Stamford, Conn.-based Hexcel Corp. will acquire selected assets and businesses of Fiberite Inc., Tempe, Ariz., for about $300 million in cash and certain assumed liabilities in a deal expected to close during the third quarter of this year. Hexcel will acquire certain prepreg operations and the ablatives, carbon-carbon, molding compound and engineered components businesses, which together recorded about $200 million in sales last year. Acquired operations are in Tempe, Newark, Del., Winona, Minn., Delano, Pa., Greenville, Texas, and Courelles-les-Lens, France.
UNC's Aviation Services business won a contract to maintain older model engines for U.S. Air Force trainers. The Jet Engine Intermediate Maintenance (JEIM) contract, valued at $29 million, covers a five-month startup period beginning May 1, and four option years. UNC will handle all intermediate depot maintenance on General Electric J69 and J85 jet engines used on the T-37 and T-38 trainers flown at six USAF Education and Training Command bases.
The Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program must be restructured and another intercept try should be put off for at least six months, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Paul Kaminski said yesterday.
Philips Electronics NV, Eindhoven, Netherlands, posted a 22% increase in first quarter profits to 460 million guilders ($238.7 million), benefiting from a restructuring initiated by President Cornelius Boonstra. Boonstra also will personally head a new program called Other Costs Of Organization (OCOO), which is designed to cut internal operating costs by as much as 1.3 billion guilders ($674 million) by the end of 1998, according to a Philips spokesman.
Encouraged by a strong showing during the recently conducted preliminary design review (PDR), Pratt&Whitney hopes to send its first F119 turbofan derivative to test two months early, perhaps as soon as February, P&W program chief Bob Cea tells AP.
The U.S. Air Force is looking towards laser technology to help it overcome the complex problem of identifying non-cooperative targets and is planning to invest almost $6 million in the next five years to help it arrive at a solution. The AF's Wright Laboratory is soliciting industry for the development and flight demonstration of an Enhanced Recognition and Sensing Laser Radar (ERASER) system that could provide "positive, timely, and reliable target identification," the AF said in an April 23 Commerce Business Daily notice.
Defense officials with the power to block software exports now must specify the national security requirements behind a denial or conditional approval under the Pentagon's new guidelines for international transfer of software documentation.
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen warned yesterday that "if there is any significant change" in the defense numbers as a result of budget negotiations between the Clinton Administration and Republican congressional leaders, then he won't be able to meet his commitment to report to Congress on the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) by May 15. "I'm hoping we stay at the same level," Cohen said during a Senate Armed Services hearing on NATO enlargement. He has repeatedly defined this spending level as about $250 billion plus an inflation adjustment.
The U.S. Air Force has announced small force structure changes that will affect units based in Alabama, Mississippi, New Jersey, South Carolina, Virginia and Wyoming. The largest of the changes is taking place in South Carolina where six C-17 aircraft are being added to the 437th Airlift Wing at Charleston AFB, and four C-141s are being retired. South Carolina also will lose the Special Operations Low Level mission to New Jersey's McGuire AFB, along with 53 military positions.
A Navy official has warned that if Congress fails to fund the $103 million Arsenal Ship request in the fiscal 1998 defense budget then SC-21, the service's planned replacement for a family of surface ships, will have to be "dramatically redesigned." John W. Douglass, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, offered the assessment at the urging of Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services seapower subcommittee, during a hearing Tuesday on the Navy's shipbuilding budget.
REP. TIM ROEMER (D-Ind.) will make his annual attempt to terminate NASA participation in the International Space Station when the fiscal 1998-99 civilian space authorization bill reaches the House floor, perhaps as early as today. Roemer, who has come within one vote of killing the project in the past (DAILY, June 24, 1993), yesterday cited Russian funding delays and what he said would be almost $2 billion in added payments to Moscow in urging adoption of his amendment to the authorization measure.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. John M. Shalikashvili has supplied Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, with a $4 billion list of three unfunded programs that Shalikashvili says are joint service priorities.
NASA has picked five solar system exploration proposals for more study as the next Discovery low-cost science missions, including probes to Mercury, Venus, the Martian moons and a selection of comets. Scientists working on each of the five proposals selected from 34 received will get $350,000 to conduct four-month implementation feasibility studies that will focus on cost and technical plans. NASA said yesterday it plans to pick one or two of them as Discovery missions, which are capped at $183 million in fiscal 1997 dollars.
Despite reports from South Korea that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons, a Pentagon official said yesterday the U.S. views North Korea's arsenal of artillery and rocket launchers as the most serious threat.
Two independent review teams examining the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system have concluded that although the THAAD missile has failed to intercept a target, its design is sound, the Pentagon reported yesterday. "The teams found that although THAAD has failed to intercept a target ballistic missile in four attempts, the THAAD design as a hit-to-kill interceptor is sound, as is the concept that THAAD will meet its operational requirements," DOD said in prepared statement.
LAUNCH OF THE GOES-K weather satellite has been delayed 24 hours because of high surface winds at Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., NASA said yesterday. Originally scheduled early today, the Atlas I launch was rescheduled to a window that opens at 1:49 a.m. EDT tomorrow and runs until 3:08 a.m. EDT.
Talks between the U.S. and Japan about cooperation on Theater Missile Defense programs have reached a "critical phase," although Japan isn't expected to make a policy decision until this summer, Kurt Campbell, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary for Asia/Pacific, said yesterday.
During the first quarter of 1997 a total of 12 launches with 18 spacecraft were performed worldwide, including one failure. All the launches are listed in the table below. The United States conducted six launches with one failure. Russia performed three launches, orbiting eight satellites. Arianespace orbited three satellites in two launches (one each for the U.S., Argentina and Intelsat) and one launch was carried out by Japan.
LOCKHEED MARTIN TELECOMMUNICATIONS, Sunnyvale, Calif., signed a contract with Korea Telecom for an A2100 commercial communications satellite and upgrades to existing ground systems. The in-service date for Koreasat 3 is 2000, when Koreasat 1 will be retired. It will be positioned at 116 degrees east longitude. The launch vehicle contract is pending.
AERO INTERNATIONAL, Toulouse, France, received a $200 million order for 12 ATR 72-210A Aircraft from American Eagle. Aero will deliver the first ATR in July, with the final delivery coming in May 1998. Aero was formed by Aerospatiale, Alenia, Aerospazio/Finmeccanica and British Aerospace.
NASA has withdrawn from the international Bion space biomedical research program after a rhesus monkey died during biopsy surgery following two weeks in orbit in a Russian space capsule. The U.S. space agency said yesterday it is "suspending its participation" in the planned Bion 12 mission after an independent panel reviewing the Bion 11 mission found an "unacceptable" risk to primate test subjects.
BOMBARDIER REGIONAL AIRCRAFT DIV., Toronto, signed a definitive agreement with Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA) for 30 Canadair Regional Jet(x) Series 200 aircraft plus options for 60 more. The order is the largest single Canadair Jet transaction, with the value of the 30 firm aircraft plus spares about $600 million. Deliveries will begin in August at the rate of one per month.
