The U.S. Air Force today is expected to receive bids from Boeing and Lockheed Martin for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle. The bids will say how much each company will invest in the engineering and manufacturing development program. The AF will also decide how the first 30 launches - between 2001 and 2005 - are split between the two companies. The AF is paying for parts of EELV development even though it projects a larger market from commercial customers.
Top scientists, including at least two Nobel laureates, meet for three days this week to map the strategy NASA will follow as it searches for life in the Universe and identify the technology that will be needed to find it.
Valery Ryumin, the veteran Russian cosmonaut who recently returned to space on the Space Shuttle Discovery after an 18-year hiatus, has passed judgment on the relative merits of the Russian Soyuz capsule and the U.S. Space Shuttle as spacecraft. The Soyuz, which provides a relatively gentle liftoff and ascent compared to the explosive thrust of the Shuttle, is the preferred route to orbit, Ryumin tells a Russian reporter in Houston.
Congressional response to the Rumsfeld Commission's report on the seriousness of the threat to the U.S. of a ballistic missile attack (DAILY, July 16) may come in the form of an adjunct funding bill. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) told reporters Wednesday that lawmakers may elect to do something for National Missile Defense (NMD) similar to the Theater Missile Defense Improvement Act of 1998 that gave the Dept. of Defense added resources for TMD programs.
Russian participation is required for the International Space Station as presently designed to be built, yet NASA and the Clinton Administration have done nothing to ensure that Russia surmounts its economic problems and completes its share of Station work, the Republican chairman of the House Science Committee charges.
The U.S. government's successful opposition to Lockheed Martin's proposed $8.3 billion acquisition of Northrop Grumman may have changed its role in such matters. The Clinton Administration earlier approved big aerospace deals - Boeing's acquisition of Rockwell's defense business and McDonnell Douglas, and Raytheon's buy of the defense businesses of Hughes and Texas Instruments - and then got out of the way. But now, with all the big U.S. aerospace industry mergers apparently completed, the rules may have changed.
British Aerospace Defense Systems Ltd. won a $6.5 million contract to supply the Royal Air Force with Phase 1 of a pilot version of the Joint Air Component Headquarters (P-JFACHQ), BAe announced. The system will coordinate the application of the air power resources of the RAF, Royal Navy and British Army, as well as from allies and coalition partners, in predominantly Out-of-Area (OOA) operations.
Iridium LLC still plans to launch commercial service with the first "Big LEO" low-Earth orbit communications satellite constellation on Sept. 23, but subscriber trials will be truncated because of problems developing satellite software, the Washington-based company reported last week. Beta testing of the system's handsets, network, satellites, paging and billing systems is now scheduled to begin "in mid-September" and continue after commercial service is launched.
A delay in Chile's fighter procurement decision has also delayed a decision on training aircraft. Raytheon is hoping Chile will pick the T-6A as its trainer. This, however, is likely to hinge on whether Chile opts to buy either of two U.S. competitors in the fighter competition, the F-16 and F/A-18.
The House Republican leadership has decided to delay a veto override of legislation punishing Russian research companies and labs believed to have assisted Iran in its program to develop missiles that could hit targets as far away as Europe. The decision comes after an announcement by the Administration that it was taking steps of its own against the organizations.
AlliedSignal Inc., Morris Township, N.J., earned $350 million on sales of $3.9 billion in its second quarter, up from earnings of $305 million on sales of $3.6 billion in the same period a year ago.
The Senate Armed Services Committee will vote this week on the contentious nomination of Florida State Sen. Daryl L. Jones to be Secretary of the Air Force, a committee spokesman says. A hoped for Friday executive session never materialized, and the committee will probably hold the session tomorrow. Credible contradictory testimony on Jones' qualifications has split the committee. The vote will take place this week, but not on the same day as the executive session, according to the spokesman.
Ukraine's Yuzhnoye Design Bureau is developing a pressurized research module for the Russian side of the International Space Station under a program funded by the National Space Agency of Ukraine that is budgeted at about $200 million, including launch.
Cosmos 2350, a new early warning satellite, has failed in geosynchronous orbit after two and a half months, leaving Russia with a significant gap in its capability to warn strategic forces of a surprise missile attack. The Russian Strategic Rocket Forces lost communications with Cosmos 2350, launched on April 29, early this month, the Kommersant Daily newspaper reported on July 15. An interdepartmental commission concluded after a week-long investigation that the satellite depressurized and could not be recovered.
The AF is looking to expand the spin envelope of the T-6A Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) from 18,000-10,000 ft. to 22,000-10,000 ft. However, it hasn't been determined when to insert the necessary flights into the test program, according to Col. Robert Hood, the AF's system program director for flight training systems. The AF realized during testing of the two prototypes that expanded spin envelope flights could be conducted, but, Hood says, the goal is to do so without adding a lot of cost or delaying deliveries.
Supporters of the Kinetic Energy Anti-Satellite (KE-ASAT) program are trying to gauge if the funding President Clinton slashed from the effort with the line item veto last year will be restored. The Supreme Court recently struck the president's line item veto power, but the issue now is being reviewed by the Justice Dept. Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), head of the Senate Armed Services Committee's panel on strategic forces and a big supporter of KE-ASAT, says funding for the program that was removed by the line item veto may now be made available.
U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Ryan on Aug. 4 will unveil a new operational concept intended to demonstrate forward presence even from the U.S. The Expeditionary Air Force concept builds on the Air Expeditionary Force deployments the AF has been conducting in the past couple of years. The new arrangement will be offered to the war fighting commanders-in-chief, says Brig. Gen. Charles Ward, the AF's director for strategic planning.
The U.S. Special Operations Command has changed the way it employs its aircraft to avoid infrared-guided surface-to-air missile threats, and is waiting for the Directed IR Countermeasures (DIRCM) system to bolster defense of the planes, Army Gen. Peter Schoomaker, commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, said.
The director of the Pentagon's Defense Technology Security Agency, which is responsible for managing the Dept. of Defense's space launch technology safeguards monitoring program, told Congress that the Pentagon conducted no "serious investigation" of whether any technology was transferred to China in the three unmonitored Chinese launches of Hughes satellites. "To my knowledge, I don't believe we conducted any serious investigation" because DOD was not responsible, Dave Tarbell, DTSA director, said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last week.
Combustion systems specialist Sonex Research, Annapolis, Md., has started working on a three-month project to convert a 342cc unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) engine from gasoline to heavy fuels - such as JP-5 or diesel - for Northrop Grumman's Military Aircraft Systems Div. under a $55,000 subcontract. Sonex also is demonstrating a heavy fuel conversion for the Pioneer UAV under a contract with the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center at Patuxent River, Md.
Lufthansa Technik is adding the new CFM56-7 engine series to its repair and maintenance portfolio with a contract to maintain Scandinavian Airline System (SAS) Boeing 737-600s. The -600s will start arriving at SAS in September, and LHT will maintain more than 100 -7 engines for SAS under the contract.
NASA's Lewis Research Center and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory recently co-sponsored a Metallic Coatings Speciality Workshop aimed at advancing work on coatings in gas turbine engines, NASA reports. Lewis' James Smialek chaired a session on development, behavior and future needs of aluminide coatings for super alloys in turbine environments, and additional sessions covered development and processing of commercial coatings, along with field experience and repair. Researchers met at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J.
TRW reported a 6% drop in second quarter earnings, citing the General Motors strike and the litigation settlement of a terminated contract. The company earned $125.8 million on sales of $3 billion during the three-month period, compared to earnings of $134.4 million on sales of $2.9 billion in the same period a year ago.
The engines taking shape at Pratt&Whitney and GE Aircraft Engines for the proposed 750,000-lb., 300-passenger Mach 2.4 High Speed Civil Transport may be so big and complex that airlines will demand that the enginemakers take over maintenance and support. "It is substantially larger than a GE90 core," says Leigh Koops, HSCT program manager at GE Aircraft Engines, referring to the engine which today is the largest core in commercial service. "The nozzle you could garage your car in. It's just huge."
