Orbital Sciences Corp., enjoying a $3.5 billion backlog in orders for space systems, plans to build a 175,000-square-foot "satellite factory" at its Dulles, Va., headquarters location to consolidate its workforce and accommodate another 1,000 to 1,500 workers over the next three years. In ceremonies at the site yesterday, the company also announced plans to build a new control center for its Orbimage subsidiary, and to expand the facilities there already in use by the company's Orbcomm unit.
Raytheon Co. will produce 813 AIM-120B and AIM-120C Advanced Medium- Range Air-to-Air Missiles for the U.S. Air Force under a new $243 million contract. The company said award includes a previously announced $168.2 million firm-fixed price contract for Lot 12 production of 554 AMRAAMs (DAILY, April 15). The award supports missile deliveries, program engineering and logistic services through July 2000 to the U.S. Air Force and Navy as well as Foreign Military Sales to Italy, Greece and Turkey. Options are included for Lots 13 through 15.
Rear Adm. Rodney P. Rempt, the U.S. Navy's principal adviser on the Theater Wide (Upper Tier) and Area Wide (Lower Tier) missile defense systems, said yesterday that a $2 billion to $3 billion budget boost would achieve Block I Theater Wide capability in 36 to 40 months - four to five years earlier than now planned.
A failure investigation board has pinned last summer's loss of the Lewis Earth observation satellite on a combination of poor engineering and inadequate spacecraft monitoring early in the mission, NASA's first to apply the "faster-better-cheaper" concept to spacecraft development and operations.
A U.S. State Dept. official yesterday defended the decision this year to grant a license for a Chinese launch of a Loral satellite even though the Justice Dept. had reported that Loral and Hughes were under investigation for possible violations related to the launch by China in 1996 of another Loral satellite.
China is expected to deploy the solid fuel DF-31 intercontinental ballistic missile within the next two years, according to a report sponsored by the U.S. National Defense University. The DF-31 is more accurate than previous Chinese ICBMs and will be able to reach most of the U.S., according to "Strategic Trends in China," produced by the NDU's Institute for National Strategic Studies. The accuracy of Chinese ICBMs is expected to improve further in the future, it added.
The Senate yesterday considered an amendment to the Armed Services Committee-approved fiscal 1999 defense authorization that would have returned control of the export of satellites to State Dept.'s Munitions List from the Commerce Dept.'s Control List, but it was withdrawn later in the day.
Formation of the special House panel to investigate whether sensitive military technology was transferred to China represents a shift in approach from confrontation to accommodation for the House Republican leadership. The House Democratic leadership also compromised, as can be seen in the makeup of the committee whose membership was announced Friday.
NASA has set out a list of "grand challenges" in the space exploration and aeronautics fields to spur advanced technology concept developments for the long term, using $500,000 grants to fund up to two years of work refining concept proposals. The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) has issued its first call for proposals, based on the set of challenges drafted by a top-level panel of space and aeronautics experts retained by the Internet-based "virtual institute" (DAILY, March 31).
RUSSIA WILL LAUNCH its 26th mission to the Mir orbital station on Aug. 3 for a rendezvous and docking two days later, according to the Russian Interfax news agency. The three-member crew of Soyuz-TM28 will include a former aide to President Boris Yeltsin, Yuri Baturin (DAILY, Dec. 8, 1997), along with Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Avdeyev. Baturin is scheduled to return to Earth Aug. 16 on Soyuz-TM27 with the present cosmonaut crew, Talgat Musabayev and Nikolai Budarin.
Ground controllers at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have managed to unfold a stuck antenna most of the way out from the new NOAA-15 polar orbiting weather satellite, significantly improving the data certain users are receiving on the ground.
Japan's Defense Agency plans to cut more than $1.5 billion in various weapons procurement programs between 1999 and 2003. The agency currently spends about $7.4 billion - $8.4 billion a year for weapons procurement.
Lockheed Martin Missiles&Space, Sunnyvale, Calif., projects job reductions of 1,000-1,500 employees in its Bay Area operations by the end of the year. Employment totals about 9,500. The company said it has offered a "Voluntary Layoff Plan" to employees eligible for retirement, and also anticipates that attrition will account for a "significant share" of the reductions.
Top U.S. Navy acquisition officials have approved the rebaselining of the Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (IDECM) program, aimed at developing the electronic warfare suite for the Super Hornet fighter, after it encountered an 87% cost overrun and a schedule slip of about half a year.
India's Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) project is being hit hard by U.S. economic sanctions. The sanctions, prompted by India's nuclear tests on May 11 and 13, affect several major American components, including the General Electric engine. The LCA, under development since 1983, is already late and over budget, and officials have held a series of meetings in recent weeks to reorganize the effort to make it more self-reliant. A first flight had been envisioned for December 1998, but this is now planned for mid-1999.
Raytheon Aerospace Co., Madison, Miss., is being awarded a $21,739,570 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery requirements contract for contractor logistics support of 25 government-owned, FAA-compliant, T-39N and T-39G aircraft and associated equipment for the undergraduate flight officers program. Work will be performed in Pensacola, Fla. (98%), and Okinawa, Japan (2%), and is expected to be completed in September 1999. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Raytheon Technical Services Co., Vienna, Va., is being awarded a $1,500,000 increment as part of a $7,174,330 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the elimination of heavy bombers and Air-launched Cruise Missiles (ALCMs) in Ukraine. Work will be performed in the Ukraine, and is expected to be completed by April 12, 2001. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were four bids solicited on April 23, 1998, and four bids were received. The contracting activity is the Defense Special Weapons Agency, Alexandria, Va. (DSWA01-98-C-0117).
Boeing signed a $45 million contract with the Australian Defense Forces (ADF) for two CH-47D Chinook helicopters during a ceremony in Canberra Friday, the company said. The Chinooks will be delivered in Brisbane in 2000, joining four CH- 47Ds in service with the Australian Army's 5th Aviation Regiment since 1995. Work will be performed at the Boeing rotorcraft program management center in Philadelphia.
NASA is basing its future space transportation planning on the assumption that commercial launch services will meet most of the nation's needs for the next 20 years, and will focus primarily on human spaceflight as it decides whether to continue flying the Space Shuttle or shift to a future reusable launcher like Lockheed Martin's VentureStar.
LITTON AMECOM has won a contract to develop the Tactical Jamming Receiver as part of the Increased Capability III EA-6B upgrade for the U.S. Navy. The Litton unit will receive about $40 million for engineering and manufacturing development work on the contract, which has an overall potential value of $400 million.
Pacific-Sierra Research Corp., Santa Monica, Calif., is being awarded an $8,999,962 cost-plus-fixed-fee-contract to provide for the Multisensor Fusion Module Development program. This effort will design, develop, test, evaluate, and demonstrate multisensor fusion architectures and algorithms for entity and event detection and characterization. Expected contract completion date is March 2000. Solicitation issue date was September 10, 1997. Negotiation completion date was May 20, 1998.
Lockheed Martin Corp., Marietta Ga., is being awarded a $28,000,000 face value increase to a firm-fixed-price-contract to provide for conversion of 5 C-130J aircraft to the KC-130J tanker configuration for the Marine Corps. Expected contract completion date is December, 2000. Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-95- C-2055-P00012).
Boeing's Phantom Works has completed a low level study for the U.S. Navy of possible requirements for development of several different types of marinized unmanned combat air vehicles. The Navy asked Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and a Navy team to assess an Uninhabited Naval Strike Aircraft (UNSA). It wanted them to look at three types - a submarine-launched system, a short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) system, and a vertical attitude takeoff and landing (VATOL) system.
