Paul Kaufman was appointed to the newly created position of vice president of marketing, with responsibility for overseeing worldwide marketing of the company's Rapid Prototyping (RP) and manufacturing systems. He previously was director of marketing for the Special Information Systems unit of Xerox Corp., Pasadena, Calif.
C. Stephen Jungers, previously vice president, business development for Lockheed Sanders in Nashua, N.H., has been named vice president business development.
The U.S. Air Force has picked Lockheed Martin Training and Technical Services to continue supporting the Tethered Aerostat Radar System for five years under a contract that could be worth $110 million. Lockheed Martin has been supporting the aerostats for the AF since 1992. The aerostats and radars along the southern U.S. border provide coverage of low-flying aircraft in support of drug interdiction. The system uses Lockheed Martin 420k aerostats and a L-88 radars.
Senate and House appropriations conferees agreed last week to allow NASA to transfer up to $177 million between two separate funding accounts for the International Space Station so a near-term budget crunch can be eased with monies earmarked for science on the orbiting laboratory. The conferees provided $2.1 billion for Space Station in the fiscal year 1997 VA, HUD and Independent Agencies Appropriations Bill, which they passed Thursday. (DAILY, Sept. 20). It provides a total of $13.7 billion for NASA in FY '97.
Colin M. Cohen has been elected chief financial officer and senior vice president - finance and business development. Cohen comes to Fairchild from Citicorp where he has been managing director of Citicorp Securities., Chicago.
Thomas W. Blum has been named director, business development, major markets and primes for Commercial and Government Systems. Carl A. Marchetto was named director, Image Acquisition Systems (IAS) and vice president, Commercial and Government Systems. Marchetto joins the company from Lockheed Martin's Astro Space Division in Princeton, N.J., where he was the A2100/GE commercial satellite program director.
The Defense Information Systems Agency isn't providing the necessary protection to maintain security of information handled by the U.S. Government's Federal Acquisition Computer Network (FACNET), according to the Pentagon's Inspector General.
Ronald C. Ross was promoted to president, Systems Engineering Division (SED). He succeeds Thomas C. Robinson who has been appointed president, Technology Management Group. The following members of SED have been honored with a U.S. Army Commander's Award for Public Service. Honored for their work on the Standard Theater Army Command and Control System were John Doyle, team director; Theda Foster, software manager; Mike Vincentry, technical director; Jean Himmel, test director; and former team members Rich Murray and Don Thorp.
The Defense Dept.'s share of a $1 billion-plus Administration anti- terrorism package, $353 million, will probably come from procurement and R&D accounts in the fiscal 1997 defense appropriations compromise, Rep. C.W. (Bill) Young (R-Fla.), head of the House defense negotiators, said yesterday.
The U.S. Army is operating Avenger air defense systems with technically deficient forward looking infrared sensors, according to a new audit by the Pentagon's Inspector General. The problem, which has been known for several years, affects all Boeing-built Avengers procured through May 1996, the IG said. "Avenger crews using the FLIR near a radiation source have a FLIR target acquisition screen that is cluttered with interference," it said.
Ashtech Inc. sees a positive trend in the market since it unveiled its single board combined GPS/Glonass receiver last June. The GG-24 receiver, which uses information from both the U.S. Global Positioning System and the Russian Glonass system to help users pinpoint their location, is "selling very well," said Leonard R. Kruczynski, director of strategic relationships for the Sunnyvale, Calif., company. He told DAILY affiliate ATC Market Report in a telephone interview yesterday that the number of systems being sold is in the hundreds.
U.S. ARMY AVIATION AND MISSILE COMMAND is the name of the organization formed by the merger of the Aviation and Troop Command in St. Louis and the Missile Command in Huntsville, the service said. The St. Louis command is being disestablished on the recommendation of the Base Closure and Realignment Commission, which said it should be moved to Huntsville and merged with Missile Command. Both organizations are under Army Materiel Command, which said that about 2,000 jobs will be shifted from St. Louis to Huntsville by Oct.
The FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation yesterday issued its first commercial spaceport operators license to Spaceport Systems International (SSI), a joint venture between ITT Federal Services Corp. and California Commercial Spaceport Inc. First launch from the commercial facilities leased from the Air Force at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., could come in the fourth quarter of next year, according to Cheryl Waller, SSI business development manager.
Egypt wants to buy two more Gulfstream IV-SP aircraft for $80 million, the Dept. of Defense has told Congress. It also wants AIM-7M Sparrow air- to-air missiles for $80 million, and services to modify and upgrade Pratt&Whitney F100 engines for its F-16 fighters for $86 million. The Pentagon told Congress of the planned acquisitions in notifications earlier this week. It said:
FAA has approved the Honeywell/Trimble-designed HT9100 GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) Navigation Management System. The Technical Standard Order approval covers standard instrument departures, standard terminal arrival routes, Global Positioning System overlay and GPS approaches, and company routes. The HT9100 also received Supplemental Type Certificate approval on an American Airlines 727, enabling operators to fly IFR, supplemental enroute, terminal, non-precision approaches and primary oceanic/remote navigation with the system.
The U.S. Air Force plans to award a sole-source contract to Raytheon/E-Systems, Goleta Div., for production of the AN/ALE-50 towed decoy for the F-16 fighter and B-1 bomber, and the Navy's F/A-18E/F strike fighter, according to a Sept. 18 Commerce Business Daily notice. E-Systems developed the ALE-50 and was deemed the only company capable of meeting AF and Navy requirements, the AF's Aeronautical Systems Center said in the notice.
Boeing is giving its transonic wind tunnel - now more than 50 years old - a major renovation, with plans proceeding to replace the drive system, upgrade the fan and fan structure, and automate testing procedures. The transonic wind tunnel will resume operations early next year when the upgrades are installed. But a second phase, "to begin soon," Boeing said, will focus on making changes to the tunnel circuit to improve airflow in the test section where airplane models are installed.
A team of Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Alliant Techsystems is in line for a sole source U.S. Navy contract to develop the Integrated Combat Weapons System (ICWS), an updated system to counter mines. In a Sept. 18 Commerce Business Daily notice, NavSea defined the ICWS as "an upgrade to and an integration of [three] MCM and MHC platform systems: (1) AN/SQQ-32 Minehunting Sonar, (2) AN/SLQ-48 Mine Neutralization System (MNS) and (3) AN/SYQ-13 and AN/SSN-2 Navigation, Command and Control System."
Federal government agencies will continue to withdraw from day-to-day space operations under the long-awaited Clinton Administration National Space Policy, which codifies past policies to make the government more of a space customer at home and urges a free trade approach to the international launch industry.
RADA ELECTRONIC INDUSTRIES LTD. of Israel said it has received a $2.65 million order from Alitalia for its Commercial Aviation Test System (CATS), an automated tester for detecting faults in avionics and electronic components.
House and Senate appropriations conferees agreed to provide $5.7 billion in fiscal year 1997 for NASA science, aeronautics and technology programs, $100 million shy of President Clinton's request. Reaching a compromise between respective bills late Wednesday, the conferees restored $220 million for the Mission to Planet Earth program that the House wanted to cut and allowed NASA to proceed with controversial experiments to study the effects of microgravity on monkeys in space.
NASA's Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with Russia's Mir space station right on time Wednesday night, and by 7 a.m. EDT yesterday U.S. Astronaut Shannon Lucid had ended her six-month stint as a Mir crew member. The docking came at 11:13 p.m. EDT Wednesday as planned, when Atlantis Commander Bill Readdy eased the U.S. space plane onto Mir's docking mechanism and electric motors pulled shut the clamps that latch the two spacecraft together.
BMW ROLLS-ROYCE BR710 turbofan engine has been certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, marking completion of airworthiness approvals by the two major international authorities, BMW Rolls-Royce Aero Engines said yesterday. Europe's Joint Aviation Authorities approved the powerplant on Aug. 14. The engine has been selected for the Gulfstream V and Bombardier Global Express business jets, and will also power the British Royal Air Force's Nimrod 2000 maritime patrol aircraft.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman touted the technology being developed under the Airborne Laser program, and said the system is likely to see application beyond the theater missile defense role for which it is being designed. ABL is "out on the leading edge of technology" Fogleman said Tuesday at the Air Force Association convention in Washington. He said the system, a high energy laser mounted on a 747 aircraft is "one of the few, truly revolutionary ideas that I see" throughout the services.
The McDonnell Douglas-Northrop Grumman-British Aerospace team competing for the Joint Strike Fighter program is still waiting for the U.S. government to give BAe final clearance to view some of the most sensitive JSF data. John Steurer, MDC vice president and general manager for JSF, told The DAILY that issues like BAe's access to low observability data haven't been resolved. He said, however, that he expects the U.S. and U.K. governments to work out the issue.
