Russia's federal budget, to be signed soon by President Boris Yeltsin, keeps flat allocations for national civil space activity even as it promotes the federal space program to the top budget priority classification. The final version of Russia's budget for the on-going year 1998 was adopted by the Duma, similar to the U.S. House of Represenatives, on March 4, and this week it was approved by the Council of Federation, equivalent to the U.S. Senate. It is expected to be signed by Yeltsin as soon as he recovers from his current illness.
Eric Dermond has been named chairman and chief executive officer of the Milwaukee company. Max Dermond has been named president and chief operating officer.
Citing incidents involving a Reno Air MD-83 and a Centennial Airlines MD-80, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board recommended that the FAA determine whether safety shields for Pratt&Whitney JT8D-200 engines cover a large enough area and provide enough impact resistance.
RUSSIAN PROGRESS supply capsule docked safely with the Mir orbital station Tuesday, bringing a new set of wrenches to open a jammed airlock hatch and a roll-control engine the crew can install once they get the airlock open. Cosmonauts Talgat Musabayev and Nikolai Budarin are scheduled to make at least five spacewalks during their stay aboard Mir, including one to splint a Spektr-module solar array broken when a runaway Progress capsule rammed into it. An earlier Mir crew was unable to accomplish that task because of the jammed hatch (DAILY, March 4).
TRACOR SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGIES, Rockville, Md., won a $59.8 million, 10-year contract for logistics support for the U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Washington state. Tracor said the contract was awarded by the Fleet and Industrial Supply Center, Puget Sound, Bremerton, Wash., for management and execution of government storeroom, warehousing, receiving, material movement and other related logistics support operations. Work will be performed at Tracor's Keyport, Wash., and Hawthorne, Nev., sites.
Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Wash.) yesterday said language in the Senate Budget Committee report that calls for a General Accounting Office audit of the intelligence budget and suggests a repeat of the fiscal 1996 finding of $3 billion in unobligated National Reconnaissance Office balances amounted to "wishful thinking." The Senate Budget Committee Wednesday night approved the budget plan of Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) by a party-line vote of 12-10. The language in the chairman's mark, committee sources said, will be incorporated in the report.
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright yesterday fought a two-front war in Congress, arguing against a resolution directing the U.S. to withdraw its forces from Bosnia and appealing for the no-offset supplemental request of $3.7 billion to cover the costs of Bosnia and the Persian Gulf buildup.
A Lear Astronics system to assist aircraft landing in adverse weather is to undergo an operational assessment on a C-130 as part of the third phase of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program. The Autonomous Landing System will be tested by the Air Force's 418th Test Wing at Edwards AFB, Calif., in limited visibility weather. The system uses a 94 GHz radar to produce an image of the landing area ahead of the airplane regardless of the visibility, according to Lear.
The U.S. Navy on Tuesday logged an extensive F/A-18E/F flight test without experiencing either the wing drop or buffeting that have hounded the flight test program during the past few months. The Navy installed a porous wing fairing on the F/A-18E/F to handle a "wing drop" phenomena noted since the early days of flight testing. But that fix caused buffeting, which proved difficult to resolve. The Navy and Boeing have modified the porous fairing over the past couple of days to try to eliminate the buffeting.
The Pentagon stands to gain more funds if either House National Security Chairman Rep. Floyd Spence's budget plan or Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici's proposal prevails in the budget process. But uncertainty remains because it is unclear what the House Republican leadership and House Budget Chairman Rep. John R. Kasich (R- Ohio) will do in the budget-resolution process. In the past, defense has been secondary in their considerations.
A bipartisan group of House members are pushing the Administration to approve Israel's request for a third Arrow battery to defend against an emerging ballistic missile threat from Iran. The Israeli Ministry of Defense recently requested a third battery of Arrow missiles, but the Pentagon has been reluctant to concede (DAILY, March 2). High-level talks between the U.S. and Israel on the issue are said to be ongoing.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office will spend the next six years developing and launching an initial set of two synthetic aperture radar/ground moving target indicator (SAR/GMTI) satellites to demonstrate the technology. The three organizations recently formalized an equal cost share agreement to proceed with the space-based SAR/GMTI initiative after an independent panel resolved political difficulties that arose last year (DAILY, Feb. 6).
COMSAT Corp., Bethesda, Md., has signed a stock purchase agreement to sell its COMSAT RSI Inc. (CRSI) unit to a subsidiary of TBG Industries Inc. for $116.5 million. Operations at CRSI, which makes and integrates satellite Earth stations and wireless and advanced antenna systems, were discontinued in June 1997.
BOEING ENTERPRISES will invest $10 million in Israel's Rada Electronic Industries, making Boeing the largest single stockholder in the airplane avionics test equipment and electronics company, Boeing announced yesterday. The agreement is for passive equity investment only, but Boeing may provide Rada with avionics expertise on new systems and collaborative opportunities. The transaction should be completed in the second quarter.
Product innovation and globalization will lead to aerospace and defense companies deriving 31% of their revenues from products introduced in the next three years, industry executives believe. This is up from expectations of only 20% a year ago, according to a study released Monday.
This table outlines the declining number of companies competing for or under contract on U.S. defense contracts, broken down by market sector. Submarines and ammunition are not listed, since those sectors have not undergone changes. Sector Reduction in 1990 contractors 1998 contractors contractors Tactical missiles 13 to 3 Boeing Boeing Ford Aerospace Lockheed Martin
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has picked teams led by Harris Corp. and L3 Communications to continue development of the Tactical Common Data Link (TCDL), eliminating Motorola from the competition. The Harris team received $8 million for its future TCDL work. The team includes GEC Marconi Hazeltine Corp and TSI TelSys Inc. The team is providing about $2 million as its cost-share in the program. L3 Communications, teamed with Rockwell Collins, received $6 million for its work.
U.S. Air Force officials yesterday gave the go-ahead for technicians today to test-run an F119 turbofan with reworked clearances in the high pressure compressor, an AF spokesman said, and success could restore engineering/manufacturing development (EMD) testing temporarily suspended earlier this month. An apparent compressor seal failure during an engine run at the AF's Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) near Tullahoma, Tenn., led the service to halt all EMD testing until the cause was understood (DAILY, March 11).
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION special response teams are being established by the Pentagon, Defense Secretary William Cohen announced Tuesday. A total of 10 Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection units are being set up to handle weapons of mass destruction (WMD) attacks against the U.S. Their activity will be overseen by the newly established Consequence Management Program Integration Office led by Air Force Lt. Col. Jay Steinmetz, and will be supervised by the Army. The new office is to integrate the reserve forces with active duty forces to react to WMD emergencies.
General Atomics has sold and delivered its first improved Gnat-750 unmanned aerial vehicle, an upgrade of the Gnat-750 UAV flown by the Central Intelligence Agency, to an overseas customer. General Atomics didn't disclose the customer or how many systems it is delivering. The UAVs delivered are expected to be thoroughly tested and evaluated by the customer, which could lead to additional orders, a GA official said. The system is equipped with an electro-optical payload.
The House National Security Committee yesterday passed the Theater Missile Defense Improvement Act of 1998, adding $147 million to a number of theater missile defense (TMD) programs to bolster defenses against an Iranian ballistic missile threat projected to materialize within the year. The committee passed the bill (H.R. 2786) in a unanimous vote.
A team of TRW and Boeing will compete against Lockheed Martin for development of the Space-Based Laser Readiness Demonstrator. TRW will be the prime contractor, with Boeing as the main subcontractor on "Team SBL." In the past TRW was a subcontractor to Lockheed Martin on SBL work. Both teams were awarded six-month study contracts that will lead up to the SBL downselect this fall.
