AEROJET PLANS to test fire a Russian NK-33 engine it has modified for the Kistler K-1 reusable launch vehicle at its Sacramento facility today. Originally built for the Soviet moon program, a supply of NK-33s was held in storage for some 20 years before Aerojet acquired them for the Kistler project. Three of the Russian engines, modified by Aerojet, will power the first stage of the K-1, and a second Russian engine - the NK-43 - will power the second stage. Both stages and all four engines will be recovered for reuse with a parachute/airbag combination.
The three military space programs targeted with presidential line-item vetoes after the fiscal year 1998 appropriations process have the potential to fill existing voids in the U.S. military space capability, the director of the National Reconnaissance Office and the head of U.S. Space Command told senators yesterday.
The Army plans to decide in the next budget cycle-the Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) starting in the year 2000-whether to abandon upgrades of the M1A1 tank to the more capable M1A2 and move on to different approaches for the battlefield of the future, Army executives testified yesterday. Lt. Gen. Paul J. Kern, military deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for research, development and acquisition, told the Senate Armed Services airland forces subcommittee that it will be "one of the hardest decisions the Army has to make."
The U.S. Air Force wants its armaments developers to produce a family of munitions in the newly established miniaturized munition program office rather than just one weapon. The AF last month stood up the new office, which combined the Small Bomb System (SBS) effort with the powered Low Cost Autonomous Attack System (Locaas) initiative. The AF also is conducting an analysis of alternatives (AOA) to see what weapon to buy.
Senate Armed Services seapower subcommittee Chairman Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) Tuesday disputed a Navy witness' testimony that increasing the life cycle of ships and cutting down crew size will free up money for new ships, calling it "a party-line answer" to the problem of a shrinking Navy. Warner, a former Secretary of the Navy who is in line to be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee next year, sees the present future years defense plan as providing a bleak future for Navy shipbuilding.
A headline and introductory paragraph (DAILY, March 10) overemphasized points made by Russ Turner, the head of Boeing's reusable space systems business unit. Turner said the U.S. Space Shuttle has certain human spaceflight capabilities that would be expensive to build into planned next-generation reusable launch vehicles, not that those RLVs can't replace the Shuttle. Additionally, a Boeing concept to use residual propellant in the Shuttle external tank would shift the fuel into a lunar transfer vehicle housed in the Shuttle cargo bay.
LYNX REAL-TIME SYSTEMS INC., San Jose, Calif., has won a contract to provide the real-time operating system for the Army's Crusader field artillery system. The Lynx system will support onboard processing for functions such as the ballistic calculations.
Whittaker Corp. rebounded from a difficult 1997 with a first quarter profit of $10.4 million on sales of $31.8 million. While most of the earnings came from a $10.1 million gain on the sale of Whittaker Xyplex Inc., earnings from continuing operations were $322,000, compared to a loss of $2.5 million in the first three months of 1996. In the first quarter of 1996, Whittaker, Simi Valley, Calif., took an $18.1 million loss on sales of $19.7 million. The company recorded a $15.5 million loss on discontinued operations in the period.
The U.K. and Finland have signed a memorandum of understanding on defense contracts and cooperation between the two countries. They said the document "signals the desire of both countries for increased contact between their ministries of defense and their armed forces, both bilaterally and in support of the Partnership for Peace."
A senior U.S. Air Force acquisition official asked lawmakers yesterday to scale back the across-the-board cuts in weapons programs that are typically made at the end of the annual appropriations process to compensate for inflation adjustments and other budgetary changes.
Britain, France and Germany launched a 350 million pound ($573.3 million) collaborative program for a long-range battlefield radar to locate enemy artillery. The Euro-Art consortium - consisting of Racal, Thomson-CSF, SI Sicherungstechnik and Lockheed Martin - signed a contract March 6 for the industrialization and production phase of the Counter Battery Radar (COBRA), intended detect and track hostile artillery fire, according to the British government.
The U.S. Air Force on Friday detected some damage in the F119 engine of the F-22 fighter during testing at the Arnold Engineering Development Center, in Tennessee, Lt. Gen. George K. Muellner, principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition, told members of the House National Security Committee yesterday.
Lockheed Martin has said delays in the F-22 engineering and manufacturing development program shouldn't cause the program to exceed its negotiated costs, according to the General Accounting Office. The U.S. Air Force's estimate to complete EMD is $18.884 billion, $55 million less than the cost cap, and Lockheed Martin said a three-month delay of the first flight shouldn't increase the costs, according to "F-22 Aircraft: Progress in Achieving Engineering and Manufacturing Development Goals" (GAO/NSIAD-98-67).
The U.S. Navy has set a unit cost goal of $600,000 for its Supersonic Sea Skimming Target (SSST) program as it gets ready to begin a competition to supply 20 to 25 of the vehicles per year.
Boeing depended on China and other Asian nations for 39% of its commercial sales in 1997, the company says in its not-yet-mailed annual report. In a 10-K report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company says about 50% of its contractual backlog value at the end of 1997 was with non-U.S. customers, and about 25% of combined accounts receivable and customer and commercial financing were amounts due from customers outside the U.S.
The Clinton Administration's $3.7 billion emergency defense supplemental to pay for the continued presence of U.S. forces in Bosnia and the buildup in the Persian Gulf has ran into steady criticism from members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, but even those most unhappy with the request conceded Senate approval. "The reality is that if we don't approve the request we will hurt those in the military," said Sen. Thad Cochran (Miss.), senior Republican on the committee. "I don't think we have any choice."
NASA's Space Shuttle can't be replaced by the next-generation reusable launch vehicles on the drawing board now because the new RLVs don't have human spaceflight capability, and the U.S. government should proceed carefully before it scraps the fleet of four space planes, Boeing's outgoing reusable launch vehicle chief is arguing.
Honeywell won FAA certification for its new-generation Pegasus flight management system, a development that it said introduces "the long- anticipated era of Communication/Navigation Surveillance/Air Traffic Management" (CNS/ATM). The new FMS received its first certifications on Boeing 757, 767 and MD-90 aircraft.
Rear Adm. Dennis McGinn, the U.S. Navy's director of air warfare, said yesterday that the service is "fine tuning" the porosity in the porous wing fairing fix that it has settled on to solve the wing-drop problem in the F/A-18E/F, and is no longer considering any of the other fixes that it identified as potential solutions earlier this year. McGinn said in an interview with The DAILY after testifying at a Senate Armed Services seapower subcommittee hearing on 21st century warfare that two other approaches "have been eliminated" from consideration.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has recruited two scientists whose specialities will help the U.S. space agency in its "Origins" search for extra-solar planets and possible extraterrestrial life. Didier Queloz, co-discoverer of the first planet found in orbit around a sun-like star, will spend the next year and a half at JPL as a visiting scientist. The Swiss astronomer will help his JPL colleagues develop technologies to aid the search for more planets in other stellar systems.
Evans&Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City, Utah, won a $1 million contract from Raytheon for 38 avionics display systems for the Air Force's B-2 aircrew training systems program. The display systems will be used to instruct and monitor aircrew actions in the B-2 aircrew training devices. The displays emulate a range of B-2 aircraft onboard systems.
John A. McLuckey, president of Boeing Space Systems, will retire April 1 from the $4 billion business unit, the company said. Boeing said yesterday McLuckey will be replaced by James F. Albaugh, president of the Rocketdyne Propulsion&Power unit within Space Systems. At the same time Space Systems will be renamed the Space Transportation unit to reflect its business focus better.
