RAYTHEON MISSILE SYSTEMS yesterday was awarded a total $255.6 million Navy contract to begin development of the Tactical Tomahawk. Congress only recently approved the Navy's plan to reprogram fiscal 1998 funds to begin Tactical Tomahawk production.
NASA has opened an "Office of Human Space Flight Program" in Moscow as it prepares for the dawn of the International Space Station era. Astronaut Michael A. Baker, a U.S. Navy captain and assistant director of Johnson Space Center, will head the office, which will manage the transition between the Shuttle/Mir phase of the International Station program and the assembly and operation of the Station itself.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) isn't ready to make an issue of the possibility that Loral and Hughes may have passed sensitive data to Beijing, even though the Clinton Administration has not turned over any documents on the matter to the Senate Republican China Task Force or the chairmen of committees with jurisdiction to investigate it.
ADVANCED MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY, Washington, D.C., won a contract to provide expertise in adapting the Global Positioning System to civil aviation requirements. The contact is worth $27 million over three years with four one-year options valued for a total value of $62 million. The company will provide technical engineering services and program management support for satellite and satellite augmentation systems for the FAA.
TITAN CORP., San Diego, said it won a $23.7 million, five-year contract from the U.S. Navy's Naval Undersea Warfare Center Div. Under the contract, the company's Unidyne subsidiary will provide services on submarine fire control and sonar systems, submarine undersea warfare system, outboard cables and surface ship ASW systems.
NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery roared aloft safely Tuesday evening in the first flight of the "super lightweight" aluminum-lithium external tank developed for International Space Station logistics, but a critical communications link used for television and science data failed soon after Discovery reached orbit.
Former Rep. Bob Dornan (R-Calif.) is assured of a rematch this November with Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), who ousted him in a disputed election in 1996, but the vote totals in Tuesday's primary can hardly be comforting to him. With voters allowed to vote for any candidate regardless of party affiliation, Sanchez took 44% of the vote and Dornan took 26%, compared to 14.5% for his nearest Republican contender.
Sen. Robert Kerrey (D-Neb.) said many of recommendations offered Tuesday by Adm. David Jeremiah in the wake of the failure of U.S. intelligence to predict India's nuclear tests earlier this month have been offered before - but were either thwarted by Congress or by the intelligence community itself. Kerrey, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he will nevertheless push for enactment of the recommendations. He explained that the Director of Central Intelligence cannot make the improvements without a number of statutory changes.
Boeing's MD-11 product will be phased out with the delivery of 22 current orders and options, making February 2000 the last rollout of the trijet, Boeing Commercial President Ron Woodard said yesterday. "Despite our best marketing efforts, it became clear to us that there simply was not enough customer interest in either the passenger or freighter versions of this airplane to justify keeping the production line open," Woodard said.
U.S. Space Command will be headed by Gen. Richard B. Myers, now commander of Pacific Air Forces. Myers will replace Gen. Howell Estes who is retiring, the Pentagon announced yesterday. Replacing Myers in Hawaii will be Lt. Gen. Patrick K. Gamble, who only recently became the AF's deputy chief of staff for air and space operations. He will be promoted to four-star rank. Maj. Gen. Marvin R. Esmond will be promoted to lieutenant general and take over the operations job at the Pentagon. Esmond is serving as the commander, Air Warfare Center at Nellis AFB, Nev. Also, Maj.
French Defense Minister Alain Richard's specific exclusion on Tuesday of any British Aerospace or Daimler-Benz Aerospace shareholding in Aerospatiale has raised new issues on the European consolidation front.
Jed Holzapfel has been named vice president, International Business Development, responsible for marketing and sales of Alliant products and technologies throughout the world. Brian V. See has been named director of technology for its Defense Systems Group. headquartered in Hopkins, Minn.
The U.S. Navy says the sensors it plans to use on its future tactical airborne reconnaissance pod could be retrofitted on the Advanced Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance System (ATARS) and Theater Airborne Reconnaissance System (TARS), now in use with the Marine Corps and Air Force. The Navy plans to develop the Shared Reconnaissance Pod (SHARP), also known as the Super Hornet Advanced Recce Pod, for the F/A-18E/F. It would build on the Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance Pod (TARPS), carried by the F-14.
James R. Fitzgerald, Vice Admiral USN (Ret.), has been appointed vice president and director of Antisubmarine Warfare-C4I Operations based in Arlington, Va.
Israel Aircraft Industries has won a "very bitter fight for survival," according to CEO Moshe Keret, but with its first profit in five years he now looks to reposition for the future, making such major shifts as changing ownership by the government so the company can participate in industry consolidation.
Joe Vreeman has been appointed senior vice president, customer support responsible for the customer support organization worldwide at Fairchild Aerospace Corp.
The following appointments have been made to the board of directors: David K. Moskowitz, senior vice president, secretary and general counsel of Echostar. Nolan Daines, chairman and CEO of California-based DiviCom, Inc.
OPEN SYSTEMS CORE AVIONICS REQUIREMENT (OSCAR) flew for the first time May 29 aboard a U.S. Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier II Plus aircraft at the Naval Air Warfare Center, China Lake, Calif., Boeing said yesterday. OSCAR, using commercial off-the-shelf products, replaces the mission computer and weapons management computers with modern computers based on commercial processor and interface standards. It also re-engineers the operational flight program to use a commercially available operating system and application program interfaces.
Carl A. Marchetto has been named president, replacing T. Christopher Fitzsimmons who has announced his plans to retire on August 1. Michael J. O'Brien has been named manager for laser communications, Image Acquisition Systems (IAS). Michael J. Richardson has been appointed manager for commercial remote sensing, IAS. Jeffrey A. Wynn has been appointed manager for Optical Systems, IAS.
Richard Smallwood, formerly director business on the Board of Management, has left the company and returned to Rolls-Royce plc as senior vice president, customer business Europe, South and Central America and customer business director for British Airways.
The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee yesterday cleared a $250.3 billion fiscal 1999 Pentagon money bill that provided full funding for the F-22 tactical fighter without any of the fencing in the authorization, essentially endorsed cuts in the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program, and trimmed the Airborne Laser air vehicle but increased ABL ground testing. The bill goes to the full Appropriations Committee for its markup tomorrow, and could be on the Senate floor next week, a committee spokesman said.
