This year could mark the milestone that future historians see as the dawn of the second space age, when the human enterprise finally leaped free of Earth's surface for good, but as 1998 begins the new era faces a difficult liftoff, its feet mired in the hobbling clay of political, commercial and technical reality.
Almost every U.S. weapons program reaches a point where it must demonstrate that the lofty promises made by industry and the Pentagon can be fulfilled. In 1998, a slew modernization programs face that critical hurdle. Heading the list is the Lockheed Martin F-22 fighter. With its first flight behind it, the aircraft is now moving into the flight test phase at Edwards AFB, Calif.
Contracts worth a potential $54 billion for 620 Eurofighter aircraft are set to be signed now that the defense ministers of the four partner countries have given the green light for production. Agreements signed in Bonn Monday by Germany's Volker Ruehe, Italy's Benjamino Andreatta, Spain's Eduardo Serra and the U.K.'s George Robertson also covered the Eurofighter in-service support phase.
The U.S. State Dept. yesterday gave permission to U.S. attack helicopter manufacturers to market their products to Turkey, which is looking to buy around 150 of the aircraft in coming years. The White House earlier this year sent a memorandum to the State Dept. indicating that U.S. companies would be allowed to enter a Turkish competition for the work that could be worth $5 billion. Yesterday's State Dept. announcement clears the way for the competitors to obtain marketing licenses.
The U.S. Air Force will hold a competition early next year for the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the Hard Target Smart Fuze program, and plans to award a contract for the work in May. The service once planned to award the contract to Motorola's Space Systems Technology Group (DAILY, July 30), but the company's decision to pull out of the fuze business prompted the competition instead.
Engineers at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., are developing a plan to convert one of two old altitude chambers built to check out Apollo modules into a pressure chamber to test U.S. elements for the International Space Station for leaks.
Lockheed Martin Ocean Radar&Sensor Systems (OR&SS), Syracuse, N.Y., was selected by the Royal Australian Air Force for the Project Air 5375 tactical air defense program. Final negotiations are planned early next year, with the contract, which could be worth up to $100 million, to be awarded in the spring. Lockheed Martin said the TPS-117 radar will serve as the project's primary surveillance radar for the Tactical Air Defense Radar System (TADRS).
Search and salvage operations for the mid-air collision of a U.S. C-141 and a German Tu-154M on Sept. 13 off the west coast of Africa have been completed, U.S. Air Mobility Command said yesterday. It said all data recorders on both planes were recovered and are being analyzed. Remains of all 33 people killed in the collision - nine aboard the C-141 and 24 aboard the Tu-154M - were recovered, as were "significant wreckage items."
Reflectone won a contract to design, build, finance and operate the Hawk Synthetic Training Facility at the Royal Air Force's main fast jet pilot training station at RAF Valley on Anglesey, North Wales. Under the U.K. Ministry of Defense contract, valued at about 40 million pounds over 13 years, Reflectone is required to own the equipment, employ the instructors and be responsible for all maintenance. The company, based in Filton, England, will be paid according to the quality and quantity of the training delivered.
Bell Helicopter Textron has completed hover tests of its Eagle Eye tiltrotor unmanned aerial vehicle in preparation for a U.S. Navy demonstration next year of vertical takeoff and landing UAVs.
Provisions preventing the U.S. from entering into arms control agreements that would lessen the capabilities of U.S. theater missile defense systems were in the Senate-approved fiscal 1998 Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act, which was not enacted into law, and not in the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, as reported by The DAILY in the Nov. 18 issue. The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act was passed by the Senate twice, but not by the House, and is technically in conference, although with the State Dept.
MISSION CONTROL CENTER-Moscow has postponed a spacewalk from the Mir orbital station until Jan. 6 to give the three-man crew more time to unload the Progress resupply capsule that docked Saturday.
Boeing Co. has begun full-scale production of the first AH-64D Apache for the Royal Netherlands Air Force. The RNAF will accept its first two AH- 64Ds from the company's Mesa, Ariz., plant in April 1998. Boeing will produce 30 new AH-64Ds for the RNAF and 67 for Great Britain, teamed with GKN Westland Helicopters Ltd.
The U.S. Air Force is beginning development of a classified enhancement to the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft that may be shared with the United Kingdom. The effort, known as the Radar Technology Insertion Program, calls for a contractor to "design, develop, install, test and integrate advanced radar systems in the Joint STARS," according to a Dec. 24 Commerce Business Daily notice from the Air Force Electronic Systems Center.
Orbcomm, a "little LEO" communications system jointly owned by Orbital Sciences Corp., Canada's Teleglobe and TRI Inc. of Malaysia, took a "giant step" toward full commercial service yesterday with the launch of eight of its low-Earth orbit satellites aboard a single Pegasus XL rocket.
The Japanese government cut the budget for its five-year defense build-up by 3% during a Dec. 19 cabinet meeting. The original program called for spending $198.03 billion between 1996 and 2000, but the amount has been reduced to $190.79 billion. The cut includes reductions of the weapon procurement budget, facility improvement and training. The original plan called for $33.62 billion for procurement and $82.75 billion for facility improvement and training. Revised totals stand at $32.08 billion and $76.91 billion, respectively.
Russia's Main Intelligence Administration has been relieved from overhead "blindness" - at least for two or three months - with the launch last week of a photographic reconnaissance satellite from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The satellite, designated Cosmos 2348, was launched on a Soyuz-U rocket and is expected to stay in orbit for 60-70 days. The last launch of a similar satellite occurred in May 1996, but that spacecraft was lost due to launch vehicle failure.
DRS Electronics Systems, Inc., Gaithersburg, Md., won a $2.8 million contract from the U.S. Navy to design a system to emulate the AN/UYQ-70 shipboard tactical display console for training. The company received initial funding under the contract in February 1994. Including this latest award, DRS has received about $22.5 million to date.
SIKORSKY has reconfigured its S-76C+ helicopter to provide air emergency services for AirEvac for Tulsa, which serves eastern Oklahoma. It said the helicopter is the first C+ variant to join the fleet of S-76s used for emergency medical services.
PAUL M. JOHNSTONE, chairman of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, died suddenly Dec. 17. He was 72 and lived in St. Michaels, Md. Retired as senior vice president, operations services, for Eastern Air Lines, Johnstone joined the independent panel set up to advise NASA on safety matters as a consultant in 1991. He was appointed a member in 1992, and in March 1995 was elected to the chair by the other panel members. During his tenure ASAP advised NASA on safety issues arising from the coupling of the U.S. and Russian human spaceflight programs; downsizing at the U.S.
NASA managers have given Orbital Sciences Corp. 10 calendar days to address problems with the Clark small satellite mission highlighted by the agency's Program Management Council, a top-level panel empowered to terminate programs that run over budget.
Rolls-Royce will build a $68.5 million facility in Derby, England, to make high pressure turbine blades for aerospace engines. Rolls-Royce is seeking planning consent for a 10,000-square meter facility which will employ 250 people. The facility will become operational by early 1999.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn., is being awarded a $98,029,532 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for full funding of Lot 22, the second program year of a multi-year contract for 18 UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters and associated support. Work will be performed in Stratford, Conn., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 1999. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on Oct. 17, 1995. The contracting activity is the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala.
