Growing demand and other factors could push the commercial telecommunications and television satellite market to almost $29 billion worldwide over the next decade, a new international market survey has found. Launch rates should average 25 a year for GEO platforms alone, not counting the estimated 224-242 low Earth orbit communications satellites planned over the next decade, Paris-based Euroconsult reports in a survey published last month.
The industry team developing the F-22 fighter has completed the software needed for the first flight, planned for next May 29, and is completing integration work, according to a key official of the team. Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin vice president and general manager for F- 22, told The DAILY in Washington Tuesday that software design and testing has been completed, and that eight of 12 integration milestones have been achieved. The first flight aircraft will use about 300,000 lines of software code, compared to about 1.5 million for a full-up F-22.
The last of 104 silos in Kazakhstan for the Soviet SS-18 heavy ICBM was destroyed last week, making the Central Asian nation the first former Soviet republic to completely rid itself of strategic missiles inherited after the breakup of the USSR. As a part of the implementation of the START-1 Treaty, the two divisions of the Strategic Rocket Forces which were deployed on Kazakh territory have been withdrawn to Russia.
LOCKHEED MARTIN is offering the Czech Republic F-16 fighters at a unit cost of $24 million, Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems President Dain Hancock said yesterday. Hancock is in Central Europe to offer the F-16 and to discuss industry participation there if the Czech Republic or Poland decides to buy the fighter.
AlliedSignal Aerospace said yesterday it expects new aircraft orders announced at the Farnborough air show earlier this month to generate revenues for its products worth about $540 million. Airframe manufacturers disclosed orders for 152 airliners at the show, including Airbus A300, A320/321 and A340, Boeing 737, 747, 757, 767 and 777, McDonnell Douglas MD-80, MD-90 and MD-11.
The Defend America Act, the missile defense bill Republicans hoped to deploy against President Clinton in the presidential race, is probably dead for this Congress, Senate Majority Leader Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) acknowledged yesterday. Asked if the Senate would take up the act before adjournment, expected in about two weeks, Lott replied, "Probably not." As recently as two weeks ago, he was talking about bringing the bill up in the Senate.
Defense Secretary William J. Perry says the Pentagon shouldn't have to notify Congress of any proposed changes in the B-2 bomber's "requirements correlation matrix." The 1996 defense authorization bill demands that such changes be submitted to the congressional defense panels for approval.
Alliant Techsystems and Lockheed Martin are preparing for a flyoff of their Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser (WCMD) candidates in November at Eglin AFB, Fla. The prize is a production program ultimately worth about $1.2 billion.
The Pentagon has approved full-rate production of the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, a move that will ultimately give the U.S. Air Force a fleet of 20 of the planes. Pentagon acquisition officials met Tuesday in a pre-Defense Acquisition Board meeting and signed off on the AF acquisition plan, an Air Force spokeswoman confirmed yesterday. The service now operates three of the Northrop Grumman E-8s, but none are in final configuration. Two E-8As will be converted into E-8Cs. Another E-8C will remain as a test asset.
Managers at NASA's Langley Research Center hope to release a request for proposals early in October for four "HYPER-X" flight test vehicles that would be the first to fly with a hydrogen-fueled ramjet/scramjet engine. Building on classified engine work for the defunct National Aerospace Plane (NASP) project, NASA wants to demonstrate hypersonic technology that could ultimately be applied in vehicles as diverse as hypersonic cruise missiles and reusable space launchers.
British Aerospace's Royal Ordnance subsidiary is eyeing expanded use of its Broach warhead, part of the company's winning Storm Shadow bid for the U.K.'s Conventionally Armed Standoff Missile (CASOM) program.
THE PENTAGON has approved a new technical architecture intended to increase interoperability of simulations and reduce the cost of simulations through reuse. The High Level Architecture (HLA) is part of the Pentagon's overall effort to develop a Common Technical Framework for both modelling and simulation.
Republican congressional leaders and the White House were close to a deal late yesterday that would essentially clear the way for President Clinton to sign the $244.8 billion fiscal 1997 defense appropriations compromise package with only marginal changes, congressional sources said. The package is about $10 billion over his request.
The first of NASA's Small Space Technology Initiative (SSTI) satellites, a hyperspectral Earth observation platform dubbed "Lewis," is targeted for a November launch on a new Lockheed Martin Launch Vehicle (LMLV-1), according to U.S. space agency and FAA officials. One of two small "faster-better-cheaper" satellites built by NASA to push new technologies for commercial space applications, the Lewis satellite was completed within the two-year window allowed under the SSTI (DAILY, June 9, 1994).
NASA and Lockheed Martin have completed tests designed to show that the new aluminum lithium lightweight external tank for the U.S. Space Shuttle can withstand the rigors of launch. Testing at Marshall Space Flight Center demonstrated that the tank, built to enhance Shuttle performance to the 51.6-degree International Space Station inclination, can bear up under loads "greater than flight certification requirements," NASA said.
Chandler Evans Control Systems, Charlotte, N.C., will produce fuel pumps for the General Electric F414 engine, powerplant of the Navy/McDonnell Douglas F/A-18E/F Super Hornet strike fighter. The company, a unit of Coltec Industries, said the pump is an all- centrifugal design that delivers fuel to the main and afterburner stages of the engine. The first 34 pumps are slated to be delivered between September 1997 and the last quarter of 1998, it said.
ADVANCED GLASS COCKPIT for the SH-2G(A) Super Seasprite helicopter proposed for the Royal Australian Navy was unveiled at the Farnborough air show earlier this month by Kaman Aerospace and Litton Guidance and Control Systems. They said the integrated tactical avionics system (ITAS) enables a crew of two to fly the aircraft and manage its multi-mission equipment suite. The ITAS processes data from the radar, thermal images and electronic protection measures.
The eight U.S. Air Force F-117A stealth fighter bombers that deployed to Kuwait last week are ready to carry out any mission the Pentagon may ask of them, Defense Secretary William Perry said yesterday. Perry returned Monday from a weekend trip to the Middle East which included a visit with the squadron from the 49th Fighter Wing, based at Holloman AFB, N.M. He told reporters at the Pentagon that "they are fully operational and ready for any mission which we might assign them."
HOUSE MEMBERS yesterday passed the commercial space bill introduced this summer by outgoing House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.) in an effort to help private industry take over space activities previously carried out by the government. Adopted on a voice vote, the bill requires the government to procure launch and space data services from U.S. providers and to look for commercial ventures to help build and use the International Space Station.
Allison Engine Co. has selected Lucas Aerospace to supply the lift fan clutch control system for the concept demonstrator aircraft phase of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, the companies announced Monday at the Air Force Association exposition in Washington. The lift fan clutch control system will be manufactured at the Lucas Aerospace engine and flight control systems facility in Birmingham, England. The companies declined to disclose the value of the contract.
The Senate yesterday passed its version of the fiscal year 1997 intelligence authorization bill. It calls for reform of the intelligence community and a review of information warfare threats. The bill, somewhat watered down from the one proposed earlier this year by the Senate Intelligence Committee, passed on a voice vote with little controversy and no major amendments. Conference with the House on its version could start as early as today, according to a Senate aide.
APPLIED SIGNAL TECHNOLOGY, Sunnyvale, Calif., announced the death of Edward Keith McNett, who was vice president, Strategic Systems Div. McNett, who died Sept. 7, will be succeeded by Ben Scribner. Scribner was executive staff to Gary Yancey, president and chief executive officer.
The latest in an 18-year series of U.S. space-based atmospheric ozone mapping instruments has checked out from its perch on a Japanese Earth- monitoring satellite, producing its first image last week.
NASA MANAGERS yesterday cleared the Space Shuttle Atlantis for a full 10- day mission, including five days docked with Russia's Mir space station, despite a problem with one of three auxiliary power units that surfaced during launch early Monday. As crew members on the Shuttle began preparing to unload a new double Spacehab module packed with supplies for Mir, engineers on the ground determined that the remaining two APUs should give Atlantis enough margin for a safe landing Sept. 26.
DIAGNOSTIC/RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS INC., Parsippany, N.Y., said its DRS Precision Echo subsidiary received a $3.4 million contract to develop and manufacture 8mm Color Airborne Video Tape Recorder (CVTR) systems for A/OA-10A aircraft of the U.S. Air Force National Guard and U.S. Air Force Reserves. Options in the contract, awarded by the U.S. Air Force National Guard Bureau, could increase the value to more than $8 million, DRS said.
