As chief executive officer of the Rockwell International Corp. on Sept. 30 and the board of directors has elected Don H. Davis, Jr., to succeed him. Davis is currently serving as president and chief operating officer. The board will also establish an Executive Committee to be headed by Beall who will continue to serve as a director. Beall has served as chairman and CEO since February, 1988, and has led a restructuring of the company from a diversified enterprise to one focused on various segments of the electronics market.
A pressurized mating adaptor built by McDonnell Douglas Space&Defense Systems for the International Space Station is checked out at company facilities in Huntington Beach, Calif. The adaptor, set for launch on space shuttle mission STS-88 next year, will connect U.S. and Russian modules.
Photograph: Multiple huge craters were revealed in Near's imagery of Mathilde. At the spacecraft's closest approach, resolution was 100-150 meters at the surface of the largest and first C-type asteroid ever imaged. As it whizzed by toward its true target, the Near spacecraft--the first of NASA's Discovery program of low-cost planetary science missions--succeeded in imaging an asteroid that is both common and unusual.
New AVPK Sukhoi head, Alexei Fedorov, plans to speed up development of the Su-37 and -34 combat aircraft, Be-200/Be-103 amphibians and S-80 utility and begin marketing the An-38 regional airliner. The moves reflect the clout of three aircraft production companies--Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Novosibirsk and Irkutsk, which Fedorov directs--within AVPK Sukhoi, which was formed last year through a merger with the Sukhoi and Beriev design bureaus.
The human body and determines head-to-toe measurements in 17 sec. will be demonstrated at the Dayton (Ohio) Air and Trade Show July 13-20 by the U.S. Air Force, working with the Society of Automotive Engineers. The full body scanner from Cyberware, of Monterey, Calif., uses four eye-safe lasers that move vertically down four towers, scanning a cylindrical volume 2 X 1.2 meters.
Astronaut Michael Foale, who was on Mir when the 125-ton space station was struck and depressurized by a Progress vehicle, radioed a description to Earth about what the collision was like for him and Russian cosmonauts Vasily Tsibliev and Alexander Lazutkin. Foale described the June 25 event as ``a rather exciting moment which certainly got my attention.'' Tsibliev later radioed, ``We are alive, thank God.''
All those jumbo jets at Hong Kong's Kai Tak airport as the city changed to Chinese rule last week may be seeing a lot more smaller cousins in the coming years, according to Mike Zimmerman, president of Boeing China Inc. Speaking in Hong Kong, Zimmerman forecast that single-aisle jets will represent 73% of all deliveries in China and Hong Kong over the span of the next 20 years. The reason: countless new point-to-point services suitable for 737- or 757-sized aircraft.
Is now running a massively parallel computer capable of one trillion floating point operations a second. Laboratory officials say it is the first operating teraflop device, and the fastest supercomputer in the world. Intel developed the computer under Energy Dept. funding for the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative. The department wanted the increased capability to model physics problems in 3D to evaluate the aging nuclear stockpile without actual testing.
Jean-Luc Diebold has been named sales and marketing director of Spot Image S.A., Toulouse, France. Colleen Cochran has become environmental and urban planning account manager for the Spot Image Corp., Reston, Va.
Photograph: Drawing above gives scale and location of 12,890-gal. 747-100 center fuel tank. Upper and lower skins are much thicker than the spars and internal structure. Air-conditioning packs heat the bottom of the tank. Electric fuel pump motors are located outside the tank for safety (left; opposite page, bottom). Flight 800 investigation is looking for ignition sources. Both of its override/jettison pumps have been recovered and show no signs of being the ignition source.
In an effort to cut test costs of the aerospike engine planned to power the X-33 reusable launch vehicle prototype, Rocketdyne has been salvaging parts from Apollo-era J-2 rocket engines. A Rocketdyne team recently disassembled six J-2s at Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., and even swapped parts from a J-2--on display at Stennis Space Center--with realistic mock-ups. The accumulated components, including existing igniter cables and exciters from the J-2's electronic package, will be tested for functionality and, if usable, support the X-33 program.
Budget cuts have forced Japan's Defense Agency to delay work on a new tanker aircraft until after 2000. The JDA expected to introduce the first four tankers during its 1996-2000 defense buildup program, but purchases were curtailed by an $8-billion funding cut. Although a type has not been announced, the tanker is expected to cost about $60 million a unit. Other victims of the budget shortfall may include the Mitsubishi F-2 close air support fighter and the Sikorsky/
Robert L. Fritz has become human resources director of the Eastman Kodak Co.'s Commercial and Government Systems, Rochester, N.Y. He succeeds James Violette, who is now Asia-Pacific human resources director for Kodak. Charles Mondello has been named worldwide product manager for aerial systems and Francis Parrish manufacturing and development manager for Kodak Commercial Markets and Systems.
Has demonstrated what it believes to be the first high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnetic energy storage device (SMES), a major step toward commercializing HTS products. The purpose of the device is to lessen the effects of brief power outages and voltage sags in the electric power grid. Functioning somewhat like a battery, the system provides backup power in less than 1 sec. and can handle currents up to 100 amps. The completely cryo-integrated magnetic system stores 8 kilojoules of electrical energy in massive HTS coils.
Richard S.F. Tham has been promoted to Asia/Pacific manager from Hong Kong sales manager for Inventory Locator Service, Memphis, Tenn. D. Larry Moore has been appointed to the board of directors of the Thiokol Corp., Ogden, Utah. He retired June 30 as president/chief operating officer of Honeywell Inc.
John Skinner and Steve Kelly have been promoted to managers of product repair services for Aviall Inc. of Dallas. Skinner was a field sales manager and Kelly manager of the Van Nuys, Calif., wheel and brake facility.
Illustration: Cockpit display in each aircraft shows own position and velocity vector relative to other aircraft in the same formation, in nearby formation or location of refueling aircraft. A new airborne avionics system should enable Air Force Special Operations Command MH-53J helicopters to fly more safely in formation during darkness and adverse weather and also to rendezvous with their MC-130H tankers.
Photograph: Because of tight budgets, the service entry date of Dassault Aviation's Rafale, launched in 1987, has been delayed repeatedly. FRANCOIS ROBINEAU France's military plan oversteps the nation's foreseeable financial means and requires a more realistic procurement policy, according to a French oversight agency. Although the French Defense Ministry's current goals are expected to require a revised procurement schedule, imposing additional delays to weapon production programs would not be sufficient to meet increasingly tight budget constraints.
The exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV) that will be used for a hit-to-kill intercept test is checked out in a Boeing North American anechoic chamber in Seal Beach, Calif. The device is to be launched in February from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific against a target launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., as part of the Ground-Based Interceptor program (AW&ST June 30, p. 26).
Photograph: For the GAIN concept to become a reality, international participation must include airlines based in Asia and the Pacific Rim, such as Japan Airlines. MICHAEL MECHAM/AW&ST With worldwide interest in a Global Analysis and Information Network (GAIN) aimed at further reducing airline accidents on the rise, an international steering committee is being formed with the goal of scheduling an airline-sponsored GAIN conference to be held in California in 1998.
Photograph: For no more than a few million dollars' investment, Joint Strike Fighter contractors may be able to cut manufacturing costs by up to 25%. To help contractors meet the Pentagon's ambitious price goals for the Joint Strike Fighter, program officials have assembled a package of reforms they say could save 12-25% in inventory and manufacturing costs alone without major new investments.
North Korea has tested its new AG-1 cruise missile, but Pentagon brass aren't terribly concerned. An official privy to the latest intelligence said portraying the mobile, antiship missile as a formidable weapon is ``threat hyping of the worst type.'' The AG-1 employs ``unimpressive, old technology'' from the Russian Styx and Chinese Silkworm missiles on hand and pales in comparison to the widely exported French Exocet.
Photograph: Constellation Communications plans to orbit 12 Ecco spacecraft as the first segment of a 54-satellite global system. Matra Marconi Space is expected to build the spacecraft. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has given the go-ahead to two more ventures that plan international mobile telephone services via small satellites in nongeosynchronous orbits. Constellation Communications Inc. and Mobile Communications Holdings Inc.
Lucas Aerospace Power Transmission of Utica, N.Y., is looking for a second, ``launch'' partner, possibly the planned Airbus A-3XX or future Boeing transports, for technologies developed in the joint Electric Starlifter program. The $6-million, 3-year development and flight test program, performed in conjunction with the USAF and Lockheed Martin, is nearing midpoint and is planned to include 1,000-hr. flight experience in a modified USAF C-141 Starlifter flying normal operations.
