Pentagon acquisition chief Paul Kaminski has signed off on a new plan for the Lockheed Martin/Boeing DarkStar unmanned aerial vehicle that includes resumption of flight testing next summer. Kaminski reviewed the DarkStar, or Tier III Minus, program last Thursday and accepted the revised approach, the Pentagon said yesterday.
RAYTHEON E-SYSTEMS said yesterday that protests against its award for support of the Global Command and Control System (GCCS) have been withdrawn, and that it will begin work this week. E-Systems received the contract in late August from the Defense Information Systems Agency.
GEN. GEORGE A. JOULWAN, Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Commander in Chief, U.S. European Command, yesterday announced his intention to retire from active duty next year despite requests from NATO and U.S. authorities that he continue to serve. Joulwan oversaw the first NATO deployment with troops being sent to Bosnia. He will leave office by June.
Northrop Grumman Corp. said Friday it has delivered the second production E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) aircraft to the U.S. Air Force. It was flown to Robins AFB, Ga., home of the 93rd Air Control Wing. The plane will join the first production E-8C flying missions in support of NATO peacekeeping forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
U.S. ARMY plans to award Boeing Co. a contract to move ahead with development of the kinetic-energy anti-satellite (KE-ASAT) technology that Boeing acquired when it bought Rockwell International Corp.'s defense business. The award to the Rocketdyne division would include prototype hover testing and options for flight testing, the Army Space and Strategic Defense Command said in a Dec. 24 Commerce Business Daily notice.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said he was concerned about Boeing Co.'s planned acquisition of McDonnell Douglas Corp. because the aerospace industry would be "dominated by two or three industrial giants." He said in an interview that he didn't blame the merging companies, but the Clinton Administration's "massive cuts" in defense spending, which he said have forced mergers and acquisitions.
U.S. Air Force space and missile programs are hit the hardest of all the services' advanced technology efforts in rescissions proposed by the Pentagon to pay the $2 billion cost of keeping troops in Bosnia longer than originally anticipated. Cuts in fiscal year 1997 programs are levied across the board, in procurement and R&D, to come up with reductions that would be most acceptable to Congress, and "are not...necessarily drawn from increases" made by the Hill, according to a Dept. of Defense Program Budget Decision document (DAILY, Dec. 23).
Irritated by Boeing's planned acquisition of McDonnell Douglas, the two House lawmakers who led the fight last year to limit defense companies' recoveries of merger-related costs have teamed up again to limit potential payments to Boeing. Aides to Reps. Bernard Sanders (Ind.-Vermont) and Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) told The DAILY in separate interviews that the move is the first step in a larger legislative agenda for 1997 aimed at tightening up contractors' use of the restructuring provision and eventually killing off the recovery policy altogether.
The U.S. will offer to share early warning data from the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) only after it's up and running, and only with allies who are already cooperating with Washington on missile defense programs, says Pentagon acquisition chief Paul Kaminski. Last year, the U.S started sharing such data from Defense Support Program satellites.
Jean-Marie Luton, who has guided the European Space Agency for the past six years, has told the ESA Council that he will not seek a third four-year term when his present term expires at the end of September 1998. The Council expressed regret, and pledged support of Luton for the remainder of his tenure. Luton has presided over ESA as it has struggled to maintain a program of robotic probes and, through the International Space Station, human spaceflight in the face of declining space funding by its member nations.
Depending on what FAA decides, Boeing expects to adopt its next-generation 737's rudder power control unit (PCU) approach as the long- term solution to a jamming problem so far being addressed by a series of repetitive - and some say unnecessary - FAA-ordered monthly inspections. Engineers changed the secondary slide in the next-generation 737's PCU dual servo valve long before a series of National Transportation Safety Board tests suggested that extreme cold could jam the 737 slide, stopping or even reversing rudder motion (DAILY, Nov. 4, 6).
The Pentagon has identified $2.04 billion worth of fiscal year 1997 programs it would cut to offset a budget shortfall resulting from the unplanned cost of extending the stay of U.S. troops in Bosnia. Programs hit hardest include the Navy's F/A-18C/D, the Army's OH-58D, and the Air Force's F-16C/D, C-130J and E-8B Joint STARS, according to a Pentagon program budget decision (PBD) document obtained by The DAILY. Congress increased the Administration's FY '97 request for all of those programs.
In what has become a sort of Christmas tradition, Belarus is preparing again to sell a new type of the Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile system to an as-yet-undisclosed buyer. Two years ago the former Soviet republic sold the Pentagon another model of the system in a deal which raised much criticism, particularly from the Russian side.
Fokker Aerostructures, a division of Stork NV, signed a contract with Airbus Industrie to cooperate in the A3XX super jumbo jet project, according to published reports from The Netherlands. The 600-seat jet is designed to compete with Boeing's super jumbo model, and is expected to cost 14 billion guilders. Stork, a group of Dutch businesses and the Dutch government, are expected to contribute 500 million guilders. The jet is expected to be ready in 2003. Stork could not be reached for comment.
The U.S. Air Force would give up three tactical air wings, the Navy would lose at least one carrier air wing, and the Army would surrender 400 to 600 tanks and 160 helicopters under working assumptions of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), congressional and other sources said Friday. They said the assumptions are based in part on the Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP), which calls for stable defense budgets of $250 billion, plus inflation, from fiscal years 1998 to 2003. The fiscal 1997 defense authorization was $265 billion.
The U.S. Defense Dept. may reduce its total number of personnel, but it's not likely to cut force structure because it will still have to be able to fight two nearly simultaneous regional conflicts, Defense Secretary William Perry said.
Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas will go head-to-head over the next 17 months to compete for the development and eventual production of the U.S. Air Force Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) after the two companies beat out the Boeing Co. and Alliant Techsystems Friday for two pre-engineering and manufacturing development contracts.
