Lufthansa German Airlines will outsource all of its e-mail and e-commerce functions to a stand-alone subsidiary it created last month called Lufthansa e-Commerce. Creation of the subsidiary is in keeping with the airline's practice for top priorities that are expected to flourish on their own, such as Lufthansa Technik does in maintenance. Senior Vice President Thierry Antinori said Lufthansa expects to earn DM100 million ($50 million) this year in e-commerce sales. There are some 20th century hurdles to be overcome, however.
The Mars Program Independent Assessment Team found that the two Mars '98 spacecraft were underfunded by about 30% and suffered from understaffing, inadequate margins and unapplied institutional expertise that contributed to their failures.
The IAI Elta Div. last week was demonstrating its EL/M-2060P synthetic aperture radar system for combat aircraft on a U.S. Air Force F-16 in the Washington area for Pentagon review. The flights were designed to demonstrate that the system can provide a solution to the USAF need for a targeting system, according to Baruch Reshef, deputy director of marketing and sales. The Elta system fits into a module designed to fit onto the undercarriage of an F-16.
Martin E. Dandridge has been promoted to sector executive vice president from vice president-airborne ground surveillance and battle management systems at Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems and Aerostructures, Melbourne, Fla. He has been succeeded by Alan Doshier, who was Dallas-based sector vice president-program operations. Succeeding Doshier is Philip Teel.
Bowing to competitive pressures from Singapore Airlines and others, Qantas says it will spend $186 million on the Rockwell Collins Total Entertainment System to provide seat-back videos in all classes of its 747-400s.
The European Space Agency plans to farm out operation of its portion of the International Space Station to private contractors. An RFP is due soon for industrialization tasks, including production and operation of the automated transfer vehicle, payload integration and procurement of Ariane 5 launch services.
The explosive growth in commercial satellite services has created new ways for the Pentagon to meet its vast communications and intelligence demands. But now the Defense Dept. is facing a problem: Can it afford to take advantage of these new tools?
National Medals of Technology were awarded to Glen Culler, retired chairman of the Culler Scientific Systems Corp., Santa Barbara, Calif., and Robert Taylor of Woodside, Calif., for pioneering work and leadership on the ARPA-net and multiple branches of computing.
Alenia executives should recommend to directors and the Italian government by mid-month whether to merge with the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. or BAE Systems, or neither, said Alenia Senior Vice President Carmelo Cosentino. The reason to choose a suitor quickly is to avoid throwing a monkey wrench into the initial public offering of stock in parent Finmeccanica whose privatization is due to be completed by June. If Alenia does not determine its preferred direction this month, don't look for any movement until well into the summer.
SGI has agreed to sell its Cray supercomputer unit to Tera Computer, a Seattle-based company developing a ``multithreaded architecture'' (MTA) approach to supercomputing (AW&ST Feb. 7, p. 17). The enlarged company will be called Cray Inc. and will focus on the high-performance market by offering both technologies--MTA and Cray's vector-processing approach. The company will continue development of the Cray SV2 vector supercomputer, due out in 2002. Company officials expect the SV2 will restore U.S.
PanAmSat Corp.'s stock plummeted 15 1/4 or nearly 25%, to 47, last Wednesday after the company unveiled its Internet strategy based on a new high-speed bandwidth-intensive global network. Analysts attributed the fall to potential earnings dilution as a result of the Internet venture, along with significantly lower management guidance for the core business in 2001 and a general decline in the technology-weighted Nasdaq.
Mike Hess has been appointed vice president-marketing, Doug Lanner controller and Steve Jackson, Jr., college marketing specialist, all of Phoenix-based europebyair.com.
AOM and SR Technics, the SAirGroup's maintenance and overhaul arm, have formed a joint subsidiary at Paris-Orly Airport to support the Qualiflyer Group's aircraft.
The featured speaker at the Aero Club was FAA Administrator Jane F. Garvey, who addressed the agency's accomplishments and the challenges remaining halfway through her tenure as the first FAA head with a fixed, five-year term. Garvey often reminds people with whom she speaks exactly how many days remain in that term. At the luncheon, she pointed out the many senior Transportation Dept. officials in the audience, all political appointees that stand to lose their jobs when the presidency changes hands next year.
Susan Solomon, senior scientist at the Aeronomy Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, Colo., has won the National Medal of Science. She received the U.S.' highest science honor for her work on the causes of the Antarctic ozone hole. James W.
IHS Engineering, a Denver-based technical information company, has launched an Internet catalog service that allows engineering and procurement professionals to locate products offered by more than 16,000 international manufacturers. Called CatalogXpress, the new collection enables searches by part, mod-
Praised was heaped last week on Walt Coleman, and rightfully so. Coleman retired Mar. 30 after a career that began with seven years of active-duty flying U.S. Navy Martin P5Ms and concluded with seven years as head of the Regional Airline Assn. In between, he flew and managed for Pan American World Airways and worked at the Air Transport Assn. His successor as president of the Aero Club here, Rachel Trinder of the law firm Zuckert, Scoutt&Rasenberger, summed up that career nicely at the club's luncheon last week.
Operational U.S. military units already reliant on space-based systems will soon be receiving more-sophisticated capabilities emerging from Air Force, Army and Navy development laboratories. But these are not limited to a few space technology-intensive gadgets springing from the minds of clever scientists. Instead, warfighters will often be using off-the-shelf equipment and software, combined and packaged innovatively to quickly benefit operational forces.
Paul Sanderson has received the 1999 Elder Statesman in Aviation award from the National Aeronautic Assn. He was honored for his aviation industry career, which dated from the World War II years until his retirement in 1997. Sanderson or his organizations have trained pilots for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command. He developed pilot training courses, films and other educational materials for major manufacturers of general aviation aircraft before merging his company with the aeronautical mapping company Jeppesen.
The U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems Center has chosen The Titan Corp. to research, design and develop support for electromagnetic radiation systems for the Navy and other government agencies in a $29-million award contract.
Computer Sciences Corp. has been selected as one of two companies awarded contracts worth $150 million by NASA's Ames Research Center. CSC will support air traffic management research.
The House last week approved a $12.6-billion emergency spending bill that sets the stage for a fight with the Senate. The bill includes $4 billion for defense, more than $1 billion to fight drug trafficking and $24 million to cover National Transportation Safety Board expenses related to the EgyptAir 990 and Alaska Air 261 crash investigations. The tab for the EgyptAir probe already exceeds $17 million. But some senators call the measure too generous. Administration officials are worried the Senate-House debate could delay the money.
