The MiG-29 fighter being used in tests of a ramp to allow takeoffs from bomb-damaged runways (DAILY, Feb. 4) is the MiG-29SMT variant, the most recent upgrade. Fuel load is increased by adding a tank behind the cockpit and two tanks in the wings instead of upper air intakes. The intakes once helped protect the engine from foreign object damage during taxiing, takeoff and landing. Grids inserted into the air intake ducts now do that job.
U.S. Army Space Command has established "Space Support Cells," teams of experts who would deploy to theaters of operation to give ground commanders a range of services never before available. The biggest problem the Army has in incorporating space assets into future battle plans is convincing soldiers that they are needed, and educating them on how to use the technologies available, Col. Otis B. Ferguson Jr., head of the Army Space Command Forward headquarters, told The DAILY in an interview here.
Alliant Techsystems, Minneapolis, repurchased 271,000 shares of its common stock from Hercules Inc. for about $15.2 million. The transaction is the first of four expected to be made in 1998 under a put/call arrangement between the companies. The shares were acquired by Hercules in connection with Alliant's acquisition of Hercules Aerospace Co. in 1995.
BOEING CO. has completed the first aircraft separation test of its Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) design using an F-16 at Eglin AFB, Fla. The Jan. 26 test "is an important step in demonstrating the validity of our aerodynamic design and our missile's ability to launch safely from the F-16C/D," Boeing said in a statement yesterday. The test used a full scale model. It separated at Mach 0.8 and 5,000 feet, and flew a stable trajectory into the Gulf of Mexico according to plans, Boeing said.
NASA has budgeted $17 million in fiscal 1999 as the first installment in a six-year effort to develop and ground test a full-scale supersonic transport engine, Administrator Daniel S. Goldin told a House Science subcommittee yesterday. Funding for the Mach 2.4 engine will grow to $73 million in FY '00; $97 million in FY '01; $117.6 million in FY '02, and $156.8 million in FY '03, he said. NASA is conducting the "Phase IIA" work because it lacks funds to develop the engine and airframe simultaneously (DAILY, Feb. 3).
The Pentagon has told Congress that it expects the fiscal 1998 budget supplemental needed to pay for operations in Bosnia and other contingencies to total between $600 million and $1.3 billion, according to a congressional staffer. The Pentagon plans to send the supplemental request to Congress by mid-March. It has said that if Congress doesn't act quickly, readiness could suffer. The first service to be hurt would be the Army (DAILY, Feb. 2).
The U.S. Air Force, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office are moving forward with a program to demonstrate a space-based Synthetic Aperture Radar/Moving Target Indicator. DARPA proposed the program last year and the Office of the Secretary of Defense convened a panel led by Robert J. Hermann to determine how the so-called "Starlite" system fits into the NRO's Future Imagery Architecture (FIA).
PACIFIC MISSILE RANGE FACILITY on Hawaii's Kauai Island will get enhancements worth at least $36 million, according to High Technology Development Corp. of Honolulu. It said the 1,900 acre PMRF, operated by the U.S. Navy as a test and training range, will be refitted with state-of-the- art radar, telemetry, instrumentation, optics, and over-the-horizon air and sea target launch capabilities.
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen yesterday told the House National Security Committee that he would not approve release of $2.39 billion in fiscal 1998 procurement funding for the Lot II buy of 20 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets until he is satisfied that the wing-drop problem has been corrected.
The Russian government has approved creation of a new company to market domestic small space launchers to foreign customers. Co-founders of the new company, called Launch Services, are the Russian Space Agency and the Scientific and Technological Center "Komplex." The company will be granted exclusive rights for all commercial launches performed by Cosmos and Start rockets.
NASA will decide in "the coming few weeks" whether to delay the planned June 30 launch of the first element of the International Space Station because software problems getting the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) ready to fly have disrupted the Space Shuttle schedule this year, Administrator Daniel S. Goldin told Congress yesterday.
FRANK J. CAPPUCCIO has been named vice president and program manager of Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter program effective today, the company announced. Cappuccio replaces David J. Wheaton, who retired at the end of January. Cappuccio, 51, most recently served as VP for programs and technology for Lockheed Martin's Aeronautics sector. He was responsible for oversight of the sector's aircraft and technology development efforts.
Poor weather has slightly set back flight testing of fixes to F/A- 18E/F wing-drop problem, but U.S. Navy leaders said they are confident a fix will be in place before March. Bad weather on the U.S. East Coast has slowed flight tests from NAS Patuxent River, Md., and between seven and eight more hours of flight time is needed, Navy Secretary John H. Dalton told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday. "It's a matter of weeks to complete, but we don't want to be confined to some artificial timeframe," he said.
A European Ariane 4 launch vehicle orbited communications satellites for Brazil and the Inmarsat consortium Wednesday evening from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, after delays earlier because of rare high-altitude winds over the equatorial launch site.
At the invitation of the Navy, Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R- Calif.), a former Navy ace and a member of the House Appropriations national security subcommittee, will fly the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet tomorrow at NAS Patuxtent River, Md., and report back to his colleagues on performance of the jet. The General Accounting Office says low-rate production of the plane should be suspended until a wing-drop problem is corrected.
NASA's fiscal 1999 budget request includes funding for follow-on technology development in case its X-33 suborbital testbed doesn't convince industry and Wall Street that a commercial reusable launch vehicle can be built. Early follow-on work is funded under a $17 million "Future-X" program of "Pathfinder" flight vehicles that would demonstrate high-payoff technologies at costs ranging between $1 million and $100 million, according to new NASA budget documentation released yesterday.
The Pentagon's Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office plans to set aside investment for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems rather than commit to specific platforms as it builds its program for fiscal years 2000 to 2005.
NASA's $13.6 billion fiscal 1999 budget includes $1.3 billion for aeronautics and space transportation technology, down $165.9 million from fiscal 1998's $1.47 billion. The category includes: -- Aeronautical research and technology, $786 million, down from $907 million. Included here is high performance computing and communications, $20.6 million, down from $45.7 million; high speed research, $190 million, down from $232 million; and advanced subsonic technology, $157.4 million, down from $201.1 million.
ASTRONAUT BRIAN DUFFY has been picked to command STS-92, which will deliver the first segment of the integrated truss that will form the backbone of the International Space Station. Air Force Maj. Pamela Ann Melroy will be pilot on the mission, the third U.S. Station assembly flight, which is now scheduled for January 1999 on the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Working in pairs, U.S. Astronauts Peter J.K. Wisoff, Leroy Chiao, William McArthur Jr.
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen will testify before the House Appropriations national security subcommittee after other witnesses on the fiscal 1999 budget, probably late in March, subcommittee chairman Rep. C.W. (Bill) Young (R-Fla.) said yesterday.
A 5,000-pound precision-guided bomb capable of destroying deeply buried targets is about to be deployed on the B-2 stealth bomber, a U.S. Air Force official said yesterday. The bomb, previously referred to as the GAM-113, has now been designated GBU-37. It features the BLU-113 penetrator with a GPS-Aided Munition (GAM) tailkit. The GBU-37 is expected to provide an "unprecedented capability for attacking hardened, underground targets such as command centers and weapons of mass destruction facilities," according to the Air Force.
The U.S. satellite industry and the Pentagon could enter an arrangement similar to the Civil Reserve Air Fleet program in which the military would have control of commercial satellites during international crises, one of the U.S. Army's top wargame experts said. The industry must decide within the next few years on ground rules governing use of commercial satellites during such times, Col. Joseph O. Rodriguez Jr., director of wargaming for the Army After Next project, said at a Space Wargame at U.S. Army Space Command headquarters here.
An analysis now underway by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office shows that the White House Office of Management and Budget may have a $2 billion to $4 billion outlay shortage in the fiscal 1999 defense budget, and that the shortage would be even greater when the Administration submits its supplemental for Bosnia costs, according to a study released by the Senate Budget Committee. The committee said Bosnia costs could amount to $2 billion.
