BRUNEI still plans to buy 48 U.S. Navy Harpoon anti-ship missiles despite a 70% cost increase, the Pentagon said Friday. The Pentagon said it had to re-notify Congress of the impending foreign military sale because of "a significant change in the program cost while maintaining the original program scope." It said the deal would cost $81 million, after announcing in June that Brunei would buy the missiles for $57 million (DAILY, June 13). Reasons for the increase weren't disclosed.
AERO INTERNATIONAL (REGIONAL) plans to decide in mid-1997 whether to develop its AI(R) 70 regional jet, aimed at a worldwide market and compatibility with scope clauses in U.S. airlines' pilot union contracts. Targeting a first flight of the 70-passenger twinjet in mid-2000 and entry into service a year later, AI(R) plans early development of a 60-seat version and sees potential for a stretch, officials said at the Farnborough air show.
House and Senate conferees will have to work out differences of between $6 billion and $7 billion, mostly in procurement, in their fiscal 1997 defense appropriations conference, according to congressional staffers preparing for the conference. Despite the substantial dollar differences, House Appropriations national security subcommittee chairman Rep. C.W. (Bill) Young (R-Fla.) has said that he and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, hope to wrap up the conference this week. The conference starts today.
Test firings of Shorts' Starstreak high-velocity air defense missile as an air-to-air weapon for attack helicopters have begun at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, a video Shorts Missile Systems (SMS) has on display here indicated. The first firing took place on June 26 from an AH-64 Apache on the ground. The first airborne firings against air targets are expected before the end of the year under a second-phase contract negotiated by SMS with both the British and U.S. governments.
MIG-AT ADVANCED TRAINER arrived at the Farnborough air show in England last week on its 90th flight, having logged a total of about 50 hours. The Russian jet flew for the first time in March at the Gromov flight research institute at Zhukovsky test center near Moscow. MIG MAPO Chief Test Pilot Roman Taskeyev, who made the first flight, also flew the AT at the Farnborough show.
France's space agency is so pleased with the results of Claudie Andre-Deshays' two-week stay on Russia's Mir space station that it's already discussing a possible follow-on mission. Rheumatologist Andre- Deshays, the first Frenchwoman in space, studied the body's adaptation to microgravity with the help of her Russian crewmates and U.S. Astronaut Shannon Lucid, who pitched in to help with the French science. France paid more than $13 million for the flight, so the cash-strapped Russians aren't likely to say no to a French reflight.
Two months after his company was selected by NASA to develop the X-33 reusable launch vehicle, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics sector president Micky Blackwell was here to extol the potential of the commercial exploitation of space. "In the 20th century, we called space the final frontier," he said. "In the 21st century, we'll call it something new...open for business."
Congress doesn't fully understand the benefits of modelling and simulation, Decker tells the Army Aviation Association of America. He says he's worried that the cost savings and warfighting benefits it promises can't be adequately demonstrated to legislators who are often concerned mainly with the financial bottom line.
The Senate this week is slated to debate ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty. The debate is expected to run along party lines, with Democrats supporting the treaty and Republicans opposing it. Some Republicans say there's a disconnect in the Administration on the value of the treaty. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) notes President Clinton has said if CWC were in effect today it would be much more difficult for terrorists to acquire chemical weapons.
Rockwell International, working under a new U.S. Air Force contract for the Space and Missile Tracking System (SMTS) program, plans a fiscal year 1999 flight experiment that would orbit at an altitude lower than that now planned for the next-generation early warning satellites. Ronald P. Hill, Rockwell's SMTS program director, said the lower orbit was selected by his company and its teammate, Lockheed Martin, because satellites at higher altitudes are exposed to "a rather severe radiation environment."
The General Accounting Office, after scouring DOD's fiscal year 1997 budget request and prior-year appropriations for selected programs, has identified more than $3 billion in potential savings through cuts and rescissions. In a Sept. 4 report GAO identified ways to reduce FY '97 procurement and RDT&E requests by $3.2 billion and to rescind prior-year procurement and RDT&E appropriations by about $454.9 million.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) predicts the turf war over intelligence community reform will heat up again this week as the Senate takes up a bill designed to overhaul the community. One of the most controversial proposals is to give the director of central intelligence increased authority over IC programs and budget decisions. The Pentagon and State Dept. don't like the idea.
Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch laid out a four-point program to improve U.S. counter-terrorism efforts while praising the Central Intelligence Agency's human intelligence efforts in combating terrorism. "The president has instructed me to increase the intelligence efforts against the terrorist threat," Deutch said Thursday in prepared remarks to Georgetown University in Washington. He said the following steps would be taken:
Latest polls from Michigan show Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) moving out to a comfortable lead of more than 20 points in the Michigan Senate race. His chances of winning a fourth term were boosted when Ronna Romney, heavily supported by anti-abortion groups, won the Republican Senate primary over a more moderate candidate. With the departure of Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) next year, Levin would become ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. If the Democrats win control of the Senate in November, Levin would become SASC chairman.
The Pentagon's Joint Staff is beginning to formulate the framework of the Quadrennial Defense Review, says Gilbert Decker, the U.S. Army's assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition. He says teams will look at warfighting strategy and compare existing systems to those in development.
The Senate Thursday night passed 95-2 a fiscal year 1997 VA, HUD and Independent Agencies Appropriations Bill that provides $13.7 billion for NASA. The Senate's budget for NASA is $100 million below the Administration's budget request and $100 million more than what the House provided in its FY '97 bill.
Russia launched its second Western-built communications satellite late Friday in its third space launch in as many days. The Inmarsat-3 platform built by Lockheed Martin Astro-Space rode a four-stage Proton booster to orbit from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Originally intended to be Russia's first commercial launch of a Western satellite, the Inmarsat platform slipped because of problems adapting it to the Russian rocket and Europe's Astra-1F, built by Hughes, became the first (DAILY, April 10).
Technology developed by Honeywell for the Boeing 777 is finding application in other areas, leading to a number of new products from Honeywell's Space and Aviation Control Div., according to Don Schwanz, vice president and general manager of Honeywell's Air Transport Systems unit. "The 777 technology has had a very, very big effect on us, first with the aircraft itself, which has been just outstanding, and now we've taken that technology into other areas," Schwanz told The DAILY in an interview here.
Raytheon is lifting the veil on its bid for the joint U.S. Navy-Air Force AIM-9X Sidewinder missile program. It is pitching a "rotate-to-view" seeker than can move through 360 degrees. Raytheon had been reluctant to reveal details of its advanced Sidewinder design, which faces stiff competition from Hughes. A winner is expected to be chosen in late December or early January.
Rep. Joseph McDade (R-Pa.) wants to be chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.) has held the seat since the GOP took control of the 104th Congress in 1994. Though McDade was in line for the slot at that time, he was under indictment and therefore prohibited from taking the job. On Aug. 1, he was acquitted of charges that he accepted bribes from defense companies for preferential treatment on contracts involving appropriations decisions. Livingston will remain chairman through the 104th Congress, which wraps up in coming weeks.
Some U.S. Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles didn't perform as planned during last week's two attacks on Iraq because they either misfired or weren't programmed in time. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon told reporters Friday that about half a dozen of the 31 Navy missiles didn't operate as advertised. All were the newest Block 3 versions.
