A LOOSE SCREW caused a hatch on the Space Shuttle Columbia to jam, canceling a pair of spacewalks intended to test Space Station construction equipment, a NASA spokesman said yesterday. The screw had probably been loosened by vibrations in several launches. It fell out during liftoff and, when Columbia became weightless, floated into a position that jammed the hatch. Engineers discovered another loose screw after Columbia returned from its 18-day mission Saturday, but it had not fallen out.
U.S. factory sales of electronics equipment and products hit $295.6 billion through the first nine months of 1996, according to figures compiled by the Electronic Industries Association. With an increase of about 10% over last year's totals, Peter F. McCloskey, president of EIA, predicts that 1996 will end with double-digit growth. Growth was strongest in telecommunications (16%) and computers and peripherals (14%), while defense communication sales fell 2%, from $21.2 million in 1995 to $20.7 million this year.
ROCKWELL's Collins Avionics&Communications Div., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, delivered the 100,000th Precision Lightweight GPS Receiver to the Dept. of Defense in November.
TELEPHONICS INC., a subsidiary of GRIFFON CORP., Jericho, N.Y., won a series of contracts from BOEING to update the AN/APX-103 identification friend or foe (IFF) system for the U.S. Air Force's AWACS aircraft. The contracts, worth approximately $17.2 million, bring the total value of the program to about $36 million.
McDonnell Douglas will roll out its Standoff Land Attack Missile- Expanded Response (SLAM-ER) next week, 21 months after receiving the engineering and manufacturing development contract from the U.S. Navy. The company is building approximately five missiles to prove out the system, Bob Krieger, the company's general manager for missile systems, told The DAILY in a telephone interview from St. Louis, where the rollout will take place.
Outgoing Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch said yesterday that he'll be thinking about the role of the DCI and whether more "ambitious" proposals should be made to reform the intelligence community. Deutch, whose position would be taken by National Security Adviser Anthony Lake in President Clinton's second term, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that significant progress was made in the last Congress on intelligence community reform, but that more needs to be done.
GENSYM CORP, Cambridge, Mass., and MOTOROLA Satellite Communications Group signed a $5 million agreement for Gensym software products and support services for use in the Iridium satellite communication system.
The U.S. Army is looking for systems to detect buried and surface anti-tank mines for use on fixed- and rotary-wing airborne platforms, and plans a technical demonstration for next spring. The service wants the systems to delineate minefield boundaries and report individual mine or mine cluster locations "using digital mapping and Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) or similar technology."
The Netherlands is slated to join the U.S. Joint Strike Fighter program today, signing of a declaration of intent at the Pentagon. Dutch State Secretary of Defense Jan Gmelich and U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary John White will participate in the ceremony, the Pentagon said yesterday.
F-117A NIGHTHAWKS will be wired for smart bombs under a contract awarded to Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works by the U.S. Air Force, the Pentagon said Monday. Lockheed Martin will initially receive $13.1 million for the work and to upgrade software of the F-117A's weapon system computer and mission planning system. F-117s are in line to receive such precision guided weapons as the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and the Joint Air-to- Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM).
Boeing's board on Monday elected Phil Condit chairman, effective Feb. 1. Condit, who is now president and chief executive officer, will be chairman and chief executive. Frank Shrontz, current chairman, will be 65 on Dec. 14, and will retire effective Jan. 31. Shrontz was named chairman emeritus and will continue to serve on the board. The board also declared a dividend of 28 cents a share payable March 7 to holders of record Feb. 14.
Globalization of the "information society" will galvanize the commercial space industry over the next decade and more, pushing spending on space systems to the $100 billion-a-year level by 2010 as the demand for orbiting high-bandwidth systems increases with the public desire for information, a prominent French futurist predicts.
South Korea will pick either the Rockwell International AGM-130 missile or the Lockheed Martin/Rafael AGM-142 to equip its F-4E fighters, and not both systems as the Pentagon reported earlier this month, according to a U.S. Air Force official. The Pentagon said Dec. 3 that South Korea would buy 116 AGM-130s and a similar number of AGM-142s for $250 million (DAILY, Dec. 4). But the AF official said that the U.S. has since learned that the Republic of Korea Air Force only wants to buy one of the standoff missiles.
Consolidation of all the Pentagon's weapon system Inventory Control Points (ICPs) under the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) could save up to $3.8 billion, but could hurt overall weapons production and maintenance activities in the long run, warns a report by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. It sees "a potential for substantial savings from consolidating all DOD ICPs under the DLA. But it says there is also "a potential for disrupting the present integration of materiel and weapon system management within the military services."
Lockheed Martin Information Systems, Orlando, Fla., working with British companies GEC-Marconi and Vickers Defense Systems, won an eight- year, $276 million contract from the U.K. Ministry of Defense for delivery, operations and maintenance of combat training systems for the British Army, Lockheed Martin said Monday.
Humans should return to the moon to get their space legs there before sending astronauts to Mars to look for evidence of life there, NASA's top technologist told an audience here. Michael I. Mott, associate deputy administrator, technical, told the annual meeting of the American Astronautical Society that he believes the 72 hours humans have spent on the moon did not provide sufficient experience for the vastly more complex task of reaching Mars with a human crew, exploring it and returning safely to Earth.
ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL CORP., Seal Beach, Calif., having sold its aerospace and defense businesses to BOEING, contributed its automation, avionics and communications, semiconductor systems and automotive businesses to a new company which retains the name Rockwell International Corp. Shares of the new company were distributed on a share-for-share basis to holders of "old" Rockwell shares at the close of business on Dec. 6. New Rockwell shares will remain ROK on the New York Stock Exchange.
OLIN CORP.'s board voted to authorize the distribution to Olin stockholders of one share of Primex Technologies stock for every 10 shares of Olin common stock held as of Dec. 19. The Primex stock has been approved for listing on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol PRMX. Primex stock certificate distribution will begin Jan. 6, 1997. Primex begins business as a separate entity on Jan. 1, 1997. Olin is based in Norwalk, Conn.
MOODY'S and STANDARD&POOR'S both changed their ratings on Rockwell International after completion of the Boeing transaction. Moody's assigned a Prime-1 short-term debt rating for commercial paper to the new Rockwell and downgraded to A1 from Aa3 the existing long-term debt issues of old Rockwell, which have been guaranteed by Boeing. Standard&Poor's raised its rating and removed Rockwell from CreditWatch, where its was placed on Aug. 7. Standard&Poor's assigned its A-1-plus rating to Rockwell's new commercial paper program.
Reengining the U.S. Air Force's fleet of C-5 airlifters would substantially increase the availability of the planes through 2030, according to a Lockheed Martin study that could lead to formal proposal.
McDonnell Douglas continued competing for a piece of the Eastern European fighter market, opening an office in Warsaw and marking conclusion of a flight evaluation of the F/A-18 by representatives of the Czech Republic. At a ceremony in Warsaw to open an office there, McDonnell Douglas said it will place final assembly of the F/A-18 in Poland should the country decide to buy the fighter. The Warsaw office will be headed by business development manager Bruce K. Fasterling, a former U.S. Navy pilot.
FIVE MILLIONTH FLYING HOUR for U.S. Air Force F-16 fighters was logged Dec., 3 during a ceremony at Hill AFB, Utah, hosted by the 388th Fighter Wing, the first wing to receive F-16s. On Nov. 10, the USAF's Air Demonstration Squadron, the Thunderbirds, flew its 1,000th performance in F-16s. The unit's last performance of the year was flown at Pope AFB, N.C. F-16s entered USAF service in 1979.
Chinese scientists have developed a new generation of satellite rangefinders capable of estimating the distance of an object 20,000 kilometers away with an error of 2 centimeters. Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences said they are using pulse laser technology developed in the mid-1960s. Researchers at observatories and satellite ground station across China say they have achieved good results in monitoring earth rotation parameters, tectonic plate movement, gravity and sea levels.
