Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, Va., won a contract from Mobile Communications Holdings Inc. of Washington, D.C., to develop and manufacture 17 satellites for the FCC-licensed Ellipso Big Leo worldwide communications system. The value of the contract could exceed $400 million, the companies said.
The V-JET II, an all-composite light aircraft designed to test turbofan engines, made its debut last week at the Experimental Aircraft Association fly-in show and convention at Oshkosh, Wis. Built by Scaled Composites, Mojave, Calif., the aircraft was designed by Williams International, Walled Lake, Mich., to demonstrate its new FJX-2 turbofan.
OLYMPIC AIRWAYS of Greece has signed a contract to buy two Airbus A340- 300s. Airbus said yesterday that deliveries of the four-engine aircraft will start in the third quarter of 1998. They will be powered by CFM56 engines. The contract includes options for two more aircraft, and Olympic plans to increase its fleet to six by 2000. The aircraft will replace the carrier's Boeing 747-200s. Olympic, based in Athens, operates six A300B4s and two A300-600s.
NORWAY'S TELENOR has picked the McDONNELL DOUGLAS Delta II as launch vehicle for Thor III, its next direct-to-home broadcast satellite for Scandinavia and Central and Eastern Europe. The U.S. launcher orbited Thor II last spring (DAILY, May 23).
Russia's Tu-334 100-seat aircraft will not be displayed at the air show this month at the Zhukovsky facility outside Moscow, Itar-Tass reported yesterday. It quoted lead designer Igor Kalygin as saying that Russia once had the lead in development of a 100-seat plane, with the Tu-334 nearly completed in 1996. But the only progress on the program now is from Russia's partner Ukraine, Kalygin said.
FOUR LOCKHEED MARTIN F-16s, two single-seat and two two-seat models, arrived at Nea Ankhialos Air Base in Greece July 28 from the Lockheed Martin plant in Fort Worth, Tex. The company said they are the first of 40 Block 50 F-16s - 32 C-models and 8 D-models - ordered by the Hellenic Air Force. About four fighters will be delivered every other month for the next 18 months. The aircraft carry Northrop Grumman's APG-68(V)7 radar and are powered by GE's F110-GE-129 engine.
The U.S. Navy yesterday briefed industry on its notional requirements for the Common Support Aircraft, intended to replace C-2 cargo planes, E-2C early warning aircraft, S-3 anti-submarine planes and ES-3 electronic intelligence aircraft with a single multi-role airframe that would have a service life of 50 years. The briefing, in Arlington, Va., came about 10 days before the Navy plans to release a broad area announcement for trade studies to further define the future carrier-based plane.
The European Commission, in its 13th annual Report on United States Barriers to Trade and Investment, cites commercial aviation as one among many industries in which the U.S. erects obstacles for foreign exporters and investors. While acknowledging growing trade links that it calls the strongest in the world, the EC continues to argue against the "very high level" of government funding for the Large Civil Aircraft (LCA) industry.
Orbital Imaging Corp., the Earth imaging subsidiary of Orbital Sciences Corp., reported good results for the first phase of its post- launch engineering check out of the OrbView-2 satellite and ground system. The OrbView-2 satellite has performed as expected since launch by a Pegasus XL rocket on Aug. 1, the company said. Later this week, Orbimage will start the second phase of the OrbView-2 satellite check out during which it will move to a higher orbit, about 700 kilometers, where it will operate for the rest of its mission.
Whittaker Corp., Simi Valley, Calif., said it was contacted by the New York Stock Exchange yesterday to comment on recent market activity in shares of its common stock. "As previously announced," Whittaker said, "the company is continuing to explore its strategic options, and discussions are continuing with potential acquirers of its communications, defense electronics and aerospace units, as well as with parties interested in the acquisition of Whittaker by purchase or merger."
Northrop Grumman is discussing with some of its potential F-16 radar customers the sale of a navigation/targeting infrared system integrated with the active electronically scanned array variant of the APG- 68, known as the APG-68 Agile Beam Radar (ABR). James F. Pitts, vice president for avionics systems at Northrop Grumman's Electronic Sensors and Systems Div. here said in an interview that "we have a couple of customers who are very interested" in the integrated system. He said he couldn't identify them at this time.
BOEING CO. received a $7 million addition to a U.S. Navy contract to build and test an automatic target acquisition system for the Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM). The system is a critical component of the SLAM-ER Plus missile, which the Navy wants to buy instead of the Joint Air-to- Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM). The contract, to be completed next July, goes to Boeing's St. Louis-based McDonnell Aircraft and Missiles Systems unit. The contract, awarded by Naval Air Systems Command, was announced by the Pentagon on Aug. 4.
Technical hurdles have forced the U.S. Army to delay delivery of a pilot's helmet that is part of a cooperative U.S./U.K. program to develop a wide field of view display for aviators. Manufacturing difficulties with the helmet-mounted active matrix liquid crystal display have led to an 18-month slip even if the Army meets its new delivery date in November, John Macrino, chief of the Army's Mission Equipment and Integration Div., said in an interview here.
A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off yesterday carrying a replacement crew to the Mir space station, where the team now onboard is experiencing difficulties with an oxygen generator unit. The booster launched on schedule from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:36 a.m. EDT carrying cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyov and Pavel Vinogradov in the Soyuz TM-26 spacecraft. They will relieve Vasisly Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin, who have been on Mir since February. Soyuz TM-26 is slated to dock with Mir on Thursday.
Airbus Industrie said that Virgin Atlantic will become the launch customer for its new A340-600, and that Air Canada has signed a letter of intent with a March decision date for five A340-500/600s with options for 10 more. Virgin, which pointedly ignored Boeing products in ordering 16 of the A340-600s, plans to place double beds in private rooms for premium-fare passengers on the forward lower decks, and a pub-lounge, showers, and an exercise and massage area on the aft lower decks.
SPACE SYSTEMS LORAL, a subsidiary of Loral Space&Communications in Palo Alto, Calif., is building a third digital audio radio service (DARS) satellite for CD Radio Inc.'s satellite-to-car broadcast system.
Indonesia plans to buy 12 Sukhoi-30K fighters and eight Mi-17 helicopters, according to the Russian Itar-Tass news agency. It said Indonesia will pay for the hardware by supplying commodities to Russia. The decision to go with the Russian offerings followed the Paris air show and a visit to Russia by an Indonesian delegation and after Indonesia canceled a plan to buy U.S. F-16s (DAILY, June 10).
The U.S. Army has inserted funds into budget plans to begin a UH-60 Black Hawk modernization effort that would also extend the life of the aircraft, according to an official of the service. "We already have money in the program starting in [fiscal] '04," said the official, who spoke on background. The initial funding is $60 million. FY '04, the official said, "was the first year we could put money in." It was inserted during a recent mini-drill at the Pentagon on the fiscal year 1999 Program Objective Memorandum (POM).
LOCKHEED MARTIN TELECOMMUNICATIONS has delivered the third Intelsat VII communications satellite to the launch center at Kourou, French Guiana, for launch on an Ariane 4 in September. The Series 7000 satellite is one of six Lockheed Martin is building for the international consortium.
The U.S. Army plans to stop underfunding of depot-level maintenance for missiles because some units that could now deploy in the first 24 hours of a conflict would have to do so without enough missiles. The Pentagon Inspector General said in a July 28 report that Army missile maintenance is underfunded between 18% and 85% for fiscal years 1996 through 2003. The level varies greatly each year, but peaks in 2000 at 85% and averages 51% over the eight years, according to the report.
SPACEHAB has awarded contracts to Germany's Daimler-Benz Aerospace and Russia's RSC Energia for detailed design and production of a system to be used by the Space Shuttle to carry unpressurized cargo to the International Space Station. The Vienna, Va., company said the Integrated Cargo Carrier (ICC) system also augments that modules it makes that are in use by NASA to carry re-supply items to the Mir space station.
NATO'S PLANNING COMMITTEE has accepted the nomination of U.S. Navy Adm. Harold W. Gehman Jr. to become Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic. He will also be assigned as commander-in-chief, U.S. Atlantic Command, pending Senate confirmation. Gehman is slated to move to the post in September, replacing Gen. John J. Sheehan.
Boeing Co., having completed its acquisition of McDonnell Douglas Corp. on Friday, yesterday marked its first day of operation as a single, $16 billion company of 220,000 employees. "This is our first day as a single company," said Phil Condit, chairman and chief executive officer, but "not our first day of thinking about our work as a single company." He told reporters in Washington that the organizational structure of the new Boeing will be complete by the end of October, and that a business plan will be in place soon to run the company in 1998.
UNC Lear Services, a unit of UNC Inc., won a $1 billion U.S. Air Force contract to provide contract field teams to assist in maintenance, repair and support of military equipment for DOD and other federal agencies.
