NASA could save as much as $2 billion a year by offloading its routine space operations work to the private sector, using the savings to finance solar system exploration with humans and robots, Administrator Daniel S. Goldin said yesterday.
A weapons proliferation expert has urged a Senate subcommittee to study Commerce Dept. records to see if the Administration's export policy has helped China get U.S. weapons-related technology that eventually surfaced in Iran.
The U.S. Air Force yesterday launched a Peacekeeper ICBM from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., as part of a continuing program to evaluate the missile's accuracy and reliability. The missile, carrying nine unarmed re-entry vehicles, flew 4,200 miles in about 30 minutes to the Kwajalein Missile Range in the Pacific Ocean. The launch, delayed a day by bad weather, was conducted under Air Force Space Command's follow-on operational test and evaluation program to obtain information of Peacekeeper performance.
A joint venture composed of Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, McDonnell Douglas Aerospace and CSA Czech Airlines will take a minority stake in Czech Republic airplane maker Aero Vodochody, Boeing announced yesterday. The Czech government selected the joint venture to acquire 34-40% of the company known for manufacturing L-39 fighter-jet trainers for Warsaw Pact countries (DAILY, March 21). Boeing said the joint venture effort falls outside of its proposed acquisition of McDonnell Douglas.
Loral Space&Communications Ltd., New York, less than a year after the sale of its defense and systems integration businesses, lost $406,000 on revenues of $340 million in the first quarter of 1997. It declined to provide comparable results from the same period in 1996, citing the complexity of pro forma results. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were $21.5 million, with Globalstar and Cyberstar system development and start- up costs eating up $9.8 million.
The General Accounting Office has upheld a U.S. Air Force decision to award Lockheed Martin a $500 million production contract for the Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser program. Alliant Techsystems filed several protests on the contract, objecting to the Air Force's price evaluation, and raising some technical objections. It filed the initial protest Feb. 6 and a first supplemental on Feb. 13, forcing the AF to issue a stop-work order (DAILY, Feb. 24).
Boeing Co.'s proposed acquisition of McDonnell Douglas will be approved because of pressure from the Pentagon and a deal with the European Commission, but its success is far from assured, panelists at a conference in Arlington, Va., said yesterday.
A top House Republican turned up the partisan heat on the International Space Station yesterday with a strongly worded attack on the Clinton Administration, and specifically Vice President Gore, for failing repeatedly to hold Russia to its hardware commitments on the project.
Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Electronics Sector named James F. Berry as president of Vought Systems effective Aug. 1, the company announced yesterday. He will replace Jay A. Musselman, who will retire at the end of September. Berry served as vice president-technology for Lockheed Martin Electronics Sector since 1994. He had previously been vice president and general manager of the C-17 program at McDonnell Douglas.
The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, as a result of the Quadrennial Defense Review, will receive a funding increase of between $1 billion and $2 billion for the National Missile Defense (NMD) program, Pentagon officials said yesterday. They said the extra funding will be used to add tests of the exo- atmospheric kill vehicle (EKV), the key interceptor technology for NMD.
Boeing Co. and American Airlines have restructured their November deal for new jets that keeps American as an exclusive Boeing customer through 2018. The move follows ratification by the Allied Pilots Association of its contract with the airline. American has lost a few delivery positions in 1998 because of the delay in finalizing the deal, and is holding off on deciding which version of the 777 it wants to order now that two new variants are being developed.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS POSTPONED the planned May 11 launch of Norway's Thor II satellite until May 18 so its engineers can review flight data from Monday's Delta II launch of the first five Iridium satellites. While the satellites were all deployed properly, the attitude control system in the Delta second stage used more nitrogen gas than planned during the orbital coast periods of the deployment, the company said. The launch from Cape Canaveral Air Station could advance to May 17 if the Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on May 15 as planned and the date becomes available.
Two Taiwanese companies have been turned down by their government in a bid to invest in an aerospace manufacturing project in mainland China. Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Chih-kang announced in Taiwan that the ministry will not allow Aerospace Industry Development Corp. (AIDC) and Taiwan Aerospace Corp. to invest as much as $110 million in a project to build AE-100 passenger jets in China.
The freshmen on the House National Security Committee's two weapons subcommittees are generally supportive of the F-22 fighter and the Joint Strike Fighter, but have doubts about the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and seem to be opposed to making the first down-payment on renewed B-2 bomber production. These views emerged from interviews by The DAILY with most of the 14 freshmen members, or their aides, on of the procurement and research and development subcommittees. Most of the freshmen are Democrats.
The U.S. Navy has selected 14 candidate programs for insertion of commercial technology as part of an initiative to cut operations and support costs. The programs could receive about $43 million in Dual Use Applications Program funding, the service said.
The U.S. Air Force yesterday delayed a test launch of a Peacekeeper ICBM from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., because of bad weather at downrange at the Kwajalein Missile Range in the Pacific. The launch has been rescheduled for today, May 8, at 1:01 a.m. PDT, with a six-hour launch window.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Mongolia has awarded Raytheon Co. a $11.7 million contract to provide an air traffic control system and an aeronautical communications system. Under the project, being funded by a loan from the Asian Development Bank, Raytheon will design, install and commission the new system and provide training for operation and maintenance. Mike Hoffler, Raytheon's Manager for Transportation Systems, said this will put Mongolia "at the forefront of new satellite-based air traffic control technology."
PRATT&WHITNEY said yesterday it has agreed to purchase the airfoil refurbishment plants of Howmet Corp. in Wichita Falls, Tex.; Claremore, Okla., and North Haven, Conn. Howmet is owned by a joint venture of The Carlyle Group and Thiokol Corp.
As the world shrinks with the expanded use of aircraft, governments must make sure to keep borders open and free of trade barriers, members of a panel at a conference in Arlington, Va., said yesterday. They said this is especially true if companies want to take advantage of the blossoming Asian market. Jeffrey Frankel, member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, said that at the current rate of growth, the amount of U.S. exports and imports delivered by air will pass the amount shipped by sea early in the next century.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS got the green light from the U.S. Air Force to begin low rate initial production of the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). Clearance came April 30 with award of a contract for 937 guidance kits.
The Pentagon is establishing an "early warning system" to ward off problems that could stem from the current trend of large U.S. defense companies acquiring smaller ones and then using their expertise to the exclusion of others, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Paul Kaminski said yesterday. A potentially static defense business climate, with few new programs and a concentrated industry, could reduce competition and innovation for important defense sub-tier products.
Russia's space agency appears to be moving toward meeting NASA's criteria for keeping its place in the International Space Station assembly sequence, although NASA is continuing with plans for shuffling the sequence if it appears the critical Russian Service Module won't be ready in time. Administrator Daniel S. Goldin told Congress yesterday that Russia appears to have met two of the three criteria NASA has set as a precondition for keeping the Russian Service Module in the No. 3 slot on the baseline Station assembly schedule.
REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE has chosen Northrop Grumman's Chukar III aerial target system to train its force, the company said yesterday. It said a three-year contract, the value of which wasn't disclosed, calls for the purchase of aerial targets, support equipment, kits, spare parts, and training of Singapore personnel in the operation and maintenance of the Chukar III.
HUGHES AIRCRAFT CO. will produce 60 sights for the German Very Short Range Air Defense (V/SHORAD) system. Hughes said yesterday that its Mahwah, N.J., Electro-Optics Center received a contract for 60 Stinger Night Sights (SNS) fromEuroatlas GmbH of Bremen, Germany, and that the contract, including options, is worth about $5 million. It said SNS was initially produced for the U.S. Stinger Manportable Air Defense System (MANPADS) and Dual Mount Stinger, and has also been delivered to Denmark and the Netherlands.
