The four partners of Airbus Industrie - Aerospatiale, Daimler-Benz Aerospace, British Aerospace and CASA - signed a memorandum of understanding to restructure the consortium into a limited liability company by 1999, Airbus said yesterday.
SPACE SHUTTLE ATLANTIS lifted off early Sunday at the opening of its seven- minute launch window to rendezvous with Russia's Mir space station tonight. Liftoff from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., came at 4:27 a.m. EST, sending Atlantis toward its sixth rendezvous and fifth docking with the Russian station.
January 10, 1997 Standard Missile Company Standard Missile Company, McLean, Va., is being awarded a $5,038,483 modification to previously awarded contract N00024-96-C-5336 for 30 Standard Missile-1 Block VIB modification kits. Work will be performed in McLean, Va. (32.3%), Tucson, Ariz. (57%), Scottsdale, Ariz. (6.7%), and Chattanooga, Tenn. (4%), and is expected to be completed by April 2000. Contract funds will not expire at the end of this fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Arlington, Va., is the contracting activity.
The U.S. Air Force has convened a panel of experts to help contractors developing the F-22 fighter determine how to avoid a potential $15 billion production cost increase, and do it by the end of February. Lt. Gen. George Muellner, the top AF acquisition officer, told The DAILY yesterday that the new panel is headed by former AF acquisition chief John Welch. "The contractor believes they needed some experience" and, he said, the panel members have "great credibility with us."
One issue that won't make it to the Hill as part of the U.S. Air Force's FY '98 budget package is B-52H bomber re-engining. The AF has been studying an unsolicited proposal from Boeing to re-engine B-52s with leased Rolls Royce RB211-535 turbofans. But legislative changes are required to allow the lease of military equipment, and Fogleman says the AF "has not been able to come to closure" on the required changes to include them in the FY '98 budget submission.
Safety engineers in NASA's International Space Station program office rank a meteoroid or debris hit as sixth in the top 10 hazards that could cause the loss of the Station or crew members. At the top of the list, compiled last August, is a spacewalk to jettison a damaged or partially deployed solar array. Second is incomplete safety assessments of some systems forced by lagging software development, and third is the lack of redundancy on the docking probe motor aboard the Russian FGB tug, which will be the active docking element in early Station assembly.
South Korea is buying around $5 million worth of electro-optical equipment to allow air defenses to passively track enemy aircraft. The first articles of the Electro-Optical Tracking Systems (EOTS) off the production line are to be delivered by the second quarter of 1998, Hughes said.
Tactical Control Station has generated international attention and now is being studied by NATO while the U.K., Germany, and the U.S. are working on a program to cooperatively use the system. Under the trilateral program, the U.K. would fund the U.S. to host TCS on a Navy ship to control a Germany UAV - the Daimler-Benz Aerospace Seamos, a DOD official told The DAILY. The agreement is now in coordination and isn't expected to be formalized for another six months.
Shelby also suggests that CIA could use some personnel shifts. "There are many senior people at Langley who have served their county well," he says. "There are a lot of those who could retire and make room for younger, experienced people to come in." The makeup of the CIA must continue to evolve as it faces new challenges, he says.
Boeing said it is "confident" the estimated $6.3 billion aircraft order placed by American Airlines in November will go forward once the carrier and its pilots' union finally reach an agreement. Allied Pilots Association (APA) members' rejection of the contract last Wednesday put the Boeing order, which was contingent on a signed contract, in limbo. Promising the airline its full support, Boeing said, "We believe that the contract vote is a near-term issue that ultimately will be resolved between American and its pilots."
The Administration's nomination of former Pentagon official David S.C. Chu to become a member of the National Defense Panel is drawing fire from at least two congressional Republicans. The panel was established by Congress last year to evaluate recommendations of the Quadrennial Defense Review.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) intends to lead a congressional delegation to China later this month to meet Chinese defense officials for discussions on a range of issues including missile defense, a Weldon spokesman says. Weldon, who has made several such trips to Russia to discuss arms control and missile defense, wants to take a more active role in the 105th Congress to examine Chinese policy, the spokesman adds.
The Common Automatic Recovery System (CARS), designed to reduce the number of unmanned aerial vehicle mishaps by automating the landing process, recorded its first fully automated landing using a Pioneer UAV. Five landings were accomplished at Naval Air Warfare Center, Patuxent River, Md., last month, but telemetry confirming a successful "hands-off" landing wasn't completely evaluated until last week, the UAV Joint Program Office reported.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-La.) says he's giving President Clinton "the benefit of the doubt" that he won't abuse power of the line item veto pen for political goals. Lott tells reporters he will be keeping a close eye on how Clinton uses the new veto power. And, he says, "Those who giveth can taketh away," meaning the GOP-controlled Congress could reverse the policy if it thinks Clinton is abusing the new tool.
Recent wargames reveal that space dominance will be key to winning and maintaining combat superiority for the U.S. Army of the future, says Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr., deputy chief of staff for doctrine at the service's Training and Doctrine Command. A series of ongoing wargames have concluded that the future Army has a greater chance of success if it maintains a "constant non-blinking eye" on the enemy, Scales told reporters at a Pentagon briefing on Friday. It must also be able to understand what it is seeing from space, he noted.
Senate Armed Services Committee Democrats have designated their ranking minority members on the subcommittees, and five of the six are new on the job. The new ranking Democrats and their subcommittees are as follows: Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), strategic; John Glenn (Ohio), airland forces; Charles S. Robb (Va.), readiness; Joseph Lieberman (Conn.), acquisition and technology, and Max Cleland (Ga.), personnel. The lone holdover ranking Democrat is Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.), ranking on the seapower subcommittee.
The Tactical Control Station program for unmanned aerial vehicles is being speeded up by two years with an infusion of extra funding by the Defense Dept. But, Pentagon documents say, a $12 million reprogramming is still required this fiscal year to implement the new schedule, which would accelerate beginning of the program from 2000 to 1998.
AIR CHINA has ordered two 747-400 Combis valued at $383 million, Boeing said. Last year, the mainland China flag carrier ordered three 747-400s valued at $510 million. It plans to use the combis on routes to Europe and the U.S.
Users will get their first look at the Joint Direct Attack Munition in the next few weeks in testing at Nellis AFB, Nev. The test series will allow the program office see how JDAM performs when it isn't dropped by the test squadron, an AF official says. The last several tests will mark the first live-warhead JDAM drops.
A little-noticed U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board analysis of orbital debris has found the estimates that guide NASA in Space Shuttle and other spacecraft operations, and in developing shielding for the International Space Station, are much too pessimistic. A study panel headed by F.
In his remarks to the House on being re-elected Speaker last week, Newt Gingrich said he has asked House National Security Committee Chairman Floyd Spence "...to look at the issue of national missile defense...." Congressional sources, including some on the committee, don't see the HNSC doing anything special on an issue that is already combustible. Most Republicans want to speed the Administration's NMD plan which could provide for deployment by 2003.
