LASER POWER CORP., San Diego, completed the buy of EMI Acquisition Corp. and its subsidiary Exotic Materials Inc. for 2.1 million shares of Laser Power common stock and options. The transaction, which is being treated as a pooling of interests, is valued at about $15.5 million. Exotic Materials, doing business as Exotic Electro-Optics, makes infrared night vision optics. Its proprietary optics technologies also are used in missile guidance and detection systems.
Criticism of the U.S. Air Force's Airborne Laser (ABL) program is unfounded and largely has died down, senior USAF leaders told the Senate Appropriations national security subcommittee yesterday. ABL has come under fire by the General Accounting Office and some scientists who claim atmospheric turbulence will hinder effectiveness of the laser.
LOCKHEED MARTIN completed the sale of its Commercial Electronics subsidiary to Benchmark Electronics Inc., Angleton, Tex., for $70 million in cash. Lockheed Martin also completed the sale of assets of its MountainGate Data Systems Inc. subsidiary MoutainGate Acquisition Corp. Terms were not disclosed.
The U.S. Army is considering using the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile as the interceptor for the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) to hold down costs. Several options have been laid on the table as the Army is crafting its outyear budget plans, Lt. Gen. Paul J. Kern, the Army's top acquisition officer, told reporters yesterday. "We are continuously looking at the capabilities across all of our systems and how we handle tradeoffs," he said during a meeting at the Pentagon.
ISRAEL MILITARY INDUSTRIES will build 110 Improved Tactical Air Launched Decoys for the U.S. Navy under a $14.4 million contract. The ITALDs are to be delivered by October 1999, the Navy said.
The U.S. Navy predicts it can save money if it buys Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response weapons within the future years defense plan. "I can avoid $40 million in cost if I can buy it out in the FYDP," Rear Adm. J.M. "Carlos" Johnson, chief of Navy aviation plans and requirements, said in an interview. The savings would largely be a result of improved economic order quantities and reducing the time that inflation costs can build up.
The economic crisis that has hit Korea and other Asian nations will affect the Korean modernization program and may delay the planned acquisition of Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft and heavy submarines, as well as "an additional 45 to 50 smaller acquisitions," the commander of U.S. forces in Korea testified yesterday.
An overtightened bolt thwarted an attempt by two Mir cosmonauts to repair a precarious solar array yesterday, leaving the three-man crew stuck inside the 12-year-old orbital station until new tools can be delivered from Earth.
The government of Bahrain has signed a letter of acceptance (LOA) to buy up to 10 new F-16 fighters, a Lockheed Martin spokesman confirmed yesterday. The LOA covers eight aircraft and an amendment request for two additional F-16s. The F-16s will be powered by General Electric F110-GE-100B engines, which, according to GE, have been chosen by all Middle East countries which operate the F-16C/D. It said the countries, in addition to Bahrain, are Egypt, Greece, Israel and Turkey.
The U.S. Defense Dept. doesn't see Daryl L. Jones being dropped as the White House's nominee to become Air Force secretary despite a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, and instead is expressing frustration about attacks against him. "There's concern that there does seem to be some sort of campaign against [Jones'] candidacy by some people who have made charges against him," Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said yesterday.
Orbcomm Global L.P., the Orbital Sciences Corp. spinoff that has started deploying a "Little LEO" constellation of alpha-numeric data relay satellites in low Earth orbit, yesterday named Orbital co-founder Scott L. Webster chairman of its partner board and chief executive officer. Alan Parker, who has headed Orbcomm through nine years of development as president and CEO, will become president, Orbcomm Global Development, in charge of winning licenses to operate in key markets worldwide and of developing next-generation satellites and services.
FAA HAS SELECTED Raytheon and a Lockheed Martin/Northrop Grumman team to demonstrate and test a new civilian secondary radar system as part of the agency's Air Traffic Control Beacon Interrogator (ATCBI-6) competition. The teams will demonstrate their systems at the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center, Atlantic City, N.J., beginning this month. This operational capabilities testing phase of the competition will run through June or July. At the same time, the FAA will ask both bidders to submit technical specifications and costs.
Commercial satellite builders cannot afford to ignore the needs of the U.S. government as they develop new products, and should try to understand government requirements early in the development process, according to a top executive of Hughes Space&Communications. Robert Rankine, Hughes vice president, government marketing, last week took issue with a statement by a Motorola engineer who charged the U.S. Defense Dept. "dropped the ball" by not taking an early role in the development of "Big LEO" low Earth orbit communications constellations.
NASA's Stennis Space Center is looking for 10 to 15 industry-led teams to help define the market for commercial space-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data that might be generated by a future "LightSAR" spacecraft. Teams will be paid as much as $300,000 a year for three years to help the agency's Earth Observation Commercial Applications Program (EOCAP) develop a "portfolio" of commercial applications for SAR data that could lead to a SAR-based market, according to Bruce A. Davis, project element manager at Stennis.
The U.S. Air Force has begun flight testing the BLU-109 Joint Direct Attack Munition with redesigned aerodynamic strakes and plans in coming weeks to begin ground testing a new fin-lock mechanism for the weapon, according to Oskar Soler, the Air Force's JDAM program manager. The AF found late last year that the BLU-109 with the JDAM guidance kit was unstable at high angles of attack, which forced the strakes to be redesigned (DAILY, Dec. 15, 1997). The AF decided to delay buying BLU-109s by one year as a result.
The Administration is asking Congress for $20 million to subsidize an estimated $167 million in loans to Central European countries, including the three nations invited to join NATO, to help address major deficiencies in airlift, air defense radar and communications equipment.
TITAN CORP., San Diego, completed the acquisition of all 4.4 million outstanding shares of DBA Systems Inc. DBA, Melbourne, Fla., makes digital imaging products, electro-optical systems and threat simulation/training systems. DBA will become an operating company of Titan Technologies and Information Systems
A buffeting problem caused by the porous wing fairing fix to the F/A- 18E/F Super Hornet's wing-drop tendency has led program managers to decide to redesign the fairing and flight test it next week, Pentagon sources said yesterday. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jay L. Johnson said last week that the porous wing fairing is "probably the leading candidate" to eliminate the wing-drop effect, or uncommanded bank angles caused by asymmetric lift (DAILY, Feb. 26).
The U.S. Navy is putting pressure on its Joint Standoff Weapon program office to cut the cost of the AGM-154C unitary version. "The challenge to them is to come back in to me with a unitary version that is a precision weapon that costs less than $200,000," Rear Adm. J.M. "Carlos" Johnson, the Navy's chief of aviation plans and requirements, said in an interview at the Pentagon. It now costs about $300,000. The process is continuing as part of the fiscal 2000 program objective memorandum drafting process.
Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries (IHI) is accelerating production of 13,380-kilogram-thrust General Electric F110-129 engines for Mitsubishi F-2 close air support fighters flown by Japan's Air Self-Defense Force. The first 11 engines are being built and will be delivered by January 1999, and 10 more will be delivered by November of next year. An order for eight additional engines will be placed soon.
MARION COMPOSITES, Marion, Va., entered into a long-term production alliance with General Electric Aircraft Engines to make composite inlet devices for the GE F414-400 turbofan engine for the F/A-18E/F strike fighter. The devices are currently in low-rate production at GE and will move to Marion over the next year. The initial agreement, covering the first five years of the production alliance, estimates an average production of one per month in 1999, increasing to nine or more per month over the life of the contract.
Lockheed Martin Corp, Tactical Aircraft Systems, Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $10,563,060 modification to previously awarded contract N00019-97-C-0038 for the software infrastructure technology maturation effort for the Joint Strike Fighter Program. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas (80%), and Los Angeles, Calif. (20%), and is expected to be completed in February 2001. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
Funding problems may be forcing the U.S. Army to abandon its plan to acquire the XM777, a replacement for the M198 towed howitzer used by Army and Marine light forces, but an executive of Textron, which holds a big piece of the program, says this would be a mistake. "This is probably as good a case of an outstanding acquisition reform program as anything you'll see," said Dan Ferezan, regional manager, North America business development and marketing, land, for Textron Marine&Land Systems.
Sonalysts, Inc., Waterford, Conn., is being awarded a $19,007,623 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for support of operating guidelines and training for both advanced and operational anti-submarine warfare systems. The total estimated level of effort is 359,000 manhours. Work will be performed in Waterford, Conn., and is expected to be completed by February 2003. Contract funds in the amount of $25,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
