Sensenbrenner and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif), new chairman of the House Science Committee's panel on space and aeronautics, will travel to Russia this coming weekend to further investigate work there on the Service Module for the International Space Station. They say they intend to see just exactly what's being done on the factory floor. "We've been getting assurances from the Russian government for over a year that the money is coming, that the check is in the mail," Sensenbrenner remarks.
NASA's fiscal year 1998 budget request Following is a breakout of NASA's fiscal year 1998 budget request, released Thursday (DAILY, Feb. 7). Dollar amounts are in millions. FY 1997 FY 1998 HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT 5,674.80 5,326.50 SCIENCE, AERONAUTICS &TECH 5,453.10 5,642.00 MISSION SUPPORT 2,564.30 2,513.20
An increase in maximum takeoff weight from 6,000 pounds to 6,284 pounds for the new Agusta A109 Power is expected soon, but it will remain classed as a light helicopter. Agusta officials at the Helicopter Association International show here last week said the FAA is allowing the increase under an exemption to FAR Part 27, which specifies a maximum weight for light helicopters of 6,000 pounds. The boosted takeoff weight will add to the twin-turbine aircraft's payload options with only a slight performance degradation, according to Agusta officials.
The decline in USAF manpower levels is basically a result of older systems disappearing from the inventory, a senior budget official says. With the Titan and Minuteman II ICBM forces declining and F-111 strike aircraft retiring, the AF is able to cut many related positions. Outsourcing is another reason for the drawdown, the official says.
The Pentagon will stop buying Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles after 1998 but increase procurement of several of its newest missile and munition programs, including the Joint Standoff Weapon and the Joint Direct Attack Munition.
The U.S. Defense Dept. is asking Congress for $4.7 billion to spend on aircraft modification, spares and repair parts in fiscal 1998, and hopes to spend some $5.4 billion in FY '99. Overall, the Pentagon outlined a somewhat smaller aircraft-related modification and spares spending plan for next fiscal year than is being pursued in FY '97, but large program-related gains drive up the totals by FY '99.
Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. (S.C.), ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, says he is willing to increase the national security function in the budget resolution, but only where it is consistent with the Defense Dept.'s long-term budget plan.
JOHN N. FEREN has been named vice president and program manager for the MD- 17 program at McDonnell Douglas' Military Transport Aircraft division, Long Beach, Calif. He leaves Douglas Aircraft Co., where he was vice president, airline/operator program manager.
LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP. named William B. Bullock president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems, Marietta, Ga. He succeeds John McLellan, who will retire March 15 after 33 years, the company said yesterday. Bullock returns to Aeronautical Systems after serving as executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems, Fort Worth, Tex. He had been vice president of operations at Aeronautical Systems. Bullock's replacement at Tactical Aircraft will be named later, Lockheed Martin said.
SPAR AVIATION SERVICES DIV., Toronto, won a five-year, $5 million contract from the U.S. Dept. of Defense to repair and overhaul components of Navy H- 3 helicopters. Spar said this is the fifth of five Navy H-3 repair and overhaul contracts it has won in the past year.
CLARIFICATION: The U.S. Air Force is advertising a $61.3 billion fiscal 1998 budget request, but the total is actually $75 billion. Charts used by service officials to brief reporters Wednesday on the new AF budget excluded Special Operations Command, Defense Health Programs and National Foreign Intelligence Program funds that pass through AF accounts. The figures are included by other services.
Scud missile upgrades and unmanned aerial vehicle-like variants of cruise missiles are more likely than other missile types to be proliferated in significant numbers in the future, according to Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Patrick M. Hughes. "In my view, ballistic and cruise missile proliferation presents one of the greatest emerging threats to U.S. regional interests and deployed forces," he said in testimony prepared for delivery Wednesday to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The Defense Dept. faces a "very hard climb" to reach its $60 billion modernization target by 2001, Defense Secretary William Cohen said yesterday as he officially unveiled the Pentagon's $250.7 billion fiscal 1998 budget request.
TRACOR FLIGHT SYSTEMS INC., Austin, Tex., has received a $27 million contract from McDonnell Douglas to manufacture an assembly for the MD-95 airliner. Tracor said Wednesday that employees in Palmdale, Calif., will produce more than 400 "y-barrel" assemblies, which will attach to the aircraft's wings. It said the assembly is the lower part of the fuselage and houses the main landing gear, fuel, hydraulic and electrical lines. The contract follows a $30 million award from McDonnell Douglas of last July to join wing halves of the jet.
Republican lawmakers yesterday knocked President Clinton's $250.7 billion fiscal 1998 Pentagon budget request ($265.3 billion for the national security function) for cutting modernization below his own year- ago projection and pushing further out into the future the Joint Chiefs' annual procurement funding goal of $60 billion. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) said in a statement that he was "deeply concerned" about the Administration's defense funding request, particularly in the areas of readiness and modernization.
Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill say it's pointless to hold the space summit that the White House has tentatively slated for the end of the month. House Science Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Committee Ranking Democrat George E. Brown (Calif.) say it's not needed unless there's a decision on whether Russia can complete its Service Module for the International Space Station.
Long term modernization under either the congressional Republicans' budget balancing plan or the Clinton Administration's plan "will be hard to do," Rep. John M. Spratt Jr., ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, has warned. Spratt, who moved into the position this year, told The DAILY in an interview that he regarded the Administration's budget plan for defense as "more realistic in the out-years." He said it has "actually done the FYDP [future years defense plan] for 1998-2002."
ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS named Arlen D. "Dirk" Jameson vice president and program manager, ICBM Modernization, Aerospace Systems Group, the company announced yesterday. It said he will lead Alliant's pursuit of the Air Force's ICBM prime integration program. Jameson had been deputy commander in chief of U.S. Strategic Command from 1994 until retiring from active duty in 1996 as a U.S. Air Force lieutenant general.
The Pentagon, in its fiscal year 1998 budget request, increases funding to accelerate deployment of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system from 2006 to 2004 despite the fact that it has failed so far to intercept a target. The budget provides a total of $2.97 billion for ballistic missile defense programs. The total appropriated by Congress for FY '97 was $3.6 billion. The FY '98 request includes $556.1 million for THAAD.
As U.S. special forces engage in more diverse missions, their need for better human intelligence and communications is increasing, says Gen. Henry H. Shelton, head of U.S. Special Operations Command. He also said special operations forces (SOF) have a new mission, dealing with weapons of mass destruction. Least year, SOF teams worked in 137 countries - including Haiti, Bosnia, Northern Iraq, Somalia and Rwanda - according to the SOF 1996 posture statement.
Reps. Bernard Sanders (Ind.-Vermont) and Christopher Smith (R-N.J.), the two congressmen who last year forced a tightening of the formula for government payments to contractors to cover the costs of mergers, yesterday introduced a bill to prohibit the Pentagon from spending any taxpayer dollars to pay for the restructuring costs growing out of Boeing Co.'s planned acquisition of McDonnell Douglas Corp.
The U.S. Air Force doesn't plan to buy any Lockheed Martin Titan IV rockets in fiscal 1998 and 1999, according to the FY '98 budget request submitted to Congress yesterday. A senior budget official told reporters Wednesday that the AF had been ready to buy four Titan IVs, but that the intelligence customer for the boosters told the service it didn't need them after all.
