NASA's inspector general has warned that some members of two special "task forces" set up under the leadership of Apollo-era astronaut and retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Stafford to give advice on the Shuttle/Mir portion of the International Space Station program, and on the operational readiness of the Station itself, are so closely aligned with the Station program as to "negate the appearance" of impartiality.
PANEL LOOKS AT PROLIFERATION: Missile technology proliferation, particularly regarding Iran, will get a close look in coming weeks by the Senate Government Affairs subcommittee on international security and proliferation. It will also examine arms and export control, ballistic missile defense and nuclear deterrence, all of which are linked, a subcommittee aide said. For example, he said, it's impossible to address the issue of national missile defense and not consider proliferation.
CLOSE CONTESTS: Five Democrats and one Republican on the House National Security Committee are considered vulnerable in congressional elections this November, based on their narrow margins of victory last time. The five HNSC Democrats who won last time with 52% of the votes or less are Loretta Sanchez (Calif.), James H. Maloney (Conn.), Neil Abercrombie (Hawaii), Lane Evans (Ill.) and Adam Smith (Wash.). The lone Republican is Bill Redmond (N.M.), who won a three-way special election last year in a Democratic district with 43% of the vote.
The Russian government has ordered all national exporters to abstain from exporting even non-restricted commodities if they can be used by recipients to build weapons of mass destruction or delivery systems.
DOWN UNDER: Kistler Aerospace likely will conduct flight tests of its K-1 two-stage-to-orbit reusable launcher in Australia rather than at the Nevada Test Site in the U.S. where the vehicle will make most of its commercial flights. The company was the first to apply to the U.S. FAA for a commercial RLV operators license (DAILY, Sept. 17, 1996), and has since filed with the Australian government for permission to fly and recover its vehicles at Woomera.
Australia is the first international customer of the Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile (ASRAAM), according to the U.K. Ministry of Defense. It said the missile, built by Matra BAe Dynamics, will be carried by the Royal Australian Air Force's F/A-18 strike fighters. Lord Gilbert, U.K. minister of state for defense procurement, said "This announcement comes after a hard fought competition between ASRAAM, the Israeli Python 4 and the U.S. AIM-9X, and after a highly rigorous and professional evaluation by the Australians."
NOT MY JOB: NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin is ducking a whistle- blower's charges he helped cook the books on government contracts when he worked at TRW. The U.S. Justice Dept. has joined a suit filed by Richard D. Bagley, who was chief financial officer of TRW's Space and Technology Group in Redondo Beach, Calif., when Goldin headed the unit. Bagley's 1994 suit, unsealed in Los Angeles only last week, says Goldin rejected Bagley's argument that certain research costs could not be charged to the government.
AIRBUS INDUSTRIE's A321 became the first foreign aircraft to receive certification from the Japanese Ministry of Transport. The aircraft was certified Feb. 13 and will begin operations with All Nippon Airways in April.
Textron Systems, Willmington, Mass., in an $11.3 million deal, will provide the Italian Ministry of Defense with five Mobile Microwave Landing Systems (MMLS), marking the first international sale of the system. Textron's MMLS is a transportable, ground-based approach and landing system designed to provide a precision landing capability for aircraft. Italy is the first NATO country to obtain the MMLS. The first system is slated for delivery by mid-1999. The U.S. Air Force currently has 37 of the landing systems.
HARRIS CORP. received an order from Navigations und Flugfuhrungs Systeme Gmbh for Series 2000 radios for its differential global positioning system. The order comes after Harris received the Radio Technical for Aeronautics standard DO-178, Level B status, from the Federal Aviation Agency for its Series 2000 VSR-2122 and VSR-2202 Very High Frequency datalink equipment. Harris also won a contract for 22 redundant multimode radios from Corpac S.A., the Peruvian Civil Aviation Authority. The radios will replace older analog ground-to-air-radio systems.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston (R-La.) announced yesterday that he has changed his mind and will run for re- election this year. He had been expected to announce his retirement. Livingston indicated last week that he would be retiring from the House after this year. His expected decision prompted Rep. C.W. (Bill) Young (R-Fla.), chairman of the national security appropriations subcommittee, to say last week that he would take over as Appropriations Committee Chairman if Livingston retired (DAILY, Feb. 12).
Objections of the U.S. to Sweden's planned sale of Gripen fighters to South Africa are typical of a U.S. government attitude that makes it hard for American companies to work out future teaming arrangements and partnerships with European counterparts, said Don Fuqua, head of the Washington-based Aerospace Industries Association. Saab and British Aerospace offered the Gripen to South Africa, but the U.S. State Dept. has objected because of the plane's large American content (DAILY, Feb. 18).
France's Aerospatiale is reorganizing to prepare for integration of Europe's aerospace and defense sector. The move, announced yesterday, will take place in the second half of the year.
BOEING CO. said it will deliver the first of two 767 AWACS to the government of Japan on March 11. It said a ceremony with representatives from Boeing, the U.S. Air Force and the Japan Air Self Defense Force will be held at Boeing Field.
LUXELL TECHNOLOGIES INC., Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, won a contract from GEC-Marconi Avionics' Defense Systems Div., for display systems for the Sky Guardian 2000 Radar Warning Receiver.
The board of directors of Computer Sciences Corp. voted unanimously to reject an unsolicited acquisition offer from Computer Associates International Inc., CSC said yesterday. CSC said it will not enter into negotiations with Computer Associates. CSC received the offer Feb. 10. Computer Associates said it would offer $114 per share for CSC's stock in a friendly acquisition. CSC said the formal response to the tender offer will be made in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Slightly more than a dozen 5,000-pound bombs capable of destroying deeply buried targets are now available to equip some B-2 bombers for operational missions, a U.S. Air Force official said. The weapons could be used in an attack on Iraq, but U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen said the B-2 itself wouldn't participate. He said in response to a question Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, during a public forum at Ohio State University that B-1B and B-52 bombers already deployed to the theater were sufficient for any strike.
US Airways has selected BFGoodrich and the joint venture BFGoodrich- Messier Inc. to provide wheels and carbon brakes for the new fleet of Airbus A319/A320/A321 aircraft. US Airways says it has orders for 124 firm and 276 option aircraft, with the first delivery slated for October. Under the arrangement, BFGoodrich will supply wheels and brakes for the A319s and A320s, and BFGoodrich-Messier will provide those parts for the A321s.
A French researcher and two Russian cosmonauts landed safely in Kazakhstan yesterday after a three-hour descent from the Mir orbital station. Cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyov and Pavel Vinogradov and France's Leopold Eyharts landed on a snowy steppe after the reentry and descent. The two Russians had been aboard Mir since August, patching up much of the damage from last year's collision with a runaway Progress capsule during a six- month tour.
The FAA should not carry out its scheduled decommissioning of ground- based navigation aids until it has determined whether the satellite-based Global Positioning System can be the sole means of navigation, Air Transport Association President Carol Hallett said. She noted tht such an assessment was recommended earlier by the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection, which warned that exclusive reliance on GPS and its augmentations would create the potential for single-point failure.
With parts of two low Earth orbit telecommunications satellite constellations in orbit now, industry leaders face the challenge in the coming year of delivering on the promises they have made, participants in a panel discussion on the "Big LEO" systems said yesterday.
RAYTHEON SYSTEMS of CANADA INC., awarded a contract to Cylink Corp., Sunnyvale, Calif., for encryption devices to secure communication networks for Canada's new automated civilian and military air traffic management system. The Canadian Automated Air Traffic System (CAATS), being built for Nav Canada by a Raytheon team, is scheduled to begin transition to operation this year, with full operational capability set for January 1999. Deployment of the military portion, Military Automated Air Traffic Systems (MAATS), will begin in July 1999.
Mircrodyne Corp.'s Aerospace Telemetry Div., Alexandria, Va., won a $4.9 million contract from the Italian Ministry of Defense to upgrade a number of sensors at Italy's Sardinia Test Range. When completed, the improved radar and telemetry tracking and optical cameras at the range will be better suited for tracking the new Aster ground-to-air, multi-stage missile, being developed and tested by the Italian and French governments. The company is slated to begin work on the contract in mid-March, and complete the effort within 12 months.
The U.S. Air Force has found a fix for a software problem with the Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser that was discovered during a test last November. A problem with the fins that guide the WCMD to its target, also discovered during the Nov. 18 test, has not yet been fixed.
