BEYOND IHPTET: It's all but a given that there will be a fourth phase in the long-running Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technology (IHPTET) initiative, top program participants confirm. U.S. defense officials coordinating the now ten-year-old program plan to keep mum until the competition for Phase III contracts is wrapped up and the results are made public - which could come as soon as the end of this month.
THREE HITS OR YOU'RE OUT: Kaminski also says the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program should not proceed into the next phase until it makes at least three successful intercepts. Though the Pentagon is slipping the date to equip the first military units with THAAD from 2004 to 2006, Kaminski says that won't change the user operational evaluation system (UOES) portion of the program. The 40 UOES missiles, which will not be fully tested, will be given to troops to try out in the year 2000 as planned, he says.
PANAMSAT CORP. and the Galaxy Satellite Services business of Hughes Communications Inc. completed their merger (DAILY, Sept. 23, 1996), the companies reported Friday. Combined sales for the two in 1995 were about $500 million.
Partners on the International Space Station have baselined the tardy Russian Service Module as the third element in the Station assembly sequence, but NASA will continue work on a U.S.-built backup that can be dropped into the sequence if there are additional Russian delays.
The U.S. can save $22 billion between fiscal 1998 and 2010 if it reduces its nuclear arsenal to START III levels of 1,000 strategic warheads, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released Wednesday. The report, "Preserving the Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Under a Comprehensive Test Ban," was released by Sen. John Glenn (Ohio), ranking Democrat on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, who requested it.
SPACE IMAGING EOSAT has signed an agreement with South Korea's Halla Business Group that gives Halla an equity stake in the U.S. commercial remote sensing firm, which markets data collected by Landsat; the Indian Remote Sensing satellite; Japan's JERS satellite and Europe's ERS satellites. Halla joins Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Mitsubishi and Singapore's Van Der Horst Ltd. as EOSAT partners.
LOCKHEED MARTIN TELECOMMUNICATIONS has won U.S. FCC approval to operate its planed Astrolink Ka-band satellite communications system. The geosynchronous network will support business intranets and other private communications networks with bandwidth on demand for such applications as remote manufacturing, distance learning, telemedicine and corporate training. The spaceborne part of the system will consist of nine satellites based on the Lockheed Martin A2100 bus at five geostationary locations.
TRW INC. is winding up work on a new solar array for NASA's Earth Observing System AM-1 platform that combines high power output with light weight. Made of gallium arsenide germanium solar cells, the array is only 0.03 inches thick, yet generates 25-35% more power than conventional silicon cells, TRW said. On the AM-1 platform the flexible blanket assembly will be unfolded like an accordion in a single-wing array from a canister-deployed mast system, producing 7.5 kilowatts at 127 volts.
A fuel leak and problems with an Auxiliary Power Generating System are almost certainly going to delay first flight of the F-22 Raptor that had been scheduled for May 29. Lockheed Martin has begun a series of ground tests with the F-22, so it may be another week before technicians can insert a borescope into the fuel tank to find out from where the fuel is leaking, a Lockheed Martin spokesman said yesterday. Once the crack in the fuel tank is found, Lockheed Martin hopes to apply a sealant to stop the leak.
The quadrennial defense review (QDR) recommends cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program and slipping the date for providing troops with the first operational THAAD units from 2004 to 2006, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Paul Kaminiski told lawmakers yesterday.
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen emphasized the Joint Strike Fighter yesterday in notifying congressional defense leaders of plans under the Quadrennial Defense Review to cut the Navy's F/A-18E/F strike fighter buy to only a little more than 500 aircraft, produce 338 F-22s as earlier reported and leave the 2,978-aircraft Joint Strike Fighter program intact.
SPECTRUM ASTRO, Inc., has delivered the Command and Data Handling unit for NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft, and the flight hardware has been integrated and checked out by prime contractor Lockheed Martin. The company built the unit under a $1.5 million contract awarded late in 1995, in preparation for the spacecraft's launch upcoming in October.
NASA's Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off right on time at 4:07 a.m. EDT yesterday on its way to deliver a load of spare parts and tools to Russia's creaky Mir orbital station, along with the fifth U.S. astronaut to live there.
The competition to upgrade the F/A-18's forward looking infrared system, which will also be the baseline for the F/A-18E/F, could net the winning contractor about $1 billion in U.S. and international sales, an industry official said Wednesday.
Calspan SRL Corp., Washington, D.C., and Veda International Inc., Alexandria, Va., have signed a letter of intent to merge, the companies announced. The combined aeronautics research, development, test and evaluation company will employ more than 2,300 scientists, engineers, test pilots, logisticians, systems analysts and technicians in about 30 locations. Annual sales are expected to be more than $250 million.
House Intelligence Committee member Norman Dicks (D-Wash.) gives a higher priority to deploying theater missile defenses to protect U.S. forces overseas than to developing and deploying a thin national missile defense.
ALLIEDSIGNAL AEROSPACE is developing equipment to bring planned Iridium low Earth orbit satellite communications system services to aircraft passengers. AlliedSignal plans to supply transmitters, receivers, switching equipment and other aircraft-mounted Iridium hardware, marketing the service rather than the hardware. Single- and multi-channel systems for all types of private, military and commercial aircraft are planned.
ORBIMAGE has raised $65 million in a private placement of preferred and common stock and plans to use the proceeds to capitalize a commercial application for its OrbView satellite system. Gilbert D. Rye, president and chief operating officer of the Orbital Sciences Corp. subsidiary, said the transaction completes his concern's financing requirements. The OrbView system includes one satellite already on orbit to gather ocean color data, and two more planned for launch (DAILY, May 12).
The May 5 issue of The DAILY reported that NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin told Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director Lt. Gen. Lester Lyles the U.S. space agency will provide funding so that Midcourse Space Experiment can continue operation. While Lyles told reporters that Goldin has pledged his support for MSX, there is no specific financial agreement at this time, and BMDO and NASA are continuing discussions.
Airbus Industrie officials yesterday defended their forecast of a market for over 1,400 Very Large Aircraft (VLAs) over the next 20 years, saying that most of the market is in Asia and the Pacific. Adam Brown, VP-strategic planning, said in a briefing for reporters here that 74 airlines will need 1,440 VLAs like Airbus' proposed A3XX. He pointed out that two-thirds of passenger-carrying Boeing 747s serve just 20 airports, and that the top nine airport pairs are in the Asia-Pacific market.
Despite delays in the House on acting on the fiscal 1997 budget supplemental, Pentagon comptroller John Hamre told reporters yesterday he expects the bill to be approved before Congress adjourns for its Memorial Day recess. "I really, honestly don't think they're going to leave for recess not having acted on the supplemental," he said during a briefing at the Pentagon. Congress plans to adjourn next Thursday or Friday.
Senators who oversee NASA programs are likely to have questions about the U.S. space agency's uncosted carryovers from previous years before they go along with a two-year, $725 million authorization for work on a follow- on to the X-33 reusable launch vehicle testbed, a key Senate aide said yesterday.
