NASA MANAGERS have cleared the Space Shuttle Columbia for launch on a 16- day science mission Friday after deciding that heat damage to insulation on the most recent Shuttle launch is not a safety threat. Liftoff on STS-80 could come as early as 2:50 p.m. EST Friday. However, weather forecasts at Kennedy Space Center were not promising, and the flight could slip into the weekend.
ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL has signed an agreement to form a venture with Chinese partners to design, develop and build commercial Global Positioning System navigation receivers. The limited liability firm, known as Shanghai Rockwell Collins Navigation and Communications Equipment Co., expects activities to begin as soon as a business license is approved, RI said. It will provide handheld, maritime and commercial vehicle equipment to the Chinese market.
Effects of last week's elections on the House and Senate Intelligence committees and the Senate Appropriations and Armed Services committees are listed in the following tabulation, compiled by The DAILY. House Select Committee on Intelligence Republicans State Incumbent Outcome ----- --------- ------- Texas Larry Combest won Calif. Robert Dornan* leads Loretta
Raytheon E-Systems officials are urging the U.S. government to stop promoting the Northrop Grumman Joint STARS in the U.K. for the NATO Air- Ground Surveillance (AGS) program, saying that it is undermining both the British ASTOR program Raytheon is competing for and ASTOR's candidacy for AGS.
BOEING won a contract from the government of Spain to modernize three Boeing 414-176 Chinook helicopters to CH-47D configuration, the company said. Modernization will begin this month and deliveries are scheduled for 1999. The value of the contract was not disclosed.
The U.S. Air Force yesterday selected a team led by Boeing Co. for a $1.1 billion Airborne Laser system development program, slated to culminate in 2002 in a demonstration shoot-down of a theater ballistic missile. Boeing got an initial $6.5 million. Total cost of the program is slated to be about $11 billion, including $6 billion for operations and maintenance over a 20-year period.
Lockheed Martin is beginning to learn the ropes of the commercial marketplace as it strives to counter flat defense spending by moving into unfamiliar territory like video arcade games and "smart highway" hardware, and is finding its core business sometimes gains by "spin-ons" from its commercial efforts back to defense programs.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), a member of the House National Security Committee, is expected to leave HNSC and return to the Appropriations Committee from which she was bumped after the Republican takeover of the House in 1994, congressional sources said Friday. A DeLauro aide would not confirm DeLauro's return to Appropriations, describing it as an option.
With the 1996 presidential and congressional races now history, the Administration and Congress can start to give greater attention to some critical issues that must be faced in coming months.
The U.S. Air Force stood down its B-2 bomber fleet for about a day beginning late Friday after it noticed that a piece of fire suppression equipment carried by the planes had exceeded its shelf life. The shelf life of a pyrotechnic device needed to operate the system was shortened when the system was refined, the AF said in a statement Saturday.
WORKERS at Hughes Missile Systems Co., Tucson, Ariz., ratified a new three- year labor contract, the company announced. The contract, retroactive to Oct. 28, is in effect until Oct. 25, 1999. The two sides bargained for more than seven weeks as union members worked under an extension of the previous agreement, which expired Oct. 28.
Daimler-Benz and the German government have so far failed to work out Germany's share of the funding for Eurofighter's production phase, despite pressure from partner Britain's top politicians throughout the prolonged talks on Bonn's 1997 budget plans.
Australia late last week gave British Aerospace the nod over incumbent Aermacchi to supply "around 40" upgraded BAe Hawk 100s for the A$800 million Lead-In Fighter program, and government officials said final contract details are now being worked out. The Lead-In Fighter program, Project Air 5367, is supposed to replace the Royal Australian Air Force's Aermacchi MB.326s, and Aermacchi competed with its MB.339FD. McDonnell Douglas' entry, a modified U.S. Navy T-45 trainer fitted with AlliedSignal/ITEC F124 turbofans, was rejected during the summer.
A SAUDI ARABIAN AIRLINES 747-100 with 312 aboard and a Kazakh Airways Il-76 with 39 aboard collided yesterday 46 miles west of New Delhi, killing all aboard both aircraft. According to reports, the 747 has taken off from the Indira Gandhi International Airport and was reportedly cleared to 14,000 feet. The chartered Ilyushin had been authorized to descend to 15,000 feet. The Indian government ordered an investigation.
India is "about to sign" a contract with its long-time arms supplier, Russia, to become the first customer for the MiG-21-93, an upgraded variant of the MiG-21 that improves the fighter to near-fourth- generation capability, the official says. India will upgrade about 120 aircraft with new avionics and weapons. The MiG-21-93 will cost about a quarter of what a new fourth-generation fighter would cost, the official says. He notes that Israel separately is trying to sell a similar MiG-21 upgrade.
U.S. fighter aircraft will face an increasing threat from fourth- generation fighters as advanced European, Russian and Chinese aircraft proliferate and air defense systems are enhanced, but a fifth-generation threat isn't expected to emerge until about 2015, according to a senior Defense Dept. official.
The MiG-21 isn't the only veteran fighter to get a face- lift, however. The official says Turkey is interested in the Phantom 2000 program put together by Israel and Germany. As many as 60 Turkish F-4s could be upgraded under the program, he says.
Effects of Tuesday's elections on the House National Security and Science committees, and the space and aeronautics and technology subcommittees of the latter, are listed in the following tabulation, compiled by The DAILY. House National Security Committee Republicans State Incumbent Outcome ----- --------- ------- S.C. Floyd Spence won Ariz. Bob Stump won
McDonnell Douglas and its teammate Northrop Grumman plan by the end of the year to complete design of the F/A-18C2W, being pitched to the Navy as a replacement for the EA-6B Prowler. In the process they will determine whether it would need one or two jamming pods, MDC program manager Paul Summers tells The DAILY. The Navy will be shown the design early next year for comment.
House and Senate space committees will undergo a number of leadership changes over the upcoming weeks as decisions are made on committee chairs and membership. In the Senate, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is expected to take over as chair of the full Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.), who chaired the committee and sat on its science, technology and space subcommittee, in the 104th Congress, lost his race for reelection (DAILY, Nov. 7).
McDonnell Douglas likes the looks of Europe's launch center in French Guiana as an offshore base for commercial launches of its planned Delta IV entry in the Pentagon's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle contest (DAILY, Nov. 8). R. Gale Schluter, new head of McDonnell Douglas Space&Defense Systems, says Kourou is attractive because it already has an established launch infrastructure and its location allows both equatorial and polar launches. Discussions with Arianespace, the only commercial user of the site now, have been "friendly," Schluter says.
A PHASED ARRAY communication antenna has been installed on a private 757 business jet, a move that Boeing described as an industry first. Boeing said last week the antenna allows the aircraft to receive live television and business data via satellite. The company said it began development of the antenna in 1986, and flight tested it in June 1996. It was later installed on the U.S. Air Force's C-135 "Speckled Trout" avionics test bed aircraft to support the Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (JWID '96) exercises, Boeing said.
Over the next few weeks the House will try make committee member assignments, and some lawmakers are campaigning early for the most coveted seats. For example, several House members have expressed interest in coming onto the House Intelligence Committee. "Right now we have more members expressing interest than we'll have seats open," one committee aide remarks.
Delta IV is key to McDonnell Douglas' space plans for the next decade or so, Schluter says, and a loss in the EELV bidding wouldn't necessarily mean the vehicle is dead. Instead, the space unit would try to make a case to Chief Executive Officer Harry Stonecipher and the board of directors for developing the new rocket with company funds. "I think based on the information that I have right now that the ELV market is very strong and has a good chance for consideration by Stonecipher and the board," Schluter says.
Economists say the very thing that they like about Bill Clinton's re-election - the return of a day-to-day Administration without a grand unifying ideology - may imperil the airline recovery that began pulling the aerospace industry out of its slump this year. Oppenheimer&Co. investment strategist Michael Metz says the balance between Democrats in the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill creates a "realistic, pragmatic government environment," and that favors slow, steady growth.
