The boards of TRW and BDM International approved an agreement under which TRW would acquire BDM in a deal worth nearly $1 billion, the companies announced Friday. Joseph Gorman, TRW's chairman and CEO, said that following the merger, TRW's space and defense businesses will account for more than 40% of the company's annual sales and more than 37% of operating income.
INTERNATIONALE: Goldin says the U.S. gains plenty from its joint space activities with other nations. France has offered the use of an Ariane 5 rocket to launch a Mars sample return mission in 2005, which would allow a much larger sample than the Delta II NASA has baselined. And the Russians, for all the uncertainty about their ability to deliver Space Station components, has already taught NASA valuable lessons about training astronauts for long-duration missions.
Hughes Aircraft Co. has won the competition for the nearly $1 billion job of supplying the Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) system for the U.S. Navy's F/A-18C/D and F/A-18E/F strike fighters. Boeing Co., the Hornet prime contractor, picked Hughes for the development phase of the ATFLIR program. The total buy is expected to be 574 systems, and the program has a potential value of up to $900 million, according to a Boeing spokeswoman.
Rep. Paul McHale (D-Pa.), a three-term member of the House National Security Committee and a 25-year veteran of the Marine Corps and Marine Reserve who volunteered for Operation Desert Storm, has announced his retirement from the House. McHale, 47, announced Wednesday that he would not seek re-election. A McHale aide said she did not know what he would do next although there were reports that he may be in line for a Defense Dept. job. He is a lawyer. McHale also served on the House Science Committee.
PRATT & WHITNEY'S two derivative F119 propulsion systems for the Joint Strike Fighter completed Critical Design Review (CDR) on Friday, Nov. 7, the company announced yesterday. The program now moves to engine fabrication and testing. The CDR started at the beginning of August. Testing is scheduled to begin in the spring of 1998.
Loral Space & Communications lost $15.6 million on sales $423 million in its 1997 third quarter. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBIDTA) were $29.7 million, with GlobalStar and CyberStar development and start-up costs eating up $18.9 million of that total. In a prepared statement, Bernard Schwartz, chairman and CEO, said the performance met company expectations and was consistent with Loral's continued investment in the development of GlobalStar and CyberStar.
The contractor who wins the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization's contract to become lead system integrator (LSI) for a national missile defense (NMD) system will be in an unusual situation because there is no guarantee at this time that a system will even be deployed or how much it will cost. Boeing and United Missile Defense Corp., a joint venture of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and TRW, on Wednesday submitted their proposals to become the NMD LSI, which will be responsible for tying together all the various systems and components of a NMD system (DAILY, Nov.
Members of the House National Security Committee yesterday criticized the Administration's policy on supercomputer export controls as being too lax and dangerous to national security. "The failure of the Administration's policy is reflected in the fact that numerous supercomputers have disappeared and cannot be found," Stephen Bryen, former director of DOD's Defense Technology Security Administration, told the House panel yesterday. For example, experts in the U.S.
House members have approved a bill that would impose sanctions on Russian entities believed by U.S. and Israeli intelligence to have transferred missile technology to Iran for the Russian SS-4 and Iranian Shahab-3 and Shahab-4 long-range missiles. The bill, approved by voice vote Wednesday night, would impose sanctions on foreign companies which aid Iran's efforts to acquire, develop or produce ballistic missiles.
TRW yesterday won the competition to build the High-Band Signals Intelligence Subsystem to be used on SIGINT aircraft, with a $27.9 million contract for a demonstration unit. The system will be installed on a classified Air Force platform, believed to be a U-2. The program is planned to run a total of 41 months. Eventually the Defense Dept. is looking to buy 16 high-band systems for the RC-135V/W Rivet Joint, Army RC-7 Airborne Reconnaissance Low, and Navy EP- 3. The losing bidders are believed to be Lockheed Martin, Hughes Aircraft and Raytheon E-Systems.
Technological innovations developed for the defense industry will serve Lockheed Martin in its future in commercial markets, according to the company's president. Peter Teets said Wednesday that there is still a viable defense marketplace, and Lockheed Martin "intends to be in it." But the company is "anxious to look for new markets or look for opportunities where we can migrate some of the technologies we've developed over the years into profitable, growing commercial ventures," Teets said.
SINGAPORE HAS BEEN offered a $287 million U.S. foreign military sales package to support its F-16C/D fighters. The deal would cover F-16 and M61A1 20mm gun support, flight training, spare and repair parts, and other support services. Offsets aren't included. The long-term pilot training program would take place in the U.S.
Even though Congress has zeroed funding for the Common Support Aircraft in fiscal 1998, the Navy has been able to identify sufficient funds to keep the program going with only a slight delay in its schedule. Additionally, to make its newest aircraft program more affordable, the Navy is considering finding international partners for the CSA program, according to Capt. Gary Peterson, the Navy's CSA program manager.
Wilbur C. Trafton, associate NASA administrator for space flight since January 1994, announced yesterday he would leave the U.S. space agency next month. A NASA spokesman said Trafton cited "personal reasons" for his departure from the agency, where he was responsible for both the Space Shuttle and the troubled International Space Station programs. His deputy, Richard J. Wisniewski, will act in his place until a successor is named, the spokesman said. Rep.
NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery is set to lift off Nov. 19 for a long- duration mission to conduct microgravity science, study the solar wind and demonstrate International Space Station technology in a spacewalk that was thwarted by a balky hatch last year. Bill Reeves, lead flight director for the STS-87 mission, told reporters Wednesday the flight could last as long as 19 days - 16 for a nominal mission, two more for contingencies and one more after that if the cryogenic load in the orbiter holds up. Top priority for the flight is the fourth U.S.
The U.S. National Security Agency "must reengineer" its "traditional approach to signals intelligence and information systems security" if it is to "remain relevant" in the post-Cold War era, according to NSA Director Lt. Gen. Kenneth A. Minihan.
Buyers of Boeing stock during the period July 21 through Oct. 22, 1997, have 60 days to join a class action suit filed against the company, the New York law firm of Bernstein Leibhard & Lifshitz said. The suit claims that Boeing and its officers and directors "made material misrepresentations and omissions" in its public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, press releases and other public statements related to the acquisition of McDonnell Douglas, costing shareholders more than $4 billion in stock value (DAILY, Nov. 4).
Russian military commanders began a four-day meeting Tuesday to discuss progress on reform of the armed forces. Itar-Tass reported from Moscow that Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev placed special importance on the current phase of reform. "It took us five years to understand that a reform of the armed forces is part of the national military reform and an objective necessity," he said as he opened the meeting.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN's Oceanic Systems business, Annapolis, Md., won a two- year, $9.5 million contract option from the U.S. Navy's Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UVV) program office for the detailed design phase of the Long-term Mine Reconnaissance System (LMRS). The LMRS is planned for operation beginning in fiscal year 2003, ultimately replacing the Near-term Mine Reconnaissance System (NMRS), which is undergoing system-level tests at Oceanic Systems and will enter service in FY 1998.
An airlock hatch on Russia's Mir orbital station has started leaking slowly again, just two days after spacewalking cosmonauts thought they had fixed the problem, Mission Control Center-Moscow reported. The Kvant-2 airlock hatch, which opens outward to the vacuum of space, had held partial pressure since Cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyov and Pavel Vinogradov used extra clamps to dog the door shut on Sunday (DAILY, Nov. 11).
Elbit Systems Ltd., Haifa, Israel, signed a $38 million contract with prime contractor Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) to supply mission computers, display systems and other avionics for an F-4 fighter upgrade project, Elbit announced yesterday. "The contract with DASA is significant to Elbit Systems as it is the first major contract awarded to the company by a leading German defense contractor," Joseph Ackerman, president and CEO of Elbit, said in a prepared statement. "...
Russia displayed some of its advanced armaments at an international air show that opened in Budapest Tuesday, Itar-Tass reported. Aircraft at the show include the Su-27, Su-30 and Su-39, and the Ka-50 and Mi-17-1B helicopters. The Tunguska-M air defense complex and TOP-M1 and BUK-M1 air defense systems were also displayed, along with the Malytka-2, Metis-M and Khrizantema anti-tank weapons, the Smerch launcher and the MTSA self-propelled howitzer.
The U.S. House of Representatives has given final congressional approval to a bill reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank that would end credits to subsidize exports to Russia if the U.S. determines that Russia has delivered or transferred SS-N-22 missiles to China.
Pratt & Whitney has completed the critical design review of the F119 derivative engines being developed for Joint Strike Fighter prime contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The three-month review, finished last week, results in "a unanimous go-ahead to take the first engine to test next spring," Pratt & Whitney said. The company can now proceed with fabrication of the powerplants.
