Industry ministers from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden have agreed on a late October deadline for proposals to set a framework for a new European Aerospace and Defense Company (EADC).
A 1995 sounding rocket flight from Norway reportedly triggered a Russian nuclear alert that could have resulted in a retaliatory response had the Black Brant XII not returned to Earth in the Arctic Ocean before the Russians reacted. A television documentary scheduled to be broadcast today by Britain's Channel 4 reports that Russian early warning system operators mistook the Jan. 25, 1995, sounding-rocket launch from the Andoya range in Andenes, Norway, for a Trident missile launched by a U.S. submarine.
Pioneer UAV, Inc., Hunt Valley, Md., is being awarded a $10,635,360 modification to previously awarded contract N00019-97-C-0010 for the procurement of 15 Pioneer unmanned air vehicles spares. Work will be performed Hunt Valley, Md., and is expected to be completed in February 2000. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
Communication problems and poor information led to a mishap involving an AGM-129A Advanced Cruise Missile during a Dec. 19, 1997, test at the Utah Test and Training Range, according to the U.S. Air Force's Air Combat Command. After completing the main test objective, ACC said in an investigation report, the stealthy cruise missile hit the ground in the middle of an unmanned astrophysical observation site run by the University of Tokyo under the auspices of the University of Utah. Two unoccupied trailers were damaged.
NAVMAR Applied Sciences Corp., San Diego, Calif., is being awarded a $5,267,809 indefinite-delivery, cost-plus-fixed-fee pricing contact for research and development engineering, and management support services for current and anticipated near term avionics, shipboard navigation systems engineering, communications systems engineering, and configuration management related to the global positioning system program. This contract contains two options which, if exercised, will bring the total cumulative value of this contract to $9,049,542.
Brazil's Embraer said it welcomed the decision of its government to return a dispute with Canada over aircraft subsidies to the World Trade Organization. Brazil and Canada previously asked the WTO to mediate their long- standing disagreement on subsidies, but were asked by the organization to try to resolve the dispute. Negotiations between the two nations had been going well, but recently reached an impasse. Bombardier and Embraer have a virtual lock on the multi-billion-
BALL CORP. relocated its corporate headquarters from Muncie, Ind., to Broomfield, Colo. The building is the former home of Ball Aerospace&Technology Corp., a Ball subsidiary now based in Boulder, Colo.
Omnitech Robotics Inc., Englewood, Colo., is being awarded a $3,314,930 increment as part of a $15,250,000 cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for the Engineering and Manufacturing Development Phase of the Vehicle Tele-
Raytheon Co., Electronic Systems Division, Bedford, Mass., is being awarded a $29,075,411 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for Classification, Discrimination, and Identification Phase III (CDI3) for the PATRIOT system. Work will be performed in Andover, Mass. (35%); Waltham, Mass. (31%); Sudbury, Mass. (15%); Tewksbury, Mass. (10%); Quincy, Mass. (5%); and Bedford, Mass. (4%), and is expected to be completed by May 31, 2003. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on June 24, 1997.
BOEING CO. yesterday received a $665.5 million contract from the U.S. Navy for the multi-year advanced acquisition of 44 remanufactured AV-8B Harrier aircraft. The contract includes logistics support, spares and repair parts. Work on the contract is to be completed by November 2003.
A newly declassified General Accounting Office report says that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is having trouble verifying whether North Korea is complying with all aspects of the 1994 agreement with the U.S. in which Pyongyang agreed to suspend its nuclear-weapons- related program in return for alternate energy from the U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), a critic of the agreement who requested the report, said, "We may never know how much bomb-grade plutonium the North Koreans have diverted to their weapons program."
Engineers at Japan's National Space Development Agency (NASDA) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) have completed detailed design of the first H-2A upgraded launch vehicle for commercial service, and MHI workers have started assembling the prototype. NASDA has scheduled hot-fire tests of the vehicle's stages and its solid rocket boosters before the end of this year. Work on the ground test vehicle is scheduled to start late this year at the Tanegashima launch facility, and the first H-2A flight is scheduled in the January/February slot of 2001.
Honeywell Inc., Phoenix, Ariz., was awarded on July 6, a $5,288,347 firm- fixed-price-requirements contract to provide for repair of the Multi Function Display and related items applicable to the F-16 aircraft. Funds will be obligated as individual delivery orders are issued. There were 8 firms solicited and 2 proposals received. Solicitation began June 1998; negotiations were completed June 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill AFB, Utah, is the contracting activity (F42620-98/D-0087).
Japan's National Space Development Agency (NASDA), pleased with the results of its first automatic docking test on the latest Engineering Test Satellite (ETS-7), will activate a laser radar to gauge closing distances on the next in a series of five more docking experiments between now and next February.
Lockheed Martin's Federal Systems unit will build 62 AN/APR-48A radar frequency interferometers and spares for British WAH-64 Apaches under a $30 million multi-year subcontract from Northrop Grumman's Electronic Sensors and Systems Div. Hardware delivery will begin this December and run through February 2003, Lockheed Martin said yesterday. The APR-48A is used to detect ground and airborne radars and prioritize targets. The passive system is mounted above the rotor blades to provide 360 degree coverage.
ORBITAL SCIENCES CORP. has started trading its share on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol ORB. Previously the Dulles, Va., traded on the NASDAQ market under the symbol ORBI. The changeover occurred Friday.
Special Metals Corp. (SMC), New Hartford, N.Y., entered into a definitive agreement with Inco Ltd. to acquire its Inco Alloys International (IAI) business unit for $408 million in cash. The acquisition is expected to close within 60 days. IAI, Huntington, W. Va., makes nickel-based alloys for a range of applications and markets. The unit also has operations in the U.K. and distribution centers and related businesses located in several countries, including Canada, France and Japan.
TRW Inc. will design, build and operate the Geosynchronous Lightweight Technology Experiment (GeoLITE) spacecraft for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office under a $77.8 million contract announced Friday. Set for launch on a Boeing Delta II from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., early in 2001, GeoLITE was described by TRW as "an advanced technology demonstration satellite with a laser communications experiment and an operational UHF communications mission."
William Reinsch, under secretary of Commerce for export administration, tells a Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee that China's advantage over U.S. satellite launch services is not lower cost but quicker time to launch. He notes that a satellite is not a revenue producer until it is launched. The U.S. has two-thirds of the satellite market, but only 40% of the launch market, he says.
Just back from a trip to Israel, Lyles says BMDO is not looking at a variant of the Arrow missile as an alternative to the THAAD missile. The primary goal regarding Israel is to make Arrow work first, Lyles says. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) has suggested a hybrid Arrow be considered to fill the THAAD requirement.
Congressional sources say House-Senate fiscal 1999 defense authorization conferees could hold their first meeting Wednesday at the earliest. The House returns tomorrow and conferees could be named then, setting up a Wednesday session. Staffs of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House National Security Committee have been working on issues that are likely to be settled at the staff level. Expected Senate approval of the defense appropriations bill next week would send the Pentagon money bill to conference.
The U.S. Navy has moved its demonstration of vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial vehicles to the next phase by exercising options with Bell Helicopter Textron and Bombardier for additional work with their respective UAVs.
DRS Technologies, Parsippany, N.J., won a $4 million contract from Northrop Grumman Corp. for additional wire harnesses, cable assemblies, panel boxes and related equipment for two of the U.S. Air Force's E-8C Joint STARS aircraft. The company, which has supplied wire harnesses for the Joint STARS program since 1992, said work for this contract will be carried out by DRS Laurel Technologies, Johnstown, Pa. The contract is from the Electronics and Systems Integration Div. of Northrop Grumman.
The U.K.'s General Electric Co. plc and Italy's Finmeccanica signed a definitive agreement to form a 50-50 joint venture between GEC-Marconi and Alenia Difesa to join their land-based and naval radar, command and control systems, missiles, simulation and training and air traffic control businesses, GEC announced Friday.
KELLY SPACE&Technology Inc. has hired two former Aerojet executives to develop the company's reusable launch vehicle plans. Bob Davis, former vice president and chief technology officer at Aerojet, will become president and chief executive, replacing founder Michael Kelly in those roles. Kelly will continue as chairman and chief technology officer. Marc Constantine, another former Aerojet executive, will become president and chief executive of Kelly Aerospace, a division set up to build the company's "Astroliner" reusable space launch vehicle.
