The Global Hawk high altitude unmanned aerial vehicle flew for the fourth time Saturday, reaching an altitude above 60,000 feet, but the flight was abbreviated because of a possible fuel distribution problem. The flight from Edwards AFB, Calif., lasted 5 hours and 48 minutes and reached 61,067 feet, Global Hawk prime contractor Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical said. The test brings the vehicle close to its design goal of being flying at 65,000 feet.
A joint European Space Agency/NASA review board has confirmed a string of human errors as the cause of last June's loss of communications with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and blamed the mistakes that left the spacecraft out of control at the Lagrangian Point on a combination of overloaded flight controllers and a fuzzy management structure.
Flight test failures of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile have added about $360 million to the cost of the program, the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization said yesterday. The amount "includes the costs to perform post-flight test failure analysis/corrective actions and extensions/modification to the current contract required as a result of flight test delays," BMDO said.
Standard&Poor's yesterday affirmed its AA rating for Boeing after the company said it will repurchase up to 15% of its outstanding shares of common stock, but said the outlook for the aerospace giant "remains negative."
MARCONI NORTH AMERICA said the Electronic Systems Div. of its GEC-Marconi Hazeltine subsidiary, Wayne, N.J., won a contract, potentially worth $23 million, for qualification and production of the U.S. Navy's new digital interrogator. The device will replace existing IFF systems on most combat ships.
If the U.K.'s Farnborough Air Show had begun a few months ago, the prevailing mood might have been better, according to industry analysts. But given recent global economic problems, the week-long show, set to begin Sept. 7, may carry a slightly different tone this year.
The Boeing 717 made its first flight yesterday, flying from Long Beach Municipal Airport, Calif., to Yuma, Ariz. On hand for the takeoff was Joseph Corr, president of AirTran, which has ordered 50 of the twinjets, the first of which is expected to be delivered in mid-1999. BMW Rolls-Royce also announced that the engine for the 717, the BR715 turbofan, has been certificated by the FAA. It won certification by the European Joint Aviation Authorities on Aug. 28.
The U.S. Marine Corps has completed an 11-day demonstration in Hawaii using the Kaman K-Max helicopter for sea-based logistics resupply that showed the single-seat rotorcraft may be suited for operational use. The demonstration, carried out under the Corps' Broad Area Unmanned Responsive Resupply Operation (BURRO) concept, "went very well," Lt. Col. Jim McMain, the technology division section head at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab here, said in an interview on Tuesday. The demonstration is a step towards experimenting with an unmanned K-Max.
The Pentagon may suspend testing of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile for up to two years until it can build a new set of better missiles, Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director Lt. Gen. Lester Lyles told reporters yesterday.
A story in The DAILY of Sept. 2 incorrectly referred to Herbert Lanese's exit from McDonnell Douglas. It should have referred to the retirement of Chief Financial Officer Boyd Givan.
Lear Siegler Services has filed a bid protest with the General Accounting Office following award of an aircraft support contract to Sikorsky on Aug. 10 by the U.S. Navy. The protest, filed Aug. 19, is slated to be resolved by Nov. 27. Although GAO protests generally lead to a stop-work order, the Navy said there was an "unusual and compelling urgency" to continue the work. As a result, the Navy on Tuesday awarded Lear Siegler Services a $19.9 million support contract as a "bridge effort" until the protest is resolved.
Despite President Clinton's weakened political status, senior Senate Armed Services Committee members indicated yesterday they saw no waning of the threat of a presidential veto of a fiscal 1999 defense authorization compromise containing satellite export restrictions. The White House, through Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, has made it known to the conferees in recent discussions that the two veto-bait issues remaining are gender integration in the services and House-imposed restrictions on exporting satellite and missile technology.
The French government is considering reducing part of a multi-year order for Dassault Aviation's Rafale from 48 to 35 by the end of the year, the French newspaper La Tribune reported yesterday. The action would cut the cost from 15 billion francs ($2.6 billion) to 10 billion francs ($1.7 billion). Dassault's major partners on the Rafale are Thomson-CSF, Snecma and Lagardere's BAe Matra Dynamics.
The U.S. Air Force has launched a quick response Global Reach exercise, sending up to three B-2 stealth bombers and three B-52H bombers to Guam in a no-notice training exercise, DOD officials said yesterday.
The Pentagon should terminate some of its existing weapon procurement programs to free up money to buy newer systems, Pentagon acquisition chief Jacques Gansler said yesterday. Without such changes, the military services won't be able to fund their new procurement programs, Gansler told the Association of the United States Army in Arlington, Va. He said action needs to be taken soon because "it will be impossible to do so later." Otherwise, "we're not going to be able to afford the things we must have."
An agreement by the U.S. Air Force and Raytheon to upgrade Maverick missiles has been finalized, and could lead to delivery of 1,950 AGM-65H/K variants of the air-to-ground weapon. The basic contract is worth $6.4 million. But six production lot options could raise the value to about $100 million, the AF said Monday. Deliveries are expected to start in 2001 and run through about 2007.
The Royal Australian Air Force is expecting delivery of the first of its 33 Hawk Mk. 27 aircraft in early 2000, and will assemble all but the first 12 from many locally subcontracted components at a new facility in Newcastle, NSW. A similar possibility is being discussed with Poland, which has a major advanced trainer requirement involving about 100 aircraft to replace its currently stalled Iryda program, and is already involved in Hawk component production. Meanwhile, some systems and avionics for the Hawk lead-in fighter-
Mir's two-man crew plans to enter the depressurized Spektr module on Sept. 15 to repair the system that keeps the damaged solar arrays pointed toward the sun, Russia's Itar-Tass news agency reported. Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Avdeyev started preparations for the internal spacewalk yesterday, installing air-handling equipment in the airlock that leads to Spektr.
Elbit Systems Ltd., Haifa, Israel, won two contracts for electronic units from Lockheed Martin with a total value of $11.1 million. The first contract, with an estimated value of $6.9 million, is for development of the Commercial Data Entry Electronics Unit (CDEEU) to replace the current unit on the F-16. The contract will be awarded to EFW Inc., Elbit's wholly-owned subsidiary in Fort Worth, Tex.
The Pentagon is asking House appropriators to restore some of the fiscal 1999 budget request for the Enhanced Fiber Optic-Guided Missile, although it isn't asking for funds to start procurement of the system after authorizers rejected Army plans to buy the weapon.
The U.S. Air Force's Air Combat Command today will open a Rear Operations Support Center at its Langley AFB, Va., headquarters that will serve as a centralized facility to support contingency operations.
Boeing removed Ron Woodard as head of its Commercial Airplane Group, replacing him with Senior Vice President Alan Mulally, former president of the Information, Space&Defense Systems unit. The changes, along with formation of two new operating groups, come as Boeing tries to recover from production problems in its commercial operations which have left the company with its first full-year loss in 50 years despite record sales (DAILY, Jan. 28).
BOEING'S board of directors authorized a share repurchase program of up to 15% of the company's outstanding shares of common stock. As of the end of the second quarter of 1998, Boeing had 972.7 million shares outstanding.
Researchers at NASA's Lewis Research Center are dismantling a 2 kilowatt solar dynamic power system that has demonstrated much higher efficiency than photovoltaic solar arrays, and will drop work on the technology going back to 1984 unless military or commercial applications can be found.
