The Pentagon's Joint Requirements Oversight Council refused to arbitrate a dispute between the Air Force and Navy over whether to proceed with the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile program or whether to substitute an enhanced version of the Standoff Land-Attack Missile, effectively allowing the JASSM program to proceed as planned.
SPEAKING WITH ONE VOICE: The U.S. Army is proposing a realignment of its responsibilities for National Missile Defense so it can speak with one voice and have more influence on the effort, says Lt. Gen. Edward Anderson, chief of the Space and Strategic Defense Command. The change would move the program manager for the ground-based component from Army Missile Command to SSDC.
Engineers at Johnson Space Center must wring more cost from their proposal for a human mission to Mars before NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin will ask Congress to pay for it. Goldin told reporters here for the Mars Pathfinder mission Thursday that JSC planners have yet to meet his target of a mission that could put humans on the surface of Mars eight years after a go-ahead for "$20-25 billion."
MORE MARKUPS: The House Appropriations Committee this week plans to plow through a number of subcommittee markups, including the VA-HUD bill that funds NASA and the foreign operations appropriations bill. The VA-HUD and independent agencies panel proposes boosting NASA's budget to $13.6 billion, $148 million more than the request. The foreign operations subcommittee has proposed $12.2 billion for military and economic assistance, $4.6 billion under the request.
'ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS': Arthur C. Clarke's famous admonition notwithstanding, NASA is "studying" a landing on the Jovian moon Europa if earlier missions find there is a liquid ocean beneath its water-ice surface, according to Charles Elachi, head of the Space and Earth Science Programs Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Top engineers from General Electric Aircraft Engines and Pratt&Whitney met Wednesday to talk for the first time about working together on an engine with thrust ratings as high as 115,000 lbs. P&W chief Karl Krapek revealed plans for the exploratory talks during the Paris Air Show. Those talks are very early and informal, and officials say that while some technical issues can't help but be discussed, the primary focus is on assessing the market for an engine in the 110,000- to 115,000-lbst. band.
ACCURACY OVER TIME: The Air Force's small, smart bomb is likely to have an accuracy of eight meters or better, even though it uses essentially the same technology that gives JDAM an accuracy of 10 meters, according to Schulte. He predicts that the improvements will come from reduced target location error and better GPS signals.
KEEPING SMART BOMBS SIMPLE: One way to get smart bombs like the Joint Direct Attack Munition to be more precise is to use the Differential Global Positioning System. But Harry Schulte, the AF's program executive officer for precision strike, says "what you really would like to do is get better accuracy out of the satellites." Putting DGPS on JDAM and other bombs would cost too much, he says. Tweaking the satellites "keeps the bombs cheap."
SENATE SWITCH: The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, which usually marks up after its House counterpart, will be first off the blocks this year, but not by much. The subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), plans to start marking up the fiscal '98 defense bill tomorrow beginning at 10:30 a.m., and have the bill before the full Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday. The House Appropriations national security subcommittee will start two hours later, and continue until Friday if necessary.
United Air Lines, completing plans to buy 111 new aircraft, has ordered eight Boeing 767-300s. When the Pratt&Whitney-powered planes are delivered - four next year, one in 1999, and three in 2000 - United will have a fleet of 32 767- 300s, including 24 of the extended range version. The order is the final step in the airline's plan to replace, on a one-for-one basis, 111 aircraft scheduled for retirement between 1996 and 2002.
AND APPROPRIATIONS: It could also be argued, based on the 1995 votes, that the prospects are there for a B-2 turnaround on the national security appropriations bill, if the House Appropriations Committee funds the add- on. In June 1995, the House voted 203-219 against knocking out a $495 million add-on in the fiscal 1996 authorization for the B-2. In September 1995, the vote on the appropriations bill was much closer with an amendment to knock out the B-2 add-on failing by a 210-213 vote.
In the face of strong opposition from industry leaders, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration late last month ordered a $17 million replacement of fan guards on some 414 General Electric CF700 business jet engines. A Falcon 20 crash last year in which a flock of birds apparently dislodged enough blades to allow overspeed of a CF700 fan disk led to the airworthiness directive, which affects mostly Falcon 20 and Sabreliner NA265 operators.
Boeing Co.'s North American Aircraft Div. has received a $216 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to upgrade the B-1B bomber's defensive systems. The contract allows Block F of the Conventional Munitions Upgrade Program to proceed into engineering and manufacturing development. In EMD, the ALR-56 radar warning receiver and radio frequency subsystem of the Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (IDECM) will be integrated on the bomber.
Hughes Aircraft Co. said Phillip T. LePore, president of Hughes Technical Services Co., is now also acting president of Hughes Training Inc., Arlington, Tex. He assumed the additional role June 30 upon retirement of Stuart I. Moore. Moore came to Hughes from Honeywell's Training and Control Systems Div. when Hughes acquired it in 1988. LePore assumed leadership of HTSC in 1991.
The National Missile Defense (NMD) Joint Program Office (JPO) would like to use an extra $475 million to reduce program risk and add some testing, NMD JPO Program Manager Brig. Gen. Joseph M. Cosumano told reporters yesterday.
Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works is contemplating adding performance to its X-33 reusable launch vehicle prototype by "densifying" the propellant to stuff 12,000 to 13,000 pounds more into the fuselage, according to Jerry Rising, vice president and program director, X-33/RLV. Skunk Works engineers have also dropped plans to add canards to the triangular lifting body for stability in the pitch axis at transonic speeds.
The European Commission's competition directorate, DG-4, disputes the reasoning behind the Federal Trade Commission's ruling that favors Boeing Co.'s plan to acquire McDonnell Douglas Corp. The FTC said Tuesday that McDonnell Douglas "can no longer exert a competitive influence" in the global marketplace for commercial aircraft, and said the deal should go ahead. It also said, however, that Boeing's exclusive contracts with several U.S. airlines were "potentially troubling" and should be monitored.
Raytheon Co.'s planned $2.9 billion takeover of Texas Instruments' Defense Systems and Electronics division can go through, providing that Raytheon sells the TI unit that produces monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) for radar systems, the U.S. Dept. of Justice said yesterday. Calling it a "banner day," a Raytheon spokesman said the deal should be completed within 10 business days. The stock of both companies went up, but only marginally, apparently because the outcome was not a surprise.
The U.S. Air Force is asking industry for enhanced combat identification capability and has set aside almost $15 million over the next four years to fund the effort. The AF's Wright Laboratory is interested in a variety of capabilities and plans to award one or more contracts in November for the 52-month program, according to a July 2 Commerce Business Daily notice. Proposals are due on Aug. 20.
Jean-Marie Luton was named director of Arianespace at company's the annual general meeting of shareholders in Evry, France. Luton, who had been director general of the European Space Agency since 1990, takes the place of Charles Bigot, who has headed Arianespace for 15 years. Replacing Luton at ESA is Antonio Rodota of Italy (DAILY, July 2).
Despite extremely tight budgets, the Russian space industry still dreams about developing a unique reusable single-stage-to-orbit space transportation system - and is finding support from some members of parliament.
Tracor Inc. will realign several of its businesses into a single group named Tracor Information Systems to focus more sharply on the information technology market. The business of Tracor Information Systems Co. - Cordant Inc., Quality Systems Inc. (QSI) and the Software Center of Excellence (DAILY, April 2) - will join with GDE Systems Inc. to form the new group, the company said.
THE NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE plans to launch a satellite on a Titan IV rocket from Space Launch Complex-4 at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on July 15 or 16. NRO, announcing the plan yesterday, said it will be the first Titan IV launch from Vandenberg this year. The launch window is from 10 p.m. on July 15 to 2 a.m. on July 16. The satellite, which wasn't described, will be operated by the NRO once in orbit.
The General Accounting Office said conventional forces must take greater responsibility for some missions now performed by Special Operations Forces, including combat search and rescue.
