ROEMER'S RUSSIAN AXE: Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.) gets a little help from the Russian government this year for his annual effort to kill the International Space Station.
The House Appropriations Committee trimmed $170 million from NASA's fiscal 1999 spending request for the International Space Station, citing poor "management control" by both the U.S. space agency and Station prime contractor Boeing. The action late Thursday, which followed the recommendation set by the subcommittee on VA, HUD and independent agencies, would leave NASA with $2.1 billion to spend on Station, matching the annual spending cap for the project set by the White House before the program ran into cost problems.
PROLIFERATION: Military forces of 49 nations use GPS, according to Mike Shaw of the Defense Dept.'s Office of GPS Navigation and Positioning. He says at a conference that 25 countries have access to the GPS Precise Positioning Service, and that GPS antennas have been seen on export models of the MiG-29.
The U.S. Navy is willing to give up the lead on the Joint Emitter Targeting System (JETS) following another budget cut. JETS was supposed to start this year, but was delayed until 2000. In the latest budget deliberations, the Navy initially pushed it out to 2001, but then had to eliminate funding altogether.
NO FLIR: U.S. Marine Corps AV-8B aviators won't get any help soon in the area of more accurate bomb delivery. The service wanted to buy about 80 podded FLIR systems that would have included a laser spot tracker to allow more precise bombing in all weather, day or night. But, a Marine Corps official says, the funding didn't come through in the program objective memorandum.
The Senate Armed Services Committee plans to call U.S. Air Force Secretary-designate Daryl L. Jones to testify in an executive session before deciding on his nomination, a committee spokesman said Friday. This would be the second executive session on the nomination, indicating the difficulty the committee is having deciding whether Jones is fit to be AF Secretary despite the charges made against him. No date has been set for the session, the spokesman added. The Senate is in recess now and will not return until July 7.
The U.S. Air Force has begun a study to look at the uses of airborne laser weapons in tactical aircraft. The study, "Directed Energy Applications for Tactical Airborne Combat," is headed by former AF Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald R. Fogleman, the AF Research Lab said Friday. "I believe that directed energy weapons will be fundamental to the way the Air Force fights future wars," Fogleman said in the AFRL announcement.
CHARLES GABELER JR., 76, former executive of Air America, died of pneumonia June 16 in McLean, Va. It was an open secret that Air America was owned and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. It operated in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Senate has approved a $273 billion fiscal 1999 defense authorization, adding an amendment to double the Pentagon's $5 million request for the Scorpius Low Cost Launch Development Program. Offered by Sens. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the amendment was accepted without opposition. Scorpius is being developed at the Air Force Phillips Laboratory at Kirtland AFB, N.M. The goal of the program is to make U.S. space launches less expensive.
B-2 DEPLOYMENT: One of two major B-2 bomber deployments still to take place this year is expected to be in the continental U.S. The likely location is MacDill AFB, Fla., an AF official says. The deployment will be in September. Where the stealth bomber will go on its next overseas deployment hasn't been finalized. The first, earlier this year, was to Guam.
The U.K.'s General Electric Co. plc completed the merger of Tracor Inc. with its U.S. subsidiary, GEC announced yesterday. Tracor will be managed by the North America operations of GEC-Marconi, which will be renamed Marconi North America Inc. GEC paid $1.4 billion for Tracor, consisting of $40 per share of common stock and assumed debt. More than 90% of the stock was tendered. The untendered shares have been converted into the right to receive $40 per share, subject to rights of appraisal.
Raytheon Systems Co. won a $9.9 million contract from the U.S. Navy for factory restoration of AN/SLQ-32 shipboard electronic warfare systems. The systems had been removed from decomissioned ships and stored at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) in Crane, Ind., Raytheon said. The contract covers seven of a projected 30 systems that will be restored during the next several years at Raytheon facilities in Goleta, Calif. The restoration work is shared between Raytheon and NSWC, with final assembly, alignment and test performed at Goleta.
The Supreme Court declared the line-item veto unconstitutional in a 6- 3 ruling yesterday, opening the possibility for many of the items struck down by President Clinton to win court challenges. The president struck down 13 items involving budget authority of $144 million in the fiscal 1998 defense appropriations bill. Among the cancellations were the Anti-Satellite (ASAT) system and the Clementine research and development project (DAILY, Oct. 15, 1997).
TRACOR INC., Mojave, Calif., won an $80 million follow-on production contract, with options, from the U.S. Air Force for the continued conversion of obsolete F-4 aircraft to QF-4 full-scale aerial targets. Tracor will convert at least 72, and as many as 192, aircraft over the next seven years. Conversion of the first 12 is valued at $8.3 million, with five one-year options for 12-36 drones each ranging from $72 million to $102 million. The first 12 are scheduled for delivery at a rate of one per month to Tyndall AFB, Fla., beginning in June 1999.
Northrop Grumman has completed the first live fire test of the AN/AAQ- 24(V) Directed Infrared Countermeasures (DIRCM) system, intended to foil missiles and being developed mainly for U.K. helicopters and U.S. Special Operations Command C-130s. The test took place June 8 at the U.S. Army's White Sands Missile Range, N.M., Northrop Grumman said Wednesday. The type of missile fired against DIRCM was not released.
The newly formed House select committee to investigate whether national security was compromised by developments arising from Chinese launches of U.S. satellites will concentrate initially on launches involving Space Systems/Loral and Hughes Electronics, but other companies may come under scrutiny as well, Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), the panel chair, said yesterday.
BOEING won an $8.1 million contract to design prototype satellite communications phased array antennas for the next generation of U.S. Navy surface ships. Under the three-year contract, Boeing will deliver an antenna with a phased array architecture that exhibits low radar cross section and infrared signature. The program, managed by Boeing Phantom Works, will have three stages - design, fabrication and testing of a 44-GHz active transmit array, a 20-GHz active receive array, and transmit and receive Ku-band arrays.
EG&G INC., Wellesley, Mass., won a five-year, $39 million contract through its Services division from the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, Va., for technical, engineering and management services to support development of a Trident Submarine missile fire control systems, as well as other activities.
RAYTHEON SYSTEMS CO., Lexington, Mass., won two contracts totalling $28 million from U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command for work on the Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) program. The first contract, worth $17.5 million, is for engineering support and includes an option that could bring the value to $47.6 million. Work will be performed at Raytheon's Tucson, Ariz., facility. The second contract, worth $10.4 million, is for 10 ordnance alteration kits and related support equipment to allow the RAM Mk.
Competitors in the first phase of development of the powered Low Cost Autonomous Attack System will receive $1 million contracts before the government picks one for the rest of the 48-month advanced technology demonstration.
The role of the Pentagon's Defense Technology Security Agency in deciding on the export of dual-use technology has made it "the joke of the interagency [review] process," a senior official of the agency told Congress yesterday. Peter M. Leitner, senior strategic trade adviser a DTSA, told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee that most cases are approved outright based on the "meager information" contained in license applications.
After two fruitless attempts this week to launch the Resurs O1 civil remote sensing satellite with a Zenit-2 rocket, Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces had better luck orbiting two military reconnaissance satellites on older Soyuz-U rockets launched back to back.
The U.S. Air Force plan to complete at least 183 flight test hours with the F-22 fighter before two more are put on contract in December is on track after the first few weeks of flight testing, according to Lt. Gen. George Muellner, the AF's top acquisition officer.
