ROCKWELL COLLINS will provide the full suite of navigation and communication radios, collision avoidance systems and weather radar for the Boeing Business Jet (BBJ). Deliveries of the BBJ will begin mid-year.
Some Republican lawmakers said yesterday they are concerned the national missile defense (NMD) program the Pentagon is pursuing may not be capable of protecting Alaska and Hawaii. "A comprehensive NMD system is absolutely necessary and they must include Alaska and Hawaii because we're states," Appropriations Committee Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) told The DAILY in a brief interview yesterday. Stevens also said he has a problem with limiting the NMD system to a single site.
More than 26,000 aircraft of all types worth about $680 billion are expected to built in the next 10 years, according to the Teal Group of Fairfax, Va.
Australia's Defense Science and Technology Organization is preparing to help ensure that Matra BAe Dynamics' ASRAAM missile is optimized for local conditions and use, and the contractor has teamed with British Aerospace Australia to offer maintenance and support.
Russia's Mir orbital station will be retired and deorbited in late 1999, after the last contracted foreign visitor departs, General Director of the Russian Space Agency Yuri N. Koptiev has confirmed. Asked last Saturday about the usefulness of further extension operations aboard Mir, which has been in orbit for 12 years, Koptiev said it would not make sense to continue using Mir once there are no more foreign customers.
Alenia Aerospazio will participate in both the Chinese Airbus AE316 and the Boeing 717 100-seat airliners if Giorgio Zappa has his way. Zappa, president of the Italian company, has set joining Airbus as his major goal, even though Alenia Aerospazio builds major fuselage sections for the Boeing 717.
During the next ten years, 3,369 fighter/attack/jet trainer aircraft worth $100.8 billion will be produced worldwide, with annual output rising during the second five-year period, according to Forecast International/DMS of Newtown, Conn.
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright yesterday admitted that the U.S. is "concerned about the slow pace of action" by the Russian Duma on ratification of the START II arms reduction treaty. Albright's comment came during her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on NATO expansion. She mentioned both areas where the U.S. and Russia were cooperating and areas of disagreement, which included START II ratification.
Boeing's Phantom Works will develop a solar-thermal orbital transfer vehicle for the Air Force under a $48 million, four-year contract from the AF Research Laboratory at Kirtland AFB, N.M., the company said yesterday. Boeing will design, develop and integrate a Solar Orbit Transfer Vehicle (SOTV) space experiment that could lead to an operational SOTV. Such a vehicle would lower the cost of placing payloads in high orbits by reducing takeoff weight on the ground.
The U.S. and U.K. governments have signed an agreement to share information on the British Aerospace-developed Broach warhead if the U.S. decides to buy the system for one or more of its standoff missiles. The agreement will provide the U.S. access to modelling and mission planning information for Broach that was funded by the British Ministry of Defense. The U.S. will get data from those models as it evaluates the warhead. Once the U.S. decides to buy Broach it would get the source code to run the models itself.
Israel Aircraft Industries' Malat Unmanned Aerial Vehicles division is showing the new Searcher Mk. II UAV for the first time in Singapore, with an operational aircraft on display.
The B-2 bomber's defensive management system was deemed "operationally unsatisfactory" in initial operational test and evaluation, a newly released Pentagon report says. The problems include "inaccurate information, a cluttered display and excessive workload being required to operate the system," according to the annual report of the Pentagon's Operational Test and Evaluation office. Air Force operational testers considered the B-2 survivable against projected threats if it uses certain tactics.
Joseph P. Leonard, president and chief executive officer of AlliedSignal's Marketing, Sales&Service (MS&S) business, is optimistic about Asia despite its economic problems. "We are still very bullish on Asia Pacific," said Leonard, who is also an executive vice president of the parent company. "The economies will bounce back in the long term, some by 2000," he said in an interview in Singapore with Aviation Week's Asian Aerospace '98 Show News.
The U.S. Navy is experiencing difficulties integrating parts of the electronic countermeasures suite onto the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, according to the annual report from the Defense Dept.'s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, Philip E. Coyle. "The current ALE-50 towed decoy cable burns off in flight with afterburner selected," the report said. Without afterburner, it said, heat from the engine exhaust causes electrical power to the decoy to shut off.
A nuclear umbrella above Moscow is gone and won't be back, Russia's Defense Minister Marshal Igor D. Sergeyev claimed last Saturday. Sergeyev's statement came in response to recent reports by some Moscow-based newspapers that there had been a top-level decision to revive the nuclear-armed anti-ballistic missile system around Moscow. The reports apparently were prompted by a recent statement by Col. Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, commander-in-chief of Strategic Rocket Forces, who said "minor modifications" to the Moscow ABM system are underway.
Textron Systems, Wilmington, Mass., won a $144 million contract from the U.S. Air Force's Aeronautical Systems Center, Eglin AFB, Fla., 550 Sensor Fuzed Weapons. Delivery of these Full Rate Production lot 3 SFWs is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 1999. Textron has won contracts to build 521 units in lot 1 and 542 in lot 2.
Cubic Defense Systems, San Diego, Calif., is being awarded a $9,741,256 face value increase to a cost-plus-award-fee contract to provide for extension of the design and development of upgrades to the Red Flag Measurement and Debriefing System in support of the Nellis Air Combat Training System effort at Nellis AFB, Nev. This modification provides for schedule slip from April to October 1998, cost growth, and extended development of required encryption devices. Contract is expected to be completed December 1998.
Raytheon Systems Co., Fort Wayne, Ind., is being awarded a $19,799,114 firm-fixed-price contract for 57,137 AN/SSQ-53E sonobuoys and associated data. The AN/SSQ-53E sonobuoys are dropped from various airborne platforms and utilized for search and detection of submerged submarines. The place of performance is yet to be determined, and is expected to be completed by February 2000. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured with three proposals solicited and three offers received.
Japan's Space Activities Committee has formed an investigation committee to study why the H-2 rocket's LE-5A second-stage engine stopped firing early Saturday, leaving the COMETS experimental broadcasting satellite stranded in the wrong orbit. Saturday's mishap, which made it impossible for the COMETS spacecraft to achieve its planned geostationary orbit, marked the first time the all- Japanese launch vehicle has failed. An upgrade for the commercial launch market, the H-2A, will use some imported components alongside Japanese hardware.
The White House has formally asked Congress for the authority to transfer $173 million in fiscal 1998 NASA funds from science and infrastructure accounts to cover a shortfall in the International Space Station program. The money, plus another $27 million the U.S. space agency plans to shift to Station from Space Shuttle spending within the overall human spaceflight account, will give the agency the $200 million it says it needs this fiscal year to keep the program on track (DAILY, Dec. 15, 1997).
Sweden's Saab Aircraft has won a contract from France's Aerospatiale to supply an integrated structural floor assembly for Airbus' newly launched family of large aircraft, the A340-500/600. Saab said the order is worth about $75 million and calls for first delivery during the latter half of 1999. The work will be carried out by Saab's business unit, Collaborative Programs, which signed a memorandum of understanding with Airbus last year.
British Airways (BA) plans to acquire a family of about 100 short-haul jets to equip its European subsidiaries with new aircraft, the airline announced yesterday. The initial order could be worth between $655 million and $980 million.
Honeywell Sensor and Guidance Products' Guidance and Navigation Operation, Clearwater, Fla., won a contract from General Dynamics Amphibious Systems to provide an auxiliary navigation system for the Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAAV). Honeywell, announcing the win yesterday, said it will deliver four Tactical Advanced Land Inertial Navigator (TALIN) systems for use in prototypes, and integrated engineering support. The contract could lead to more than 1,000 systems through 2010.
GE Capital Services, Stamford, Conn., completed its acquisition of SimuFlite Training International Inc. from SATGroup Inc. GE Capital said SimuFlite, based at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, will become part of its Commercial Equipment Financing (CEF). SimuFlite employs more than 450 people at DFW, Marietta, Ga., and Tampa, Fla.
GLOBAL HAWK unmanned aerial vehicle, first flight of which had been planned for Saturday at Edwards AFB, Calif., has been put off for at least a week. High level clouds allowed one of the chase planes to take off, but not the Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical UAV. TRA hopes that the weather will be clear by mid-week, and that the flight can be completed before next weekend. Officials are anxious to complete the flight, which is more than a year behind schedule.
