LITTON INDUSTRIES' Ingalls Shipbuilding unit has been awarded a $620 million U.S. Navy contract to build two more DDG-51 Class Aegis guided missile destroyers. The contract is exercises an option included in a multi-year, multi-ship award to Ingalls last year. Ingalls has 21 destroyers under firm contract and holds options for four more to be awarded over the next two years. Ingalls' backlog not stands at about $4 billion.
The U.S. Navy has given the F/A-18E/F development program the green light to resume flight testing after operations were briefly halted last Thursday. The halt allowed General Electric to inspect all of its F414 engines following discovery of cracks in some of the powerplants (DAILY, Dec. 11). The Navy said yesterday that flight testing will continue without any flight envelope restrictions.
Lockheed Martin has completed the first operational mission with its C-130J even though the transport has not yet entered operational service with its launch customer, the U.K. One of the C-130Js built for the U.S. Air Force in late November was used for a humanitarian relief mission to Honduras in the wake of Hurricane Mitch. Two more sorties were flown with a second aircraft in December. Those missions brought the total amount of supplies provided by the aircraft to 83,000 pounds, Lockheed Martin said yesterday.
French Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the government is willing to reduce its ownership of Aerospatiale. British Aerospace and Germany's DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (DASA) insist Aerospatiale must be fully privatized if they are to merge in a European Aerospace and Defense Company (EADC).
GENCORP AEROJET, Sacramento, Calif., has delivered the first of six Minuteman III Stage 2 motors for ballistic evaluation to the Air Force. The motor is scheduled for altitude testing at the Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tullahoma, Tenn., in mid-December. The motors are fabricated and tested to qualify Aerojet's new design and processes used in the Minuteman III Stage 2 Propulsion Replacement Program.
U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen called off a planned trip to Europe to resolve budget issues within the Administration, the Pentagon said Saturday. "I must remain in Washington to help resolve important budgetary issues," Cohen said in a Pentagon statement. Cohen and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Henry H. Shelton visited the White House yesterday to help determine how much money the Pentagon will receive for fiscal 2000 and future budgets. This is their second trip to the White House in as many weeks.
Hughes Electronics Corp. will acquire the business and assets of United States Satellite Broadcasting Co. (USSB) under a $1.3 billion definitive merger agreement announced yesterday.
December 10, 1998 TRW Inc., San Bernardino, Calif., was awarded on Dec. 9, 1998, a $7,651,978 face value increase to a cost-plus-award-fee contract to provide for sustaining engineering services through October 1999 to maintain the reentry system and vehicle of the Minuteman and Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missile systems. Expected contract completion date is Oct. 31, 1999. Negotiation completion date was Nov. 19, 1998. Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill AFB, Utah, is the contracting activity (F42610-98-C-0001-P00112).
Fiscal year 1998 funding for the Kinetic Energy Anti-Satellite (KE-ASAT) program, tied up in a line item veto dispute, has finally been released, but the delay has significantly set back the effort, according to military and industry officials.
A panel of experts says the U.S. Air Force should back off from plans for a Space-Based Laser Readiness Demonstrator because there are still too many questions surrounding the technology. "It is our assessment that this technology is not mature enough to support such a demonstration," the AF's Scientific Advisory Board said in a report on space issues. Therefore, the panel said, the service should not continue with the readiness demonstrator program.
December 11, 1998 Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn., is being awarded a $32,759,118 modification to a firm-fixed-price multi-year contract for the purchase of six UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters. Work will be performed in Stratford, Conn., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 30, 2003. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on Oct. 17, 1995. The contracting activity is the U.S. Army Aviation&Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala. (DAAJ09-97-C-0005).
Saab AB plans to use "various initiatives" to cut production time of the JAS 39 Gripen nearly in half, thereby reducing production costs and making the fighter more attractive on the export market, a Saab spokesman told The DAILY yesterday. Saab now produces 18-20 Gripens per year for the Swedish Air Force, with each plane taking about 400 days to make, the spokesman said. The goal is to cut production time to around 250 days per plane by 2002.
If the House votes to impeach President Clinton on Thursday, it would set the stage for a trial in the Senate - with unpredictable consequences for almost every item on the legislative calendar, including the defense authorization, if the trial lasts long enough. Senate Majority Leader Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has expressed a preference for a "dual track" approach to the trial in which legislation would be considered by the Senate in the morning and the trial would be held in the afternoon.
Failure of a Hera target in its boost phase during a planned test yesterday of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile's seeker prompted the U.S. Army and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization not to launch the PAC-3. The test, at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., would have been the first flight of a PAC-3 with a seeker. The first two PAC-3 tests took place with missiles equipped with special instrumentation packages in place of seekers. The tests were intended to verify systems and missile performance before to target intercept flight tests.
DYNAMIC MATERIALS CORP. (DMC), Lafayette, Colo., completed the acquisition of Precision Machined Products Inc. (PMP), Fort Collins, Colo. PMP makes high precision, complex machined parts used in the aerospace, satellite and medical equipment and high technology industries. PMP will operate as a division of DMC.
NASA managers hope to fly the Future-X orbital testbed aboard a Space Shuttle late in 2001 or early in 2002 to test reusable launch vehicle technologies that can't really get a workout on the X-33 and X-34 program, according to the vehicle's program manager.
The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and the U.S. Army today plan to test the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. The "seeker characterization" test, slated for 7 a.m. MST, is intended to analyze the system's ability to detect, track and close on a target, and to collect seeker data in a flight environment.
Litton Industries' earnings climbed 9% to $47.2 million in its 1999 first quarter on 16% higher sales of $1.2 billion, the company reported. Michael Brown, president and chief executive officer, credited the earnings improvement to the sales increase; higher margins at the Ingalls shipbuilding unit, the Electronic Components&Materials and the Advanced Electronics groups; and higher sales in the Information Systems Group due to the TASC acquisition in April 1998.
BMW Rolls-Royce testing of the BR700 core engine with a new combustion chamber "reveals a significant reduction of emissions at all thrust levels," the manufacturer reported. The tests, conducted at the altitude test facility of the University of Stuttgart, involve a staged combustion chamber developed recently to reduce exhaust emissions of future engines.
ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS, Minneapolis, which made a modified "Dutch auction" tender offer on Nov. 6 of up to 2.8 million shares of its common stock at $67 to $77 per share, said 1,677,034 were tendered at or below $77 per share by Dec. 8, when the offer expired. Peter A. Bukowick, president and acting CEO, said, "The fact that the offer was undersubscribed indicates that most of the company's shareholders are currently unwilling to sell their shares even at $77 per share, the high end of the tender offer range. We believe that's a very positive message.
House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston (R-La.) and House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. (Bill) Young (R-Fla.) are trying to plug the loophole that allowed $20.8 billion in emergency spending to be added to the fiscal 1999 omnibus appropriations act in October. They are questioning whether emergency designations are true emergencies, and putting President Clinton on notice that they are not bound to fund any commitments about which they were not consulted in advance.
