ITT AEROSPACE/COMMUNICATIONS DIVISION, a unit of ITT Industries, White Plains, N.Y., won a $156.7 million contract to make Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS) receiver/transmitters for the U.S. Army. The new order is in addition to a 1997 contract for SINCGARS.
PRATT&WHITNEY won a $453.3 million U.S. Air Force contract for the continued overhaul and repair of engines for F-15 and F-16 fighters. P&W said yesterday that the contract provides for scheduled and unscheduled depot maintenance of the F100-PW-229 engine fan, core, high pressure turbine and low pressure turbine modules. The contract went to Pratt&Whitney Eagle Services' subsidiary Pratt&Whitney - San Antonio (PWSA), the first commercial overhaul and maintenance enterprise located at Kelly AFB, San Antonio, Tex.
Raytheon E-Systems, St. Petersburg, Fla., is being awarded a $14,333,714 modification to a firm-fixed-price, with time and materials contract, to exercise the first year option for ninety-five Joint Tactical Terminals from the low rate initial production and full rate production contract for Joint Tactical Terminal/Common Integrated Broadcast Service Modules (JTT/CIBS-M). These modules provide war-fighters with tactical intelligence and targeting information.
NASA will begin pushing neural nets and even more advanced forms of "soft computing" that rely on natural languages and other symbols rather than numbers to meet the ambitious goals it has set itself for the coming decades, Administrator Daniel S. Goldin said yesterday.
Alliant Techsystems, Inc., Hopkins, Minn., is being awarded a $12,124,005 cost-plus-fixed-fee, delivery order against a basic ordering agreement for the design, engineering development, fabrication, and test of an improved Outrider System. The Outrider System is an unmanned air vehicle being developed for joint service use by the Navy, Army and Marine Corps. Work will be performed in Hopkins, Minn., and is expected to be completed by March 1999. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured.
Lockheed Martin Corp., Sunnyvale, Calif., was awarded on April 30, 1998, a $5,023,134 face value increase to a fixed-price-incentive-fee/award-fee; cost-plus-award-fee; cost-plus-fixed-fee; time-and-material contract to provide for upgrade of Defense Satellite Communication System satellite A3 and integration onto the Integrated Apogee Boost System. Expected contract completion date is December 2000. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., is the contracting activity (F04701-96-C- 0023; P00024).
Northrop Grumman, Bethpage, N.Y., is being awarded a not-to-exceed $7,250,000 letter contract for the procurement of nine kits to modify and upgrade EA-6B, Block 89 aircraft to the Block 89A configuration, which is the baseline for the Improved Capability III configuration. Work will be performed in Rolling Meadows, Ill. (37%), Bethpage, N.Y. 33%), Melbourne, Fla. (27%), and St. Augustine, Fla. (3%), and is expected to be completed by September 1999. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured.
AAI CORP., a subsidiary of United Industrial Corp., New York, won a contract from the U.S. Air Force's Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright- Patterson AFB, Ohio, to design and produce a Surveillance Radar Training Set (SRTS) Maintenance Trainer. The initial value is about $14.5 million, with additional development and production options.
FED CORP., Hopewell Junction, N.Y., completed the acquisition of Virtual Vision Inc., a head-mounted display technology company based in Redmond, Wash. FED is a privately held company that develops direct-view and optically-viewed emissive displays.
AIL Systems Inc., Deer Park, N.Y., was awarded on April 24, a $5,146,179 firm-fixed-price contract to provide for repair of various quantities of 22 components of the AN/ALQ-161A electronic countermeasures on the B-1B aircraft. There was one firm solicited and one proposal received. The work is expected to be completed December 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Robins AFB, Ga., is the contracting activity (F09603-98/D-0083, 0001).
Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office, Patuxent River, Md., is being awarded a $144,680,728 modification to previously awarded contract N00019-96-C-0054 to provide for the manufacture and delivery of two additional FY 98 MV-22 low-rate-initial-production aircraft. Work will be performed in Ridley Park, Penn. (50%), and Fort Worth, Texas (50%), and is expected to be completed by January 2001. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
Boeing said that Bavaria International Aircraft Leasing Co. ordered five 717 aircraft on which flight tests are scheduled to get underway this summer. These are the first orders for the 100-seat airplane since ValuJet, now AirTran, ordered 50 plus 50 options in October 1995.
BOEING CO. has been cleared by the U.S. Air Force to proceed with work on the YAL-1A Airborne Laser following completion of the week-long preliminary design review. The PDR is the first of several design milestones before the ABL attempts to shoot down a ballistic missile in the year 2002. The critical design review is scheduled for next summer. The AF said in a statement yesterday that the use of Boeing's Computer-Aided Three- dimensional Interactive Application (CATIA) has allowed technicians to find possible problems early in the design phase.
The House and Senate weapons subcommittees will mark up their portions of the fiscal 1999 defense authorization today with the Air Force's F-22 fighter the only major system up for significant debate. The $2.393 billion request for the F-22 is not at issue, but the production schedule is.
CHINESE LONG MARCH 2C/SD rocket orbited two Iridium low Earth orbit communications satellites Saturday, bringing the total number of the satellites launched in the past year to 67 and leaving only five more to go before the initial constellation is complete. Liftoff from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center came at 5:16 a.m. EDT, and the two satellites separated about 50 minutes later.
NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia touched down safely at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on Sunday after its 16-day "Neurolab" mission to study how the nervous system adapts to microgravity, but the flight proved deadly for dozens of newborn rats and other experimental animals.
CINC CHANGES: This summer will see some top-level moves among AF officials as Gen. Howell Estes, commander in chief for U.S. Space Command, retires. The two front runners for the post are Gen. Richard B. Myers, AF Pacific Command, and Lt. Gen. Lester Lyles, Ballistic Missile Defense Organization director.
HIGH ENERGY TESTS: This summer and fall Army Space and Missile Defense Command will test the Tactical Higher Energy Laser (THEL) against a number of launched Katusha missiles at the service's High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility, White Sands Missile Range, N.M., according to SMDC Chief Lt. Gen. Edward Anderson. The Army has enough fiscal year 1998 funding to conduct the tests, but may need some additional support dollars, he notes. The plan is to wrap up the THEL tests by December.
Latin America has a requirement for 700 new aircraft during the next 10 years, valued at $37 billion, a company executive predicts. John Hayhurst, Boeing's VP-Sales, Americas, told the International Airline CEO conference this week that 85% of those new aircraft will be narrowbody jets. "Latin American economic growth and financial stability will continue to improve," he said. Boeing expected the region to grow 8.5% annually from now through 2007. The Boeing global market forecast is due out in June.
Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces orbited a classified military satellite last week with a Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, apparently an early warning platform bound for a geosynchronous orbit.
The presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan have approved a document specifying how Russia will pay the rent for using the Baikonur Cosmodrome, although formal signing of this long-awaited agreement was delayed until Boris Yeltsin's visit to Akmolla, scheduled for July 1-2. The Leasing Treaty, signed by Yeltsin and Nursultan Nazarbayev back in 1994, provided that Russia should pay Kazakhstan the equivalent of $115 million per year for use of Baikonur, which is located on the territory of Kazakhstan.
EXTRA CREDIT: Heading into the congressional markups, the F-22 gets some last-minute support from seven former Defense Secretaries. Bill Perry, Dick Cheney, Cap Weinberger, Frank Carlucci, Harold Brown, James Schlesinger and Donald Rumsfeld all sign a statement in support of the U.S. Air Force's stealth fighter. "Serious threats to American air superiority may arise sooner" than expected, they say.
Army Space and Missile Defense Command Chief Lt. Gen. Edward G. Anderson said Friday he will recommend against creation of a lead system integrator (LSI) for theater missile defense (TMD). "I will recommend not to do an LSI for TMD," Anderson said at a breakfast on Capitol Hill sponsored by the National Defense University Foundation. "The integration of these various, diverse capabilities would be very hard for one single contractor. I don't think there would be anything to gain."
SPACE DEBRIS: The U.S. and Russia will soon be aided by Japan in scanning Earth orbit for dangerous orbital debris. Japan's Science and Technology agency plans to spend about $15.3 million on a radar station and a telescope facility in Okayama Prefecture to look for debris. The radar site, set for completion by 2004, will be able to spot 1-meter objects as high as 600 kilometers, while the optical facility will use a 1-meter telescope to scan higher altitudes once it is finished in 2002.
MARKING TIME: The fate of the Air Force's plans to start F-22 production in fiscal 1999 is likely to be settled in conference. The Senate Armed Services airland subcommittee has taken the lead on the issue, and there is concern on the panel that the AF may be rushing things with only 4% of the development test program completed before work on the first two Production Representative Test Vehicles is scheduled to begin. Rep.
