BMDO and the U.S. Navy next month will propose to the Pentagon's Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) a plan to field an initial Block I version of the Navy Theater Wide, or Upper Tier, theater missile defense system, Lyles says. BMDO and the Navy would follow soon after with a "more capable" Block II upgrade, he says. The DAB is slated to review the acquisition plan in mid-April.
Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), a member of the House National Security research and development subcommittee, is pushing for $24 million to bring a second Comanche helicopter prototype into the test program in fiscal 1999, ahead of the current plan for fiscal 2000. When he asked about the idea at an HNSC hearing last week, Army Acting Secretary Robert M. Walker was ready for the question and said that there is a second prototype, but that the $24 million would be needed for "facilitizing it for testing" in FY '99.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN said it expects a request for proposals from the U.S. Air Force for the Joint STARS radar technology insertion program (RTIP) soon, and a contract award could come in November. RTIP is a $1.3 billion preplanned product improvement (P3I) program in which the company will design, develop, install, test and integrate advanced radar systems in Joint STARS. The current schedule calls for a six-year development phase. Depending on funding, production retrofits could begin in 2006.
The first B-2 is about to enter phased depot maintenance, meaning it will have logged 600 hours of flight time. Although the B-2 has been labeled as having maintenance woes, Goslin points out that 600 hours between phased depot maintenance sessions is the longest time of any USAF combat plane.
The U.S. government won't commit full funding to buying 40 Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) user operational evaluation systems (UOES) until two more flight tests, in addition to one slated for May, are conducted, according to Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director Lt. Gen. Lester Lyles.
Raytheon said yesterday it will sell its European-based Raytheon Electronic Controls business to the EGO Group of Germany for $38 million, including assumption of debt. The sale of the business, which makes controls for appliances, tools, automotive and other applications in Germany and Spain, will be the last action resulting from Raytheon's strategic assessment of its appliance business. Raytheon will realize a total of about $1.2 billion from the sale of the units of its former appliance business.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl discussed a program yesterday to develop a European military transport plane based on Russia's Antonov An-70, according to the Itar-Tass news agency. The three European leaders met in an informal summit outside Moscow to discuss several issues, including development of cooperation between Russia and the European Union and Russia and NATO.
United Technologies' Hamilton Standard controls unit in Windsor Locks, Conn., last week acquired full ownership of France's Ratier-Figeac from the French industrial company Bertrand Faure. Hamilton Standard held a minority interest in the French company for more than a decade. And the two companies already were jointly involved in a composite propeller business, making the commercial six-bladed 568F system, which is used on the ATR 42-500 and ATR 72-210.
A private space tourism industry worth tens of billions a year could grow out of government-funded research already underway and facilities like the U.S. Space Shuttle and planned International Space Station that exist or are soon to be built, a joint study by NASA and a variety of private aerospace and tourism industry representatives has concluded.
The U.S. Air Force's 509th Bomb Wing is getting ready for the first operational readiness inspections of its B-2 bombers. A nuclear ORI is slated for later this year, and a conventional ORI is planned in about 14 months. The ORIs will determine if the Air Combat Command unit is capable of performing its nuclear and conventional missions. Successful completion will "give a great deal of confidence and credibility to the system" and prove it can do its job, said Brig. Gen. Tom Goslin, commander of the 509th.
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director Lt. Gen. Lester L. Lyles insisted yesterday that "we are not backing off" from the Clinton Administration's "three-plus-three" strategy for the National Missile Defense program. The strategy calls for a decision to deploy the system in 2000, and deployment itself in 2003 if the decision is favorable. "We are sticking by three-plus-three," Lyles told a Capitol Hill breakfast meeting on missile defense sponsored by the National Defense University Foundation and the National Defense Industrial Association.
ODETICS COMMUNICATIONS DIV. will supply the solid state recorder for Japan's Unmanned Space Experiment Recovery System (USERS) under a contract awarded by Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (MELCO). Odetics will provide an SSR- 1600 recorder that will be mounted in the USERS Service Module, which will orbit the Earth for three years after its launch aboard an H-2A rocket. The mission will also carry a Reentry Module that will return to Earth.
A mission planning error forced one of two B-2 bombers deploying to this Pacific island base from the U.S. on March 23-24 to jettison half its bombs rather than dispensing them as planned.
Toronto-based Orenda Recip, Inc., won Transport Canada certification for its OE-600A high-output V-8 aviation engine, clearing the way for rapid action on a host of Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) mods built around the new power plant within the next six months. Certification had slipped twice before, to solve early teething problems - including troubles with the crankshaft - as well as to add features requested by potential customers (DAILY, Aug. 22, 1995, AP, Nov. 21, 1996).
PANAMSAT has picked Hughes to build its PAS-6B direct-to-home platform, which will serve South America with a 7-kilowatt payload of 32 Ku-band transponders. The HS 601HP satellite will carry a xenon ion propulsion system and dual-junction gallium arsenide solar cells, which will provide a 15-year service life. The satellite will be launched on an Ariane 4 vehicle before the end of the year.
RAYTHEON CO. has sold two more of its Highly Integrated Surveillance and Reconnaissance System (HISAR) radars to the U.S. Army to support its Airborne Reconnaissance Low-Multi-mission (ARL-M) program. The Army fielded the first two Moving Target Indicator/Synthetic Aperture Radar (MTI/SAR) systems for the ARL-M program in Korea in September 1996. The service has bought a total of five HISAR radars for the ARL-M program to date. Another HISAR variant currently is in flight test for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle.
HUGHES SPACE AND COMMUNICATIONS International will supply two HS 702 model satellites to American Mobile Radio Corp., which will use them to beam high-quality digital radio signals to receivers in the U.S. The satellites will be delivered on orbit in April and August 2000, carrying high-power digital S-band Digital Audio Radio Service (DARS) payloads built by France's Alcatel Espace. American Mobile Radio also has an option for a third satellite, Hughes said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The U.S. Air Force has no plans to delay the schedule for production of the F-22 fighter, but could consider increasing the rate of flight testing leading up to that time, Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon told reporters yesterday.
American Eagle Airlines chose Pratt&Whitney Canada as fleet engine repair center for its PW100 turboprops, and the Canadian company is sending a full-time Power Plant Engineer to Dallas as part of the deal. The contract includes overhaul, repair, hot section inspection, component repair development, accessory repair, spare engines and Quick Engine Change (QEC) support. American Eagle flies 200 aircraft on 1,200 flights every day to 125 cities.
ORBCOMM has opened its European Gateway in Italy that will provide the Orbital Sciences Corp. subsidiary's satellite-based alphanumeric messaging service to 42 European nations. Located at Telespazio Matera Space Center in Southern Italy and at Telespazio Lario Space Center in Northern Italy, the Earth station and Gateway Control Center, respectively, will relay messages between Orbcomm's growing constellation of small low Earth orbit satellites and the Internet or dedicated telephone lines.
The Senate on Tuesday added $151 million, $51 million more than the Clinton Administration requested, to counter a theater missile threat that is expected from Iran within the year. Introduced by Senate Appropriations Chairman Sen. Ted Stevens (R- Alaska) on behalf of Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), the amendment was approved without objection and added to the defense-disaster fiscal 1998 supplemental. It would add the following requested amounts:
The Chilean Air Force plans to buy a Sikorsky S-70A Black Hawk helicopter, Sikorsky announced at the FIDEA Air Show in Santiago yesterday. It quoted air force spokesmen as saying the sale kicks off a major aircraft replacement program. Sikorsky said the program will replace the current fleet of UH-1 Hueys with Black Hawks on a 3-to-1 ratio, with additional S-70 buys planned for the next several years.
FRANCE'S SPOT 4 Earth resources satellite has passed its initial checkout following its launch Monday night (DAILY, March 25), and will be handed over to SPOT Image in Toulouse by the French space agency CNES once the platform is configured for operations. In addition to two High Resolution Visible and Infrared (HRVIR) imagers that will provide 10-meter resolution in black and white and 20-meter multispectral resolution, SPOT 4 carries the Vegetation sensor built by Aerospatiale.
