John Cotumaccio has been appointed president of the Ft. Walton Beach, Fla.-based Keltec Division. Robert (Bob) Nelsen has been appointed vice president and chief financial officer.
U.S. ARMY has begun operational testing of the Sense and Destroy Armor munition with live firings in Alaska, SADARM prime contractor Aerojet said. A total of 98 SADARMs will be fired from an eight-gun M198 Howitzer battery, 24 projectiles per week, at Cold Regions Test Center of Ft. Greely in Alaska. The targets are about 19 kilometers down range. The testing marks the end of SADARM engineering and manufacturing development.
The U.S. Air Force's X-40A subscale Space Maneuvering Vehicle prototype demonstrated low-speed handling and autonomous approach and landing yesterday in a 9,000-foot drop test at Holloman AFB, N.M., prime contractor Boeing reported.
Lockheed Martin has pulled together assets from across its organization to pursue business in the global telecommunications services market, a $50 billion sector the company believes will grow to $120 billion by 2002.
David Evans has been named director of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. Andy Rosenberg will succeed Evans as deputy assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries in Silver Spring, Md.
Aviation Sales Co., Miami, agreed with Primark Corp., Waltham, Mass., to acquire Triad International Maintenance Co. (TIMCO) for $70 million in cash, the companies reported yesterday. The acquisition, subject to government approvals, is expected to close by Oct. 15.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, citing numerous reports of control shaft failures in the Pratt&Whitney JT8D-1 through -15 engine, yesterday recommended that fuel pumps on all the engines be modified. The engines power Boeing 727, 737-100/200, DC-9 and MD-80 aircraft. Argo-Tech of Cleveland, which makes the pumps, has issued service bulletins on the mods, and the NTSB said the changes should be made in accordance with the bulletins, which are intended to reduce misalignment of and wear.
Phil Marshall has been appointed general manager for the Delta rocket manufacturing and final assembly facility in Pueblo, Colo. Russell L. Szczepanik has been appointed as Information&Communications Systems director of Marketing in Australia and New Zealand.
STARSEM, the Franco-Russian joint venture established to market space launches on Soyuz rockets, has been picked to launch the replacement Cluster plasma-science mission for the European Space Agency. ESA will pay the Aerospatiale-Arianespace-Russian Space Agency-Samara Space Center combine $69 million to launch the four Cluster satellites on two Soyuz launches in June and July 2000. The original Cluster mission was lost in the failure of the first Ariane V rocket (DAILY, June 5, 1996).
IRAN WILL JOIN five Asian nations in a joint effort to build a $20 million satellite for telecommunications and "monitoring," according to the Iranian news agency IRNA. The satellite will be manufactured in conjunction with China, Pakistan, Mongolia, Thailand and South Korea, while Iran has offered to build ground support equipment, IRNA said last week. Representatives of the six participating nations met in Tehran to discuss the project, according to the news agency.
Japan's second attempt to dock two robotic spacecraft in orbit failed last week, leaving the National Space Development Agency (NASDA) trying to determine how to rejoin the two spacecraft that make up the seventh in its Engineering Test Satellite series (ETS-7). A NASDA spokesman said yesterday the two spacecraft were stable and about 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) apart after unsuccessful docking attempts Friday and Saturday. Mission managers were trying to decide how to proceed, the spokesman said, with no timetable for action set.
Lockheed Martin Advanced Environmental Systems Inc., Albuquerque, N.M., is being awarded a $23,382,698 cost plus fixed fee contract for dismantlement of submarines, to accomplish low level radioactive waste volume reduction in Russia. Work will be performed in Severodvinsk, Russia, and Bolshoy Kamen, Russia, and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 1999. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were 125 bids solicited on Sept. 4, 1997, and five bids were received.
OC Inc., Alexandria, Va., is being awarded an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract (with firm-fixed-price delivery orders), with a cumulative total of $16,638,340. Appropriation number and dollar value will be issued with each delivery order. Two contracts were awarded from one solicitation. Competitive, with 8(a) set-aside. Test and Evaluation Center Office Program Support for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (OUSD), Acquisition and Technology (A&T), Director, Test, Systems Engineering, and Evaluation Test Facilities and Resources.
Northrop Grumman signed a definitive agreement to acquire Inter- National Research Institute Inc. (INRI) for $55 million in cash, Northrop Grumman reported yesterday. INRI, which is expected to record 1998 revenues of about $60 million, is a privately owned software and application development company specializing in command and control, tracking, data fusion and mapping for the Dept. of Defense and key suppliers.
