Three units of Northrop Grumman Corp. will participate on Boeing's National Missile Defense (NMD) team, Northrop Grumman said Thursday. The total value of the subcontracts over the first three years of the program is $70 million.
SITE SURVEY: The U.S. Air Force is planning to conduct site surveys in 2000 to determine where to base the YAL-1A Airborne Laser, AF officials say. The selection will be made in 2001. ABL also will have to operate from oversees locations. The AF wants the aircraft to be able to use existing bases, rather than spend additional military construction money. Yet to be determined is if and where laser fuel to rearm the ABL would be prepositioned in facilities called fuel farms.
The U.S. Army is planning a development program to put a semi-active laser seeker on its 2.75-inch rocket for precision accuracy. The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System development would start in 2004 and enter service around 2006, according to Col. Richard Savage, air- to-ground missiles project manager. He termed it "a-low risk program" which has already received a great deal of attention from industry.
Catalogued spacecraft buses and stockpiled space hardware have helped NASA stay on schedule with its QuikSCAT ocean scatterometer satellite program, which is trying to develop, build and launch a major scientific spacecraft in about a year. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has delivered its SeaWinds instrument to Ball Aerospace, Boulder, Colo., for integration into the QuikSCAT spacecraft under construction there. NASA said the delivery will support a launch in November, one year after JPL was authorized to proceed.
France's newfound willingness to let Russian space launch vehicles lift off from the Guiana Space Center in its South American territory is part of a larger move to make Europe's launch industry competitive with the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs) being built by Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
The U.S. Army plans to begin the engineering and manufacturing development program for an improved Hellfire missile in 2003, with fielding for the first dual-mode missiles expected around 2008. The requirements document for the new missile is still being written, but Army plans have already been established that call for EMD to start in 2003, low-rate production to begin in 2007 and full rate production to start in 2008, according to Army Col. Richard Savage, air-to-ground missiles project manager.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has expressed an interest in developing a supersonic derivative of the Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical Miniature Air Launched Decoy being developed for the U.S. Air Force. Supersonic firing would require MALD to be equipped with a new engine, replacing the low-cost Sundstrand system that now powers the decoy. The supersonic MALD could be made possible "at a very low cost," David Whelan, director of DARPA's Tactical Technology Office, told the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International here.
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) yesterday charged the Clinton Administration has shielded U.S. satellite manufacturers and China from U.S. sanctions, but other committee members questioned the effectiveness or wisdom of sanctions. Meanwhile, the House Rules Committee put off until Tuesday consideration of a House Republican leadership resolution creating a special committee to investigate the alleged transfer of launch technology to China.
U.S. companies that have completed their major acquisitions and divestitures are now concentrating on generating the cost savings they expected to realize from the transactions. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Rockwell Collins discussed their plans and some of the early results during Aviation Week's Aerospace Finance '98 Executive Symposium in Arlington, Va., earlier this week.
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) has completed its Exon- Florio review of the $1.4 billion acquisition of Tracor Inc. by Britain's General Electric Co. plc, GEC announced yesterday. No other governmental or regulatory clearances remain as a condition to the completion of the tender offer by GEC Acquisition Corp. for the purchase of all outstanding Tracor shares. The offer and withdrawal rights are set to expire at midnight EDT June 17 (DAILY, April 22).
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization has conducted the fourth high-energy laser test of the uncooled deformable mirror (UDM) for the ALPHA Large Advanced Mirror Program (LAMP) program. The June 9 lasing test ran for five seconds, with 4.5 seconds of closed-loop wavefront and jitter control accomplished, BMDO reported.
Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre, in a closed session with members of the House National Security Committee, painted a bleak picture of the vulnerability of Pentagon and private-sector computer operations to cyber attacks. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), chair of the HNSC research and development subcommittee, said yesterday's meeting with Hamre was the most provocative he had seen in his 12 years in Congress and urged other members to request the classified briefing.
Lack of funding has forced the U.S. Army to delay by several years starting development of a penetrator variant of the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). The Army wanted to start engineering and manufacturing development of the ATACMS Block 3 in 2001, following a demonstration of the penetrator capability. However, recent Army funding drills have pushed the start of that program out until 2005, Donald C. Baker, the Army's deputy product manager for ATACMS, said in an interview. Production now won't start until around 2008.
THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES has signed a letter of offer and acceptance with the U.S. Navy for the Harpoon Weapon System, Boeing announced yesterday. The number of Harpoons sold was not released. The anti-ship missile system will be deployed aboard frigates recently acquired by the U.A.E. The U.A.E. also has placed a $7 billion order with Lockheed Martin for 80 F-16s (DAILY, May 13). Three countries besides the U.A.E. have added to their inventory of Harpoons this year.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jay Johnson said yesterday that he wants to equip the U.S. Navy's Aegis ships with theater missile defense systems as soon as possible.
As the U.S. Army is tries to define a follow-on to the surface-to-air and air-to-air Stinger missile, officials are trying to avoid picking a hardware solution too early, according to Lt. Col. Tom Newberry, acting project manager for Army Short Range Air-Defense Systems. Current Stinger plans are expected to keep the missile viable until 2015 or later, Newberry said in an interview here. The new program would present the next step to address outyear threats.
RMI Titanium Co., Niles, Ohio, has been designated the sole supplier of titanium mill products for the F-22 fighter, RMI announced. The contract, which begins this year, will continue through the life of the program, estimated at about 339 aircraft to be produced by 2012 and carries a potential value of $340 million.
Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems, Fort Worth, Tex., is applying lean manufacturing principles to the AN/ALE-50 Pylon Program, the company announced. Lockheed Martin projects a lead time reduction of 80%, with similar improvements in the yield and inventory. The contract calls for 413 pylons to be made, with a potential follow- on buy of 559 units. Production begins in March 1999 with the last delivery in June 2000.
Boeing Co. yesterday rolled out the 717-200 airliner in a ceremony at its plant in Long Beach, Calif. Joseph Corr, president of AirTran, which launched the 717 with 50 firm orders and 50 options, said at the ceremony that "our plans are to replace our entire fleet with the 717." AirTran now operates 48 aircraft, 37 DC-9s and 11 737s. Corr said AirTran expects to increase its fleet to 51 aircraft by this August. It will begin receiving the new Boeing 717s next summer.
Boeing launched Norway's Thor III direct-to-home communications satellite on a Delta II flying from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., Monday night. Liftoff came at 8:35 p.m. EDT, during the second launch window of the evening, and the satellite reached geosynchronous transfer orbit safely, Boeing said.
The U.S. Air Force and Raytheon have worked out an intricate arrangement to upgrade electro-optically-guided AGM-65 air-to-ground Maverick missiles through reuse of hardware on older Mavericks. The upgrade is intended to extend the service life of the AGM-65 through the use of a charge coupled device seeker. Operational benefits of the CCD include greater reliability and the ability to operate in lower light levels.
