gangwal and Lawrence M. Nagin, executive vice president of corporate affairs and general counsel, each a former executive at United Airlines prior to the 1993 Employee Stock Ownership Plan.
Israel completed the second of a set of more realistic tests with its Arrow theater ballistic missile defense system. The Arrow missile destroyed the F-16-launched Black Sparrow target that was aimed at the country's coastline, the second such scenario. In earlier trials, the interceptor followed the target. It was the ninth Arrow test overall. Performance of the ``Green Pine'' radar and ``Citron Tree'' fire control system was deemed nominal, according to the system's prime contractor, Israel Aircraft Industries, and the U.S. Army, which is supporting the program.
Stephen Smith has been appointed president/CEO of the low-fare carrier that is scheduled to be launched later this year by Air Canada. He was president/CEO of WestJet Airlines and a past chairman of the Air Transport Assn. of Canada.
The Wideband Gapfiller Satellite (WGS), set for launch in early 2004, has completed a series of preliminary design reviews. The high-capacity military satellite communications system, with a potential value of $1.3 billion, is being developed by a team headed by Boeing Satellite Systems. The joint service program is funded by the U.S. Air Force and Army, with USAF's Space and Missile Systems Center serving as procuring agency. Critical design review is set for later this year.
As summer waned, the pace of airline labor developments quickened. American Airlines and the Transport Workers Union agreed on a series of three-year contracts covering about 15,000 dispatchers, meteorologists, instructors, simulator technicians, technical specialists and clerks. But the Allied Pilots Assn. turned down American's ``fast-track'' proposal for contract negotiations, aimed at an agreement by next June.
Robert M. Kuhn has been named president/CEO of the Safire Aircraft Co., West Palm Beach, Fla. He was chairman/CEO/ president of Goss Graphic Systems, president of Hamilton Standard and senior vice president-business development for parent United Technologies Corp.
Denmark's Thrane&Thrane has selected SED Systems under a $14.5-million contract to supply radio frequency and global resource management subsystems for Thrane&Thrane's radio access network. The radio access equipment will be installed in Inmarsat Ltd.'s broadband global area network.
A pair of U.S. and French scientific missions have been delayed due to component problems, just weeks after similar glitches forced the postponement of a NASA/USAF payload launch. A Delta II launch carrying Jason-1, a oceanographic satellite mission developed by NASA and French space agency CNES, and Timed, a NASA mission to study the mesosphere and lower thermosphere/ionosphere, was pushed back to Dec. 7 when Jason-1 mission engineers discovered a pair of component failures during tests of similar components in France.
