NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour undocked from Russia's Mir orbital station yesterday, about a half hour after two Russians and a Frenchman lifted off in a Soyuz capsule bound for the orbiting Russian laboratory. Left behind as Endeavour pulled away was Astronaut Andrew Thomas, the last U.S. astronaut scheduled to pull a long-duration mission on Mir. Astronaut David Wolf, who has served on Mir for four months, was aboard Endeavour on his way home.
With the Congressional Budget Office having forecast federal budget surpluses of as much as $138 billion in the next decade, Aerospace Industries Association President Don Fuqua says defense and aerospace should be given primary consideration if the budget austerity of the last decade is relaxed. He said both areas took "the heaviest hits" in the past decade and have experienced funding declines to levels "that are not fully adequate to accomplish their missions."
HAROLD MCGRAW III, president and chief operating officer of The McGraw-Hill Companies since 1993, will become chief executive officer on April 29. Joseph L. Dionne, now CEO and chairman of the board, will continue to serve as chairman of the board.
New BFGoodrich subsidiary Rohr's Super 27 Boeing 727 re-engining program completed two more conversions last month - one for a private Middle East operator and another a 727-200Adv flown by the Nomads Air Travel Club - bringing the total JT8D-200-powered Super 27 fleet to 27 worldwide. Rohr launched the program in 1996, and the company now operates as BF Goodrich/Aerostructures Group.
Senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee showed interest in the National Defense Panel's recommendation that the strategy of being able to fight in two nearly simultaneous major regional contingencies - the cornerstone of U.S. defense planning since the end of the Cold War - should be scrapped.
Russia's Ministry of State Property plans to privatize several major space-related companies during 1998 and to decrease the state's share in several others which already have been privatized. The tentative list of companies earmarked for privatization in 1998 and another list of companies set for partial stock sell-outs were released by the ministry last week.
The U.S. Air Force is looking to add Global Positioning System guidance to its 4,500-pound GBU-28 laser guided bomb, which carries the BLU-113 hard-target penetrator warhead. GPS would optimize guidance commands and avoid course corrections as the weapon hits its target, according to Frank Robbins, the Air Force's precision strike program director at Eglin AFB, Fla. Maneuvers during the impact phase can diminish penetration, he noted in a telephone interview. GPS could tell the bomb when it is about to hit and instruct it to cease maneuvering.
ALLIEDSIGNAL, Torrance, Calif., completed acquisition of British Airways' wheel and brake repair and overhaul business. AlliedSignal becomes the exclusive supplier of wheel and brake aftermarket support service for all BA aircraft and certain third party work under contract to BA. AlliedSignal, which expects the agreement to generate revenues of about $150 million over the next 10 years, acquired the inventory of wheel and brake parts and hired former BA employees who will continue to perform the work.
The U.S. Air Force expects to launch in about a year the 48-month Advanced Technology Demonstration for the powered Low-Cost Autonomous Attack System (LOCAAS). The ATD, estimated to cost between $12 million and $14 million, would build on a series of successful tests the Air Force has conducted over the past few months to prove the concept of using a small, air-launched smart munition with a multi-mode warhead (DAILY, Dec. 8, 1997; Jan. 7). The ATD would run from fiscal 1999 through FY '02.
The U.S. Air Force yesterday picked United Technologies' Pratt&Whitney to continue development of hydrocarbon-fuel scramjet technology that could be used in advanced, hypersonic missiles. P&W beat GenCorp's Aerojet for the AF's primary missile propulsion technology effort known as the Storable Fuel Scramjet Flowpath Concepts technology development. Both companies had been demonstrating component- level performance since the summer of 1996. The contract is worth $48.9 million.
Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) said yesterday that the Navy's present force of 350 ships would drop to "perhaps 300 ships in a matter of five years." Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services seapower subcommittee, told a Capitol Hill seminar on American seapower in the 21st century, sponsored by the American Shipbuilding Association and other groups, that the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review last year endorsed a budget consistent with a 300-ship Navy. He said this requires a sustained procurement rate of ten ships a year.
A team led by Lockheed Martin has won one of three contracts to further refine Australia's concept for Project Wedgetail, an airborne surveillance mission. The $5.6 million contract will fund design work to support a decision on a platform, scheduled for 1999, Lockheed Martin said. The other contracts went to Boeing and Raytheon.
Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services air- land subcommittee, said yesterday that he wants the U.S. Navy to respond before he considers a General Accounting Office report recommending that production of the F/A-18E/F strike fighter be halted to correct the wing- drop problem and other problems.
Half a year since putting its very large GE90 growth plans on hold, GE Aircraft Engines has decided - for now - to concentrate on the 92,000-lbst. bigfan market and is writing off most of its investment in the 100,000- lbst. growth engine.
BRASILSAT B-3 and Inmarsat-3F5 are set for launch tomorrow aboard an Ariane 44LP vehicle from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou. The Hughes-built Brasilsat will provide voice, data and television over 28 C-band transponders from an Atlantic orbit at 65 degrees West longitude for Embratel of Rio de Janeiro, while the Inmarsat platform, built by Lockheed Martin Telecommunications, will handle mobile communications from 25 degrees East, over central Africa.
Despite currency devaluations of up to 80% agai nst the U.S. dollar over the past six months, Indonesia plans to continue with its follow-up contract for more British Aerospace Hawk lightweight fighters.
BALL AEROSPACE has been picked to supply a spacecraft for NASA's Laser Altimetry Mission set for launch in July 2001. Under NASA's Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity "catalogue" approach to spacecraft procurement (DAILY, Oct. 15, 1997), Ball will provide the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESAT) to measure ice sheet, cloud and land elevations in a mission capped at $200 million, including launch and three years of science.
The U.S. Army plans to use modified AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters, designated Hokum-X, to play the role of Russian Ka-50 Hokum helos in an evaluation of advanced weapon systems.
The Congressional Budget Office, in a cautiously worded forecast, said yesterday that the need to replace or refurbish equipment bought during the defense buildup of the 1980s "may give way to higher defense spending in the next decade." In "The Economic and Budget Outlook: Fiscal Years 1999-2008," CBO's report on the economy and the federal budget, the agency forecast the end of the procurement holiday.
Officials of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the general aviation industry think Loran will be the best backup for the GPS-dependent Wide Area Augmentation System, but the airlines, which already have VOR and ILS and have been far less enthusiastic in the past about Loran, are meeting this week on their choice of a backup for terminal radionavigation services.
HISPASAT 1C will be launched on a Lockheed Martin Atlas IIAS late next year under a contract announced this week. The satellite, built for Hispasat SA by Aerospatiale Espace, will serve the Iberian peninsula, Europe and the Americas with communication and direct-to-home television.
HONEYWELL'S SPACE SYSTEMS/Satellite Systems Operation in Phoenix has delivered 11 flat panel displays for the Space Shuttle Atlantis, which will be the first of the U.S. orbiters to receive a cockpit display upgrade. NASA bought Honeywell's Multifunction Electronic Display Subsystem (MEDS), similar to those used on the Boeing 777, for Atlantis' forward and aft flight decks. First flight with the new system is scheduled for January 1999.
TURKEY plans to buy six CASA CN-235 sea patrol aircraft worth $250 million to boost its naval forces, according to the Xinhua news agency. It said the planes will be made by Turkish Aerospace Industries, and the avionics, radar and weapon systems will be made abroad after a bidding process.
