GEC-Marconi Avionics' Phoenix battlefield targeting unmanned aerial vehicle finally got the go-ahead last week from the Defense Ministry after more than a decade of ballooning costs and development problems, but the government also put the team on notice that Phoenix will continue to get top-level scrutiny.
The list of critics questioning the Pentagon's tactical aircraft modernization plan grew by one last week, as the private, Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments challenged the need to buy some 4,400 such planes during the next several decades.
Undergraduates at the University of California-Berkeley will gain hands-on experience in spacecraft operations under a cooperative agreement that will shift day-to-day responsibility for running NASA's Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) to the university's Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Astrophysics early next year.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS CORP., St. Louis, received a $196.7 million increase to a contract to provide long-lead funding for 25 F-15I fighters for Israel. The contract was awarded by the U.S. Air Force's Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
Lockheed Martin Management&Data Systems, King of Prussia, Penn., will head a team that will provide program management and systems integration for the Maneuver Control System (MCS) Block IV at Fort Monmouth, N.J., under an $86 million U.S. Army contract announced Monday.
Budget limitations will allow the U.S. Air Force to buy only one E-8C Joint STARS aircraft each in fiscal 1998 and '99, says Brig. Gen. Dave Nagy, chief of the service's information dominance directorate.
Boeing has teamed with International Space Station contractors in four other countries to compete for operations and utilization work on the multi-national orbiting laboratory.
Seven aerospace companies received aircraft support contracts totaling more than $400 million. The contracts were awarded by the U.S. Air Force and Army on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 - the end of the fiscal year. They were as follows : -- Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, Palmdale, Calif., received a $132.6 million contract from the Air Force's Sacramento Air Logistics Center, McClellan AFB, Calif., on Sept. 30 for FY 1997 support services for the F- 117A aircraft.
FAA GRANTED full three-hour extended twin operations clearance to General Electric's GE90 turbofan on Boeing's 777 widebody twin, nearly three months later than GE managers had originally hoped. GE reported yesterday that the GE90-powered aircraft completed the demanding ETOPS requirements - including a 1,000-cycle early ETOPS flight test series - in August, and with FAA's clearance in hand, launch customer British Airways will begin ETOPS revenue service late this month.
Hughes Aircraft Co. will help build the Federal Aviation Administration's Standard Terminal Automation Replacement Systems (STARS) as the major subcontractor to Raytheon Electronic Systems, the company announced.
Hughes Electronics Corp. named Steven D. Dorfman executive vice president, and also chairman of its Hughes Telecommunications and Space Co. unit. Hughes said Dorfman, 61, will continue to report to C. Michael Armstrong, chairman and CEO of Hughes Electronics.
BOEING announced a new satellite structure design based on graphite composite honeycomb sandwich created in a one-piece, one-step process that should lower the weight and cost of future spacecraft. Under the new design, which Boeing is patenting, the structure weight can be cut to about one eighth of the total spacecraft weight, from the one-seventh figure available with earlier composite technology. The design uses graphite fiber an poly-cyanate ester plastic composite material said to be four times stiffer and 40% stronger than aluminum.
ARIANESPACE has set up a new finance arm to help customers with partial financing for its launch services. Based in Luxembourg, Arianespace Finance will provide as much as $400 million in loans to Arianespace customers, which should allow simultaneous financing for eight to 10 of them at a time. The loans are subject to standard project financing conditions, providing financing for three to 10 years after on-orbit acceptance of the satellite launched. Banks in France, Germany and the U.S. will refinance the loans and assume a portion of the risk after launch.
Honeywell Space Systems, Clearwater, Fla., has won a $7.2 million NASA Johnson Space Center contract to develop and qualify a Space Integrated Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System (GPS/INS), called SIGI.
THE U.S. ARMY will buy four NEXWOS automated weather observing systems manufactured by AAI/Systems Management Inc. (AAI/SMI), Hunt Valley, Md. The systems will be installed at helicopter facilities at and around Fort Hood to support helicopter training.
NASA HAS PICKED 170 proposals for Phase II contract negotiations under the agency's Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR). Overall, 144 small high-technology firms in 30 states will carry out the projects, valued at about $100 million together. NASA received 277 proposals from firms completing Phase I feasibility studies under the SBIR program, which seeks to stimulate innovation and commercialize federal research results while increasing the agency's use of small, women-owned and disadvantaged businesses.
Microdyne Corp.'s Aerospace Telemetry Div. has received orders totaling $2.6 million, including $1.76 million for equipment to be used as part of the U.S. Air Force's Range Standardization and Automation (RSA) program, the parent company announced. The RSA program is a multi-year effort sponsored by the U.S. Air Force to automate and standardize equipment on all North American test ranges it operates. Microdyne's $1.76 million in RSA orders came through Harris Information Systems and follow another $2.1 million worth of orders received in April 1996.
Hughes Electronics Corp. said that Charles H. Noski has been named vice chairman. Noski, 44, will also remain chief financial officer. He came to Hughes in 1990 as vice president and controller. Noski was elected HE crprae seniorviceprsident andchief financial officer in 1992 and became a member of the Office of the Chairman. Noski was elected to the board of directors later that year and is a member of Hughes' three- person executive committee.
Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) says the U.S. should strengthen deterrence against future threats by bolstering its superiority in conventional weapons now, while Russia's military might is in a state of flux and China has yet to emerge as a global power.
Sun Microsystems Federal Inc. has been awarded two contracts totaling more than $100 million combined for workstations at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Sun said yesterday the contract calls for software development and CAE/CAD electronic circuit design workstations for the NASA field center. The U.S. space agency will use the equipment for software engineering, full life-cycle software development and maintenance and proof-of-concept and prototype development.
Force contract to provide software support services to Cheyenne Mountain Air Station, Colo. With options, the contract has a maximum potential value of $400 million, the company said yesterday. It was the third consecutive award to Kaman since it won the original contract in 1987.
INTELSAT has opened its third regional center outside the U.S. in London to support customers and partners in Europe with C- and Ku-band video satellite relay services and digital services for public switched and private business networks. The new office will serve functions similar to those already established in Bombay and Singapore and planned for Africa early next year. The international satellite services consortium is also launching Ku-band service in Chile, using digital transmission techniques to improve television quality in the South American nation.
WORLDSPACE has demonstrated that a satellite-direct audio receiver link can work with small efficient antennas, paving the way for the sort of satellite radio broadcast service the company plans to provide in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin American and the Caribbean. In four weeks of experiments with a helicopter at the Franhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Erlangen, Germany, engineers transmitted simulated satellite signals to several different receiver prototypes under various environmental conditions.
Boeing is speeding up production rate hikes on its 737 single-aisle twin jetliner, aiming to reach 17 per month by the third quarter of next year from today's rate of 8.5 aircraft. Yesterday's move - six months earlier than planned - marks the fourth production rate change in the 737 line in nine months (DAILY, June 20, March 19) as the company tries to keep up with booming demand generated by the airlines' recovery.
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), author of an amendment to the fiscal 1997 defense authorization calling for a feasibility study of a limited Minuteman III national missile defense system, has written President Clinton urging him to go ahead with the study. Conrad, in a letter sent last Friday to the president, said he was concerned that "pressure to deploy treaty- and budget-busting systems will inevitably grow unless there is a credible alternative available."
