SASC announces subcommittee membership Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman and ranking minority member of the Armed Services Committee, said last week that the committee has completed subcommittee assignments for the 105th Congress. The assignments are as follows: Seapower Republicans Democrats Sen. John Warner (Va.), Chairman Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.),
NASA "probably" will carry out plans to supplement the tardy Russian Service Module for the International Space Station with additional propulsion and control hardware, but a final decision on what that hardware will be hasn't been made, Administrator Daniel S. Goldin said yesterday.
Oceans Systems Engineering Corporation, Carlsbad, Calif., is being awarded a $7,154,873 indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee pricing contract for integration of Biological Warfare Defense with theater and battlefield information systems. This contract includes options which, if exercised, will bring the cumulative value of the entire contract to $22,369,212. Work will be performed in San Diego, Calif., and is expected to be completed by January 1999. Contract funds in the amount of $265,500 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Eleven people and nine companies pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Wichita to trying to defraud Boeing and Learjet in a kickback scheme, the U.S. Dept. of Justice said Friday. The investigation found that out of $300,000 in orders, $65,000 was for kickbacks, according to U.S. Attorney Jackie Williams. The defendants pleaded guilty to various charges of mail fraud, wire fraud and theft of defense material being constructed for the United States.
Northrop Grumman Corporation, El Segundo, Calif., was awarded on January 23, a $7,453,955 firm fixed price contract to provide for installation of Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation Systems in nine RF-5E aircraft. Contract is expected to be completed March 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There was one firm solicited and one proposal received. Solicitation began August 1996; negotiations were completed December 1996. This effort supports foreign military sales to Saudi Arabia.
The U.S. Navy and its nine international partners are preparing a memorandum of understanding on production next year of the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile. Capt. K. James Tackett, the ESSM program manager, told The DAILY in an interview that he expects the MOU to be completed by April. It will lay out production work shares, which Tackett said will be similar to those of the development phase.
Revenues for Textron's current stable of businesses grew 10% in 1996, reaching $9.3 billion, as the company earned $482 million from its continuing operations. A year ago, Textron cleared $416 million on sales of $8.5 billion. But Textron's bottom line was lowered to $253 million, mostly by the impact of the divestiture of the Aerostructures division as of Sept. 6.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn., is being awarded a $38,409,906 modification to a firm fixed price multi-year contract for seven UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters for the country of Colombia. Work will be performed in Stratford, Conn., and is expected to be completed by June 30, 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on Dec. 4, 1996. The contracting activity is the U.S. Army Aviation and Troop Command, St. Louis, Mo. (DAAJ09-92-C-0004).
Kollsman, Incorporated, Merrimack, N.H., is being awarded an $8,044,244 firm-fixed-price order under a basic ordering agreement for 13 telescopic sight units, which are major components of the Night Targeting System used on AH-1W Cobra Helicopters. Work will be performed in Nashua, N.H., and is expected to be completed by May 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Inventory Control Point, Philadelphia, Pa., is the contracting activity (N00383-95-G-010G) (Order 0013).
Possible loss of AT&T Skynet's Telstar 401 communications satellite to a relatively mild solar event points up a little-discussed risk of commercial operations in Earth orbit, where the danger posed by an environment often hostile to delicate electronics is quickly overshadowed by the cost of protecting against it, experts say.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORP. won a $514,000 contract from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to modify an existing ASR-9 airport surveillance radar into a transportable version. Three transportable ASR-9s have been made for the U.S. Army and one is deployed in Latin America.
KELLSTROM INDUSTRIES INC., Sunrise, Fla., has completed the purchase of the assets and assumed certain liabilities of International Aircraft Support L.P. for $26.5 million in cash plus warrants to purchase 500,000 shares of Kellstrom common stock at $9.25 per share. The seller's warrants expire in two years.
Boeing's takeover of McDonnell Douglas is scheduled to be completed this summer, but the process will be time consuming, says James Palmer, CFO of McDonnell Douglas. "At this point, a preponderance of effort is being spent on getting all the FTC filings in order, and also for the EU [European Union]" he said. "All our effort has been devoted to those filing packages. We've begun very little activity looking at benefit programs and packages. They will be addressed at a much later time."
Congress is gearing up for a vote on a constitutional amendment to the balance the federal budget. After a two-day retreat last week, the GOP leadership decided to bring the amendment to the Senate floor Feb. 3, and the House floor on Feb. 26. In the last Congress, when defense officials were warning that a balanced budget would be devastating to the Pentagon's weapons budget and force structure, the measure passed the House but failed in the Senate by two votes.
Meeting the $30,000 unit fly-away cost target the U.S. government has set for the Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (MALD) will be the most challenging part of the program's upcoming advanced concept technology demonstration, according the officer who manages the effort for the Dept. of Defense. Lt. Col. Walter Price of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said the greatest technical challenge is "the design and manufacturing of a $30,000 vehicle."
Lockheed Martin this week plans to unveil LANTIRN 2000, a new version of the navigation and targeting system used by U.S. Air Force and Navy fighters. The company says it will "extend the capabilities and missions of the LANTIRN Night Vision System through 2025."
ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS, Minneapolis, won a $108.0 million contract through its Defense Systems Group to make 120mm training ammunition for the U.S. Army's M1A1/A2 Abrams main battle tank, Alliant said. It said Friday that the contract is part of a four-year, $242.3 million basic contract awarded in February 1995 for 484,000 training rounds and an $80 million option to that contract for up to 155,000 rounds awarded in January 1996.
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen says China's recently reported acquisition from Russia of two destroyers with SS-N-22 supersonic cruise missiles "poses a threat to our military forces, but not one that can't be countered." He tells the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing the sale demonstrates that "the Russians are looking to sell whatever they can."
RETIRED U.S. AIR FORCE two-star general Roy D. Bridges Jr. will take over March 2 as director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center, replacing Jay F. Honeycutt, who is retiring. A former astronaut who flew one Shuttle mission in 1985, Bridges retired from the Air Force last July as director of requirements, Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command. During his career he also commanded the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, Calif., and the Eastern Space and Missile Center, Patrick AFB, Calif.
TRACOR AEROSPACE INC., Lansdale, Pa., signed a strategic alliance with Skyhook Technologies Inc. under which Tracor will manufacture Skyhook's multi-hook Cargo Management System (CMS). Skyhook will be responsible for design and engineering development, including hardware and software development. Tracor will make and install CMS.
NASA won't try until 2005 to bring back a piece of Mars, but there's plenty of activity scheduled before then. Planners have decided not to advance the Mars Sample Return mission to 2003, even to prove or disprove meteorite evidence of possible ancient life on the Red Planet (DAILY, Aug. 8, 1996). But they are going ahead with plans for the U.S. Mars orbiter in 2001, with an announcement of opportunity for science instruments due in April.
Bombers will be an integral part of all Air Expeditionary Forces even though the planes have been one of the most overlooked features of the new organizations, says U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman. "A component of the package we will always have is a bomber element," he told The DAILY in an interview at the Pentagon Friday. "Each of our AEFs has had a bomber element associated with it." The Air Force has deployed three AEFs in the last couple of years - to Bahrain, Jordan and Qatar.
LITTON INDUSTRIES' Laser Systems Div., Woodland Hills, Calif., won a $12.5 million contract from the Royal Norwegian Navy for the Norwegian Hellfire Shore Defense System-Designator Configuration program. Litton said it will produce 54 systems for the Royal Navy and Army, and that deliveries will begin in December 1997 and be completed by December 1998.
