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.
NASA officials yesterday sent a show cause notice to Orbital Sciences Corp., directing the Dulles, Va.-based company to explain in writing why its contract to build the Clark Earth-observing satellite "should not be terminated for default."
JOHN C. STUELPNAGEL, has been named director and deputy for science and technology of Northrop Grumman's Corp.'s Electronic Sensors and Systems Div., with responsibility for the division's Science and Technology Center in Pittsburgh. He succeeds Clifford K. Jones, who is retiring. Stuelpnagel joined the company in 1964 and has spent his career in the development and system application of advanced technology. His most recent position was director of research and development for ESSD in Baltimore.
PEMCO WORLD AIR SERVICES, Denver, won a contract from Air Jamaica to provide maintenance for six Airbus A310s. The work, which runs from February through November 1998, will be performed at Pemco's Dothan, Ala., facility.
Military aircraft buys will take up $1.9 billion of the Japan Defense Agency's $38.5 billion budget approved for fiscal year 1998, which begins April 1. The amount marks a $107 million decline from FY '97, when the Defense Agency bought 56 aircraft. Request Apprvd Bought Unit Total Aircraft Type for 1998 for 1998 in 1997 cost cost The Ground Self-Defense Force Bell/Fuji AH-1S assault
U.S. AIR FORCE will take delivery Friday at Whiteman AFB, Mo., of its fourth Block 30 B-2 bomber, the Spirit of Missouri. Northrop Grumman only recently completed the approximately two-year upgrade of the bomber that was first delivered in the Block 10 configuration. The new aircraft will be assigned to the 325th Bomb Squadron. The Spirit of Missouri in late 1993 became the first B-2 delivered to the Air Force.
Hughes Space and Communications will build the next two Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) under a $423.1 million NASA contract announced yesterday. The El Segundo, Calif.-based satellite-maker beat out rivals Space Systems/Loral and Lockheed Martin for the lucrative job, which carries options for two more weather satellites costing another $375.9 million. GOES platforms monitor the U.S. from geostationary orbit, tracking hurricanes and other storm systems.
ELBIT SYSTEMS LTD. of Israel said it has formed a joint venture with S.C. Aerostar S.A. Bacau of Romania to make and support advanced electronic equipment. The joint venture, A.E. Electronics S.A., will be located in Romania and have an initial capitalization of about $5 million. Elbit will hold the majority stake in the company. Elbit has worked with Aerostar since 1993, when Elbit won a contract to upgrade Romanian MiG-21s.
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.
