Engineers here are preparing a program of relatively inexpensive flight experiments, modeled on the Discovery and Explorer space science missions, to validate promising space transportation technology after the X-33 and X-34 programs wind down at the turn of the century.
Three German parliamentary committees have voted to approve production investment in the Eurofighter. On Tuesday, the program received approval from the Defense Committee and the Arms Procurement Committee. Their decisions were reviewed on Wednesday by the Budget Committee, which gave the green light for initial production investment funding authorizations, endorsing recent German cabinet approval (DAILY, Oct 9).
The Senate is scheduled to vote today on the-debate-limiting procedure that would clear the way for the Senate to give final congressional passage to the $268.2 billion fiscal 1998 defense authorization conference report.
NATO has decided to add electronic warfare to Partnership for Peace exercises, a policy shift because EW has been excluded for security reasons. The move is part of an effort in which NATO is "looking at ways to reach out to PFP countries," U.S. Air Force Col. Tom Hall, who until recently headed the NATO Electronic Warfare Advisory Committee, told a meeting of the Association of Old Crows in Washington. NATO made the decision this summer to include EW for the first time in future exercises, he said Wednesday.
NASA plans to resume aerobraking operations with the Mars Global Surveyor on Nov. 7, but the maneuver will take longer than first planned, and a new final orbit around Mars will have to be found. Earlier this month, NASA was forced to halt aerobraking after it was discovered that one of the probe's solar panels was flexing more than expected when it dipped into the Martian atmosphere. The affected solar panel failed to fully deploy and latch.
The Ariane 5 rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Center, Kourou, French Guiana yesterday, making its first flight since its spectacular failure on June 4, 1996. Arianespace said the booster was launched at 10:43 a.m. Kourou time, seven seconds after ignition of the Vulcain engine that powers the main stage. A spurious computer command shortly after launch caused the loss 14 months ago.
The U.S. Air Force has been instructed by House and Senate defense authorization conferees to start upgrading the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) for a cruise missile defense role. The president's budget request did not include funding to transition sensor technology from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to the Air Force for insertion into the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) or Joint STARS.
British Aerospace will deliver the first two upgraded Tornado GR-4 interdiction-strike (IDS) aircraft to the Royal Air Force this week, part of a $1.5 billion program to upgrade 142 Tornadoes by 2002. The first two planes, the original production-standard aircraft, have been flying from Warton since April and will begin service trials from the Boscombe Down flight test facility.
The $268.2 billion fiscal 1998 defense authorization conference report ran into a Senate slowdown yesterday by Texas and California Senators over the contentious military depot provisions which have led President Clinton's senior advisers to recommend that he veto the compromise bill. The extended debate and procedural moves had the effect yesterday of delaying the Senate's vote on the report, the final step in congressional approval. The House approved the report, 286-123, Tuesday night despite warnings of recommendations for a presidential veto.
Motorola Inc. and Matra Marconi Space S.A. will form a strategic alliance to develop the Celestri System, Motorola's planned global broadband satellite communications network. Under terms of a memorandum of understanding, Matra Marconi Space, a joint venture of France's Lagardere and the U.K.'s GEC, will design and build the satellite bus for the system, while Motorola will design and build the satellites.
Alliant Techsystems said earnings in the second quarter of its fiscal year 1998 improved 24% and sales increased 8% because of higher volume from rocket booster, composite structures and tank ammunition programs. Alliant earned $15.9 million on sales of $267 million in the quarter, up from earnings of $12.8 million on sales of $247.6 million in the same period a year ago. The Minneapolis company said orders jumped from $185 million to $374 million during the period, primarily due to new production orders for Delta rocket boosters.
Lockheed Martin Information Systems, Orlando, Fla., said it has won an $11 million contract from India's Bharat Heavy Electrical Ltd. to supply laser-based weapon effect simulators for the Indian Army. The Simfire appended training system will be used for gunnery and tactical training for the T-72 tank. Under the three-year agreement, Lockheed Martin will provide 85 complete Simfire systems, 165 partially completed systems and a technology transfer to Bharat Heavy Electrical to enable in-country production and support.
The U.S. Air Force, reacting to cuts imposed by Congress, next month will present the Office of the Secretary of Defense with its plan to revise the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile program. The plan will "align what we're doing in JASSM to both our overall funding and to the funding cap that we have prior to the completion of the analysis of alternatives [AOA]," Terry Little, the JASSM program director, said in a telephone interview yesterday from Eglin AFB, Fla.
House and Senate defense authorization conferees have directed the Pentagon to evaluate the management of space reconnaissance support of military operations. "There appears to be an overly bureaucratic management of space reconnaissance support to military operations," the conferees said in their fiscal year 1998 defense bill conference report.
The U.S. Navy this fiscal year will begin a multi-year demonstration program to prove the technology required for an active electronically scanned radar for early warning planes. "Right now we are funded to demonstrate the technologies that would lead to a follow-on radar," said W.E. "Casey" Bahr, the Navy's E-2C Hawkeye program manager. The radar would be used on "whatever the AEW platform of the future is," he said in an interview.
The U.S. Navy has resumed flight testing of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet at NAS Patuxent River, Md., after a determination that cracks on the stator vane of the General Electric F414 engine don't endanger the aircraft. Testing was halted last week when engineers found cracks on a stator vane on an engine being run at its Lynn, Mass., facility. Since then, the Navy has inspected the flight test engines and found "microscopic" cracks, around one tenth of an inch, on some of the stators, a Navy official said yesterday.
TODAY is the European Commission's deadline for Boeing to answer what an EC source describes as a "detailed questionnaire" on the manufacturer's newly finalized sales to Delta Air Lines. EC competition specialists suspect - based on press reports - that the contract contains exclusivity provisions barred under the commission's approval of the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger.
Boeing and IBM will collaborate on a mobile wireless asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) system that will allow an uninterrupted flow of information between mobile platforms, Boeing said. Now, Boeing said, when an aircraft or other mobile platform moves beyond the range of a ground station, the flow of information is temporarily interrupted. The new system will keep a continuous connection by coordinating the network links between transmitters.
Boeing's top manager on the hardware-intense portion of the International Space Station effort being conducted here believes he has a handle on the cost growth that has sent NASA scrambling to Capitol Hill for more funds, but he's worried about what will happen when his engineers start loading software into the pressurized modules they have built.
NASA's X-34 program has received some 27 proposals for engineering experiments to fly on the liquid-fueled testbed once it takes to the air late next year, a date managers at Marshall Space Flight Center here believe can be achieved if a troublesome center-of-gravity problem can be solved in time.
The Mars Pathfinder operations team will continue to try to reestablish communication with their spacecraft for another week before moving on to a new strategy, NASA reported yesterday. The operations team plans to continue sending commands to the spacecraft for another week before shifting to a "contingency plan of less frequent commanding and listening," the agency said.
AlliedSignal said its enhanced ground proximity warning system has been approved for Airbus A319, A320 and A321 aircraft - the first certification of the EGPWS under the type certificate of an air transport category aircraft. The type certificate, also the first of EGPWS by the European Joint Aviation Authorities, clears the way for Airbus to offer the system as an installed option on A320 family aircraft, and also allows retrofit. It was previously certified for retrofit on A320, A300-600, 757, 767 and 737-400 aircraft.
TUNISAIR, the flag carrier of Tunisia, has ordered four 737-600s and taken options for three additional next-generation 737s, Boeing Commercial Airplane Group said. The specific models for the three options will be determined later. Total value, if all options are exercised, is about $300 million. The aircraft will be powered by CFM56-7 engines produced by CFMI. With this order, sales for the Next-Generation 737 have reached 698.
Evans&Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City, said it has won a contract from British Midland Airways Ltd. to supply the visual systems for its new flight simulator. The system will be based on E&S ESIG-3350GT image generator and ESCP-2000 calligraphic projectors. The system will be integrated into an A320 full flight simulator being built by Thomson Training&Simulation, Crawley, West Sussex, U.K. Installation is expected by April 1998.
France is eyeing a cooperative development program with the U.K. to meet its emerging requirement for an anti-radiation missile that would replace the 1960s vintage Martel. The French Ministry of Defense hopes to launch a development program around 2000, Col. Bruno Berthet, the head of electronic warfare and reconnaissance systems for the MOD, told The DAILY. This would be the first time industry would really get involved in the program, he said following a presentation to the Association of Old Crows' annual symposium in Washington.
