First flight of a new projectile that is part artillery round and part missile demonstrated technology that can meet new U.S. Army and Navy requirements, Raytheon TI Systems said. The company said the projectile will have the accuracy of a smart bomb at significantly greater range than current artillery rounds.
HONEYWELL SPACE SYSTEMS was awarded a contract by International Space Station prime contractor Boeing to supply multiplexers/demultiplexers for the ISS Systems Integration Lab where Station avionics will be qualified. Honeywell will also support Boeing in designing the lab, which the Station prime is building in Houston to support on-orbit anomaly resolution, training, maintenance of failed hardware and checkout of design changes, as well as the integration of avionics hardware and software. Value of the contract was not disclosed.
A decision by the Pentagon and Congress to defer low-rate initial production (LRIP) of the Alliant Techsystems Outrider unmanned aerial vehicle is creating a break in work which could increase the unit cost of the UAV. Outrider LRIP was slated for next spring at the end of its Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration. But it has been slipped into fiscal 1999, and this would create a gap before the production phase, Don Cattel, Alliant Techsystems' Outrider program director, said in an interview.
SINGAPORE's air force for the first time has acquired a Russian military system. Singapore television reported that the mission of the Igla missile system is to defend against low-flying aircraft. Teo Chee Hean, Singapore's second minister for defense, said the combat-proven missile meets the air force's needs in a cost-effective and reliable way, according to a report by Xinhua, the Chinese news agency.
Russia is following the faster-better-cheaper style of planetary exploration demonstrated by NASA's Mars Pathfinder and Global Surveyor spacecraft with a new strategy for studying the Solar system with smaller probes and less expensive medium-lift launchers. A new spacecraft bus currently under study by Lavochkin Science and Production Assn. would allow delivery of landers and rovers to the Martian surface as well as the return of soil from the Martian moon Phobos. The plans were described at the International Astronautical Congress here.
U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Dennis Reimer said the service will continue to stress balance in its modernization effort over any one program, but that it will also maintain its emphasis on the Comanche helicopter. The Army "would like to have [Comanche] earlier" but "we've got to make sure we have everything else in synchronization also," Reimer said this week during a press conference at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual convention in Washington.
The U.S. Navy in December wants to decide whether to fund the Naval Tactical Missile System or the Land-Attack Standard Missile to meet its requirement for a 100-to-200 n.m. supersonic land-attack missile that would be fired by surface combatants.
OUTRIDER unmanned aerial vehicle crashed yesterday during a test flight from Hondo, Tex., when its engines lost power two and a half minutes into its flight. It was the final planned flight with the McCulloch 4318F engine which is being replaced by the UAV Engines Ltd. 801R engine. That engine was supposed to begin flying later this week, although the flight has now been delayed until after the accident investigation. The air vehicle sustained minor damage (see earlier story on page 86).
U.S. ARMY still may be able to test fire a high-power laser at an obsolescent U.S. Air Force satellite before the end of the month, Army officials told reporters yesterday. The service now believes it has until Oct. 23 to conduct the test, pushed back this month by a combination of bad weather and technical problems. Each day, the service evaluates data on the decaying MSTI-3 satellite and other issues like weather condition to decide if it can conduct the test, Lt. Gen. Edward G.
Controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have halted aerobraking operations with the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) because they don't understand what is happening with a solar array that never deployed properly. Compounding the problem is an unexpected doubling of the density of the atmosphere at the altitudes where the spacecraft is using atmospheric drag to circularize its orbit. NASA said yesterday MGS will stay at a 35- hour, 105-mile orbit for "the next few weeks" while the problem is worked.
The first of eight Colombian Air Force OH-1As upgraded to the Bell Huey II configuration has made its first flight, Bell Helicopter Textron said. The program results from an agreement between the Corporacion de la Industria Aeronautica (CIAC), Bogota, Colombia, and Bell Helicopter Textron Inc., Fort Worth, Tex., to provide Huey II kits for installation on the Colombian helicopters. The modernization program is a joint effort between Bell and engine maker Lycoming.
Boeing Co. is pitching a small-scale version of the U.S. Air Force's Airborne Laser for use on the V-22 tiltrotor aircraft and helicopters to shoot down cruise missiles and sea-skimming missiles. Boeing has been exploring the idea since earlier this year and unveiled it at the Association of the U.S. Army convention in Washington. It said it could demonstrate the system in 18 months and deliver an initial operational system about a year later.
European governments must be prepared to let their aerospace companies restructure themselves, according to the European Association of Aerospace Industries (AECMA). The organization calls for a "more "supportive" policy environment in Europe based on higher levels of research funding, more coordinated cross- border programs between national aerospace companies, a more liberal European Union anti-trust policy and a clarification of national policies regarding privatization and cross-border mergers.
A policy problem has emerged from a series of U.S. space and missile defense wargames over the past year: What to do if the military relies on the same commercial communications and imaging satellites as an enemy in a combat situation?
Two chieftains of Airbus Industrie - Edzard Reuter and Jean Pierson - will leave their posts next year, meaning that the European consortium will be led by a new pair in the last, delicate phase of its planned corporatization. Reuter will give up the presidency of Airbus' supervisory board "at the beginning of 1998 at the latest," the four members of the consortium announced yesterday. He had been expected to remain in the post until mid- 1999. Pierson's mandate as Airbus' chief executive expires on March 31, 1998.
The U.S. shouldn't ignore warnings from Israel that Russia is helping Iran develop ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction, according to Paul Wolfowitz, dean of John Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. "The Israelis have been sounding very loud alarms in recent weeks about Russian assistance to the Iranian missile program," Wolfowitz told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Oct. 8.
The future of the Farnborough air show would be assured by lease of the airfield to a Luxembourg investment group. The lease, not yet approved by the British Ministry of Defense, would require continuing availability for the biannual show, sponsored by the Society of British Aerospace Companies, for at least 25 years. The lease also includes an option for the TAG investment group to extend operations at Farnborough as a business aviation airfield to 99 years, according to an announcement Monday by the MOD.
The French government announced a plan to sell the defense and electronics group of Thomson-CSF to Alcatel Alsthom, Dassault Industries and Aerospatiale. The aim of the deal, whose amount wasn't disclosed, is to respond to increased competition in the global defense industry. Alcatel was one of two original bidders for the Thomson group. The other was the French conglomerate Lagardere. Lagardere was initially chosen, but objections were raised when it was learned that it planned to sell a part of Thomson to Daewoo of South Korea.
British Aerospace has begun seeking a U.S. industry partner for its Broach warhead program that it hopes will help ensure survival of the effort in the U.S. "I do believe we may need an industrial partner to help us launch Broach in the United States," Adrian Watts, who oversees the program for BAe's Royal Ordnance division, told reporters in Washington. Broach is the warhead for Britain's Storm Shadow standoff air-to- surface missile being developed by British/French joint venture Matra BAe Dynamics.
Brazil will build hardware for the International Space Station in exchange for experiment privileges on the orbiting laboratory and the assignment of a Brazilian astronaut there under a bilateral agreement signed yesterday between the U.S. and Brazilian space agencies.
NASA's Cassini Saturn probe is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Station this morning after weather and minor technical glitches forced a 48-hour delay on Monday. The Air Force Titan IVB carrying the spacecraft will try to hit a launch window that opens at 4:43 a.m. and closes at 7:03 a.m. EDT. Weather conditions are expected to be favorable for the launch, and technical glitches that contributed to a scrub on Monday have been cleared, according to NASA and Air Force spokespersons.
NASA has picked eight satellite-makers to take part in a new rapid- procurement program that lets scientists pick spacecraft from a catalogue of off-the-shelf buses to carry their instruments into space. Designed to give NASA centers and other government agencies cheaper spacecraft more quickly, the Rapid Spacecraft effort managed by Goddard Space Flight Center cuts the procurement time by matching missions with pre-selected spacecraft (DAILY, Feb. 21).
President Clinton yesterday used the line-item veto in a relatively restrained manner to eliminate 13 projects involving budget authority of only $144 million in the $247.7 billion fiscal 1998 defense appropriations bill. This contrasted with his veto of 38 military projects amounting to $287 million out of a $9.2 billion military construction bill. That aroused strong opposition on Capitol Hill and calls for repealing line-item authority for the president.
