SEA TRIALS for the two vessels that will launch Ukrainian Zenit boosters from the mid-Pacific for the Sea Launch venture got underway yesterday with the departure of the vessels from their Long Beach, Calif., home port. The Odyssey launch platform and the Sea Launch Commander, a combination rocket hangar and seagoing launch control center, will remain off the coast of Monterey, Calif., until mid-November, testing communications, operations and safety systems aboard each vessel. A crew of some 240 is staffing the Commander, with another 68 aboard Odyssey.
French Defense Minister Alain Richard believes France's Aerospatiale-Matra, British Aerospace and Germany's DASA will agree on "a threesome merger ... in the next two quarters" to set up a European Aerospace and Defense Company (EADC). "The first half of 1999 is a period during which we can meet all the conditions to have a large European Aerospace and Defense Company ... which would balance out the largest American businesses," Richard said yesterday in an interview with French radio Europe 1 in Paris.
While Network Centric Warfare (NCW) is the way for the Dept. of Defense to achieve its goal of information superiority, sorting out what makes up NCW is proving to be more difficult than expected, according to the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association.
The U.K. Ministry of Defense said its new Defense Aviation Repair Agency (DARA) will be based at Royal Air Force St. Athan, near Barry, Wales. The formation of DARA - from facilities provided by the Royal Navy's Naval Aircraft Repair Organization (NARO) and the RAF's Maintenance Group Defense Agency (MGDA) - was announced on April 23, and will be vested on April 1, 1999, and will assume responsibility for the deep repair, maintenance and modification of military aircraft.
NASA officials will travel to Russia in two weeks to "audit" progress on the critical Service Module for the International Space Station, even as the first Station element is set for launch on a Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and long-lead procurement for a U.S.-built module to backstop the critical Russian system is to begin.
DRS Technologies Inc., Parsippany, N.J., won a $24.2 million contract from the U.S. Army for Improved Bradley Acquisition Systems (IBAS) for the new Bradley M2A3 fighting vehicle. The contract - the exercise of an option on an existing contract by the Army's Close Combat Anti-Tank Weapon Systems (CCAWS) office, Redstone Arsenal, Ala. - was awarded to the new DRS Sensor Systems unit in El Segundo, Calif. The unit was formed by DRS' acquisition of Raytheon's Ground Electro-Optical Systems business on Oct. 21.
GB AIRWAYS ordered nine A320 family aircraft for delivery between 2001 and 2003. GB Airways, which operates as a British Airways franchise carrier, took options on five more A320 family aircraft. All will be powered by IAE V2500 engines.
GUIDED MULTIPLE LAUNCH ROCKET SYSTEM development kicked off yesterday with an award by the U.S. Army to Lockheed Martin Vought Systems of a $121 million contract for the international program. The U.S., France, Italy, Germany and the U.K. are cooperating on the Guided MLRS. Addition of nose-mounted canards will give the missile a range of 60 kilometers.
Despite surprising gains by Democrats in the House and Senate in Tuesday's elections, there apparently will be only minor changes in the approach of the new Congress to defense, intelligence and space matters. Republicans' miscalculated hopes of picking up a significant number of seats in the House and ending Democrats' filibuster power in the Senate were quickly dashed, and the makeup of the key national security and space committees remains virtually unchanged.
The $1 billion congressional boost for ballistic missile defense programs should be used to speed programs and reduce risk, Hans Mark, the Pentagon's top research and engineering official, said yesterday.
AlliedSignal said it has begun flight testing a new suite of avionics aboard the new Boeing 717-200. It said the flight test program is expected to result in FAA certification of the aircraft and avionics next summer.
MIKE TERRETT, Rolls-Royce's top executive in charge of the RB211 and Trent large turbofans, was named yesterday as president and CEO of the International Aero Engines consortium. Terrett takes over for Rolls veteran Barry Eccleston. IAE makes the V2500 medium turbofan that powers Airbus narrowbodies and the Douglas/Boeing MD-90. The IAE partnership includes Rolls, Pratt&Whitney, Germany's MTU Daimler-Benz, and Japan Aero Engines.
A six-inch-long Micro Air Vehicle being developed by Lockheed Martin under a 42-month Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program will carry a day imaging sensor but could carry other payloads just as easily, said Jeffrey D. Harris, advanced program manager for Lockheed's Sanders unit. "It's very simple to put in other sensor technology," Harris said Tuesday at Lockheed Martin's annual Technology Symposium in Washington. The power and space requirements to fit the day imager in the tiny vehicle are among the most challenging, he said.
Egypt's Civil Aviation Authority awarded Northrop Grumman a contract of more than $40 million for the second phase of a 10-year program to upgrade the country's air traffic control infrastructure. Northrop Grumman said its Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector will upgrade approach and terminal area control systems at four Egyptian airports - Aswan; Alexandria; Al Arish and Taba. Hardware deliveries begin in 1999, with all four systems scheduled to be operational before the end of 2001.
A Russian Proton launch vehicle orbited PanAmSat Corp.'s PAS-8 telecommunications platform early yesterday, placing the Loral-built satellite in its geostationary transfer orbit for eventual service over the Asia-Pacific region. Liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome came at 10:12 a.m. local time (00:12 a.m. EST), after the satellite was processed in new facilities established at Baikonur by the International Launch Services joint venture. It will be placed in geostationary orbit at 166 degrees East longitude.
The U.S. Army plans to demonstrate the utility of marrying the capabilities of an unmanned aerial vehicle and a helicopter in an upcoming warfighting experiment. The program will modify an AH-64D Longbow Apache helicopter to work with a Hunter UAV, the Army's Aviation Applied Technology Directorate said in a Nov. 5 Commerce Business Daily notice. The Apache will be modified to allow its crew to control the Hunter.
China, which already has produced a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), is developing new variants for reconnaissance activities, the Pentagon informed congressional lawmakers. In a report sent to the House National Security Committee detailing the state of China's military developments (DAILY, Nov. 4), DOD said it suspects China is expanding work on UAVs, including a new rotary-wing version for reconnaissance missions.
Harris Semiconductor formed a new business unit to address opportunities in commercial space, military space and defense, the Melbourne, Fla., company reported yesterday. The new Space&Defense Business, under Ray Odom, vice president and general manager, "combines several analog, mixed signal and power management technologies with unique radiation hardened capability to provide turnkey solutions for the military and commercial space and defense markets," the company said. The business is comprised of several families of semiconductor products.
The U.S. Air Force will need a topline budget increase if it wants to proceed with an acceleration of the C-130J program in Marietta, Ga., a move that Lockheed Martin and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) say is necessary to avoid a several-year-long shutdown of the line, which in turn would increase costs of the F-22 program, underway at the same plant.
Roger Hawksworth has been appointed group director, chief of staff for strategic development. Alan Garwood has been named to replace Hawksworth as chief executive of Matra BAe Dynamics. Simon Keith has been appointed to succeed Garwood as managing director for Europe.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN said its Integrated Systems and Aerostructures Sector business unit of El Segundo, Calif., has signed a Dept, of Defense Mentor-Protege agreement with Keiko Manufacturing Co. of Long Beach. Northrop Grumman said it will assist Keiko, a specialist in quality precision machine parts and a supplier on the F/A-18E/F program, in developing general business and technical management skills to allow it to expand and compete more successfully for defense contracts.
China is acquiring a variety of foreign technologies that could be used to develop an anti-satellite (ASAT) capability and laser radars to track and image satellites, the Pentagon has informed lawmakers.
