SPACE IMAGING has signed an agreement with the U.S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) for commercial satellite imagery products and services. The contract carries a minimum guarantee of $4.4 million for products generated by the planned Ikonos imaging satellite and other imaging satellites covered by Space Imaging marketing agreements. Under the contract, procedures will be established for U.S. government agencies to procure image products as discounted rates. NIMA has signed similar contracts with EarthWatch and Orbimage (DAILY, Nov. 2, Dec. 8).
Kaman Corp. said it has begun a search for a new chief executive officer to replace Charles H. Kaman, who will relinquish that role when the new CEO is found, but remain as chairman of the company. Kaman, 79, recommended that the board form a committee, under his direction, to search for a new CEO, and the board agreed.
France's Aerospatiale is in discussions with the Spanish government to buy a stake in Construcciones Aeronauticas SA, an Aerospatiale spokesman confirmed yesterday, but he cautioned that the outcome is hard to predict. "We have to see what CASA is going to decide," he said in a telephone interview. "The government is in the process of privatizing and discussing with us and British Aerospace and other companies. We are obviously discussing and interested, but we don't know what would be the end of the process."
EGYPT plans to buy a second communications satellite from Matra Marconi Space and launch it on an Ariane rocket next year, according to the state-run Middle East News Agency. NileSat 102 will serve Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe. It will join NileSat 101, which was launched in April under a turnkey contract between NileSat and Matra Marconi (DAILY, April 30).
The General Accounting Office says cost estimates the Pentagon has for its two high altitude endurance unmanned aerial vehicles - the Global Hawk and the DarkStar - are understated. U.S. Air Force officials acknowledged earlier this year that the unit flyaway cost target of $10 million per vehicle wouldn't be reached, and said it would be closer to $13 million (DAILY, Sept. 17).
Defense Secretary William Cohen next week is expected to announce a restructuring of the national missile defense (NMD) program because of a $7.8 billion funding shortfall projected for the fiscal year 2000 to 2005 period, Pentagon sources told The DAILY. The shortfall is part of a more than $200 billion shortfall for a number of major defense acquisition programs, including the U.S. Air Force's F-22 fighter, one DOD source said.
HERTZ CORP. has signed a joint venture agreement with the Magellan Corp., an Orbital Sciences subsidiary, for 50,000 vehicle navigation and driver information systems. Under the $50 million deal Magellan will supply satellite navigation technology for Hertz' "NeverLost" system, which will be installed in rental cars in the U.S., Canada and Europe. The Magellan system combines Global Positioning System technology with dead-reckoning and map-matching capabilities.
Issues discovered during flight testing have forced the U.S. Air Force to slightly delay a program to allow KC-135 tankers to fly in confined airspace, the AF has told industry officials. A contract for the KC-135 Reduced Vertical Separation Minima program now won't be awarded until next summer, the AF said. The contract is a small business set-aside to build 580 kits that will allow the aircraft to fly in airspace with reduced vertical separation.
The U.S. and Britain yesterday began an air campaign against Iraq after U.N. inspectors said the Baghdad regime had reneged on its promise grant weapons inspectors access to all its facilities. The attacks were expected to last several days, Pentagon officials said, and rely predominantly, although not exclusively, on cruise missiles. The campaign, named "Operation Desert Fox" began around 1 a.m. in Baghdad, or 5 p.m., EST. President Clinton said the mission was to destroy Iraq's chemical and biological warfare capability.
TRW INC. has opened a new solar-array production facility in Redondo Beach, Calif., to feed the growing demand from its own space systems and those of other satellite-builders. The 100,000 "Space Power Production Facility" includes the latest automated equipment for connecting, testing and inspecting solar cells and enough room to assemble solar panels, arrays and related cables, harnesses and batteries, TRW said. The setup will allow TRW to make solar cells from silicon or gallium arsenide in any size, without changing tooling, the company said.
BRAZILIAN AIR FORCE has taken delivery of its 50th AMX strike and advaqnced trainer aircraft, according to Embraer. It said the event took place Dec. 1. The jet is made by Embraer, and Alenia and Aermacchi of Italy.
UNITED SOLAR SYSTEMS CORP. of Troy, Mich., a joint venture of Energy Conversion Devices Inc. and Canon Inc., has mounted its thin-film amorphous solar modules on Russia's Mir station for testing on orbit. The cells are intended to offer a lightweight alternative to conventional photovoltaic modules made of silicon or gallium arsenide. The Mir deployment, accomplished during a five-hour spacewalk by two cosmonauts in November, marks the first time the technology has been exposed to the space environment.
RMI Titanium Co., citing reduced aerospace demand and improved operating practices, said it will permanently shut down two of six vacuum furnaces in the primary melt shop at its Niles, Ohio, plant. The shutdown will cost the company about 25 jobs and a fourth quarter charge of about $1 million.
EUROCKOT LAUNCH SERVICES GmbH has signed an agreement with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to launch the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites aboard Russia's Rockot launch vehicle, a derivative of the SS-19 ICBM. Both satellites are scheduled for dual launch in June 2001 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia under the agreement, the first with a European customer for the joint venture of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and Russia's Khrunichev production center.
NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour avoided threatening weather and glided to a rare nighttime landing Tuesday after deploying a test satellite for the U.S. Air Force in the final act of its highly complex first assembly flight for the International Space Station.
Raytheon, in partnership with Chile's air navigation service, has completed installation of two satellite navigation testbed reference stations in Santiago and Balmaceda. The stations, the first of their kind in South America, will support evaluation of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) concept for improving the Global Positioning System in Chilean airspace. John Britigan, manager of Raytheon's Landing and Navigation Systems, said flight trials are being conducted this month to demonstrate the system's operational capabilities.
The Block 1 Rolling Airframe Missile, intended to defend ships against missile attacks, is nearing the start of operational testing by the U.S. Navy after successfully completing one of a series of development tests late last week. Two of the light-weight, quick-reaction missiles were fired from a test ship at an Exocet anti-ship missile on Dec. 12 at the Pacific Missile Test Range, Calif., the Navy said.
ORBITAL SCIENCES CORP. will launch NASA's High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI) satellite in July 2000 under the Small Expendable Launch Vehicle contract between Orbital and Kennedy Space Center. HESSI was the first of as many as 16 missions awarded under the contract, which has a potential value of $400 million. The satellite, designed to study particle acceleration from the sun, will fly on an air-launched Pegasus rocket.
The U.S. Army plans to launch a development program for a hyperspectral sensor that would allow manned and unmanned aircraft to pick out camouflaged and other hard-to-detect targets. The goal of the 24-month program is to develop a passive thermal longwave infrared hyperspectral sensor for broad area detection and cueing, the Army said in a Dec. 16 Commerce Business Daily notice. The system is to include the long-wave hyperspectral imager as well as a midwave infrared high resolution imager, the service said.
Three recent incidents in Space Shuttle operations that could have had serious consequences should be regarded as "wake-up calls" for greater attention to safety as International Space Station assembly begins, NASA's Shuttle program manager has warned in an all-hands memo.
AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP affiliates American International Underwriters Overseas Ltd. and AIG Asian Infrastructure Fund LP will acquire about 4 million Class 1 interests in Iridium LLC to become the 20th strategic investor in the "Big LEO" satellite communications enterprise. The two AIG units will acquire the interests from subsidiaries of Indonesia's PT Bakrie Communications Corp. as part of the restructuring of the PT Bakrie&Brothers Group. Terms were not disclosed. AIG is among the largest underwriters of commercial and industrial insurance in the U.S.
The National Reconnaissance Office was recently included in a partnership agreement between NASA and the U.S. Air Force Space Command to coordinate spending on a variety of space-related efforts, including development of civil and military spaceplanes, measurements of the solar environment in near-Earth space and use of launch and tracking facilities.
Flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) Sunday will order the first of at least three engine burns designed to put the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft in orbit around the asteroid 433 Eros after almost two years in transit.
BOEING AND SPACEHAB have agreed to join forces in identifying potential commercial operations on the International Space Station. NASA wants commercial interests to take over at least a portion of Station operations, and has published a wide-ranging plan to do so (DAILY, Nov. 20).
