U.S. NAVY is looking to buy seven Advanced Tactical Air Reconnaissance System and five data link pods for its F/A-18s, the service says in an Oct. 1 Commerce Business Daily notice. The Navy plans to award F/A-18 prime contractor Boeing a contract to integrate the system on the aircraft.
The air forces of Iran and Iraq have violated the southern no-fly zone being maintained by the U.S. and its allies over Iraq, the Pentagon said yesterday. Iranian F-4 fighters flew strikes against targets in Iraq early Sept. 29 local time, violating the southern no-fly zone, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said. Several hours later, Iraq launched some of its MiG-21 and MiG-23 fighters, also violating the zone. The planes did not engage the Iranian aircraft, which had returned to their bases.
MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS, which is developing the 17-satellite Ellipso constellation of low Earth orbit communications platforms, has applied for a second FCC license to operate a 26-satellite LEO constellation in the 2 GHZ band. The Ellipso 2G system would have "two to three times the capacity of the original Ellipso system," the company said. The new constellation would be arrayed in five orbital planes, four of them elliptical and one circular at the equator. Service would start in 2003.
The U.S. Air Force has fixed problems on its Titan IV boosters that have delayed recent launches and is confident upcoming launches will go off as planned, particularly the Cassini launch to Saturn slated for Oct. 13 on the new Titan IV-B rocket.
Alliant Techsystems' plan to take over some of the fuze programs of Motorola, which is pulling out of the business, won't change the way U.S. Air Force runs competitions for such programs. Alliant will have to compete with any other interested vendors, Frank Robbins, the Air Force's system program director for precision guided weapons said in a telephone interview from Eglin AFB, Fla. "We still have to make the decision on the government's part who the appropriate sources are for the long term," he said.
L-3 COMMUNICATIONS TELEMETRY&INSTRUMENTATION of San Diego has a $1.9 million contract with Boeing to supply, test and integrate systems for the International Space Station that could produce "substantial follow-on" later in Station development. Two System 500 Model 550-based units will be supplied to Boeing's Space Station facilities in Huntsville, Ala., to monitor data real-time as tests are conducted on Station hardware.
India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle fell short Monday in its launch of an Indian Remote Sensing Satellite, leaving the 2,640-pound platform in an elliptical orbit controllers hope they can correct using the satellite's on-board propulsion.
Gen. Hugh Shelton was sworn in yesterday as new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He replaces Gen. John Shalikashvili who is retiring. Shelton's first activity in his new post is a meeting with the regional commanders-in-chief and service chiefs before heading to Maastricht, the Netherlands, later this week for a NATO meeting.
Russian Space Forces have launched a new Molniya-1T communications satellite to handle governmental and military communications. The four-stage Molniya-M rocket, manufactured by the TsSKB-Progress Center of Samara, lifted off the pad at Site 43 of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on Sept. 25. Its Block ML fourth stage, made by Lavochkin NPO, inserted the satellite into a highly elliptic orbit, which will later be stabilized to provide a semisynchronous period and daily repetition of the ground track.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is "frustrated" by how long it is taking to determine the causes of the 1994 USAir 737 crash in Pittsburgh and last year's TWA 747 crash off Long Island, but each investigation has already produced NTSB's most important product, safety recommendations, Chairman Jim Hall told the Aero Club of Washington last week. The board makes recommendations as soon as it determines a need for them, Hall noted, and the USAir investigation, NTSB's longest and still running, has resulted in 20 so far.
ECHOSTAR is raising $200 million with an offering of 12 1/8% "Senior Redeemable Exchangeable Services B Preferred Stock," with dividends payable either in cash or in additional shares of the stock. Proceeds will be used to expand the subscriber base for the DISH Network direct broadcast satellite system. Echostar III is scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., next week, to complement the Englewood, Colo.-based company's programming, "including possible data delivery and retransmission of local channels to select markets," Echostar said.
SPECTRUM ASTRO has applied for an FCC license to operate a data- communications network built around 25 geosynchronous satellites operating in the planned V-band. The Gilbert, Ariz.-based company's Aster Satellite System would gradually build to full capacity by launching small satellites to five geosynchronous slots, ultimately building to five satellites per slot. The system would use 48 spot beams, eight regional beams and two steerable beams to provide broadband links worldwide. Service is scheduled to begin in 2002.
KAISER AEROSPACE&ELECTRONICS, Foster City, Calif., appointed Stanley Hill president and CEO. He has been with Kaiser 25 years, most recently serving as a corporate vice president and group executive. Hill succeeds Dr. H.J. Smead, who will remain as chairman.
Talley Industries Inc. entertained all offers for its sale, and a $312 million offer from Carpenter Technology Corp. was the best, the company said yesterday. Paul Foster, Talley president and chief executive officer of the Phoenix company, also said the agreement with Carpenter, of Reading, Pa., does not prevent the Talley board "from considering any serious and bone fide proposal that would offer greater value to Talley stockholders."
F-22 PROGRAM CHANGES laid out late last year by the U.S. Air Force's Joint Cost Estimating team were formalized yesterday with a $1.2 billion contract to Lockheed Martin for part of the engineering and manufacturing development phase. The cost-plus contract provides for the restructure of the F-22 EMD program, including a one-year extension of that phase of the program until September 2003, the Pentagon said. The restructure became necessary when the AF realized it faced $2.2 billion cost growth in EMD. The total cost of EMD is expected to be around $18.7 billion.
The U.S. should remain in charge of NATO forces in the alliance's southern area despite a French proposal to transfer the responsibility to a European country, German Army Gen. Klaus Naumann, chairman of NATO's military committee, said yesterday. "The European nations in the region concerned do not support the French proposal," Naumann told reporters during a breakfast meeting in Washington. France is not speaking for the Europeans as a block, he said.
Unless the Pentagon makes some big changes to cut spending in operations and maintenance accounts, it probably won't realize a projected $11 billion in savings that has been seen as a source of funds for the next wave of modernization, a Congressional Budget Office report warns. The situation may be even worse than that, since CBO assumes the Defense Dept. will realize savings from base closures currently included in its budget plans. Right now, it doesn't look that way.
Spacehab Inc., Vienna, Va., reported earnings of $13.8 million on sales of $56.6 million for its 1997 fiscal year. Profits included a $3.3 million after-tax gain related to the refinancing of an existing credit agreement during the first quarter. Comparisons to the 1966 fiscal year, when Spacehab recorded profits of $29.8 million on sales of $56.4 million, are difficult because the company changed its fiscal year-end from Sept. 30 to June 30, so fiscal 1996 included only nine months.
GLOBALSTAR, the "Big LEO" operator launched by Space Systems/Loral, has broken ground for gateways in Canada and China as the international partnership works toward LEO telephone service beginning next year. Globalstar Canada has started work in Smiths Falls, Ontario, on the first of two planned Canadian gateways, while Chinasat has started building the first commercial Globalstar gateway in China.
FAA Administrator Jane Garvey said yesterday that she is putting together a small group of aviation professionals, including executives and union representatives within the agency as well as industry officials, "to work with me to lay out a clear road map toward modernization" of the air traffic control system.
France's Dassault Aviation will explore the idea of building a supersonic Falcon business jet, potentially in cooperation with a U.S. company. "The time is right to talk about a Falcon SST," Jean-Francois Georges, vice president of civil aircraft, said at the National Business Aircraft Association convention in Dallas last week. "So-called 'global' twins do not provide a satisfactory answer .... So we believe that supersonic may well be the next logical step."
NASA has awarded support contracts at three of its field centers. Dynacs Engineering Co. Inc., of Clearwater, Fla., was picked for an engineering support contract at Kennedy Space Center worth more than $160 million. A1 Signal Research Inc., Huntsville, Ala., will provide hardware fabrication and assembly services and design and test services to Marshall Space Flight Center in a contract worth as much as $75.3 million if all options are exercised.
NATO has begun considering the idea of its own air refueling force, German Army Gen. Klaus Naumann, chairman of NATO's military committee, said yesterday. "We are working on a tanker concept in NATO," Naumann told reporters during a breakfast in Washington. The idea hasn't moved beyond the long- range planning stage.
The U.S. Marine Corps believes it will come close to its procurement funding goal in the near term, according to the Corps' assistant deputy chief of staff for programs and resources. The target is around $1.2 billion or about 10% of the total budget, and Maj. Gen. Tom Braaten said that after a drop to about $400 million in fiscal 1998, "we're going to sneak up to that level" in coming years.
