The automated Mission Planning System (MPS) for the Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM) entered service with the U.S. Navy on Aug. 19, according to McDonnell Douglas. The company, developer of the SLAM and the MPS, said the planning system cuts the time required to prepare for missions from hours to minutes. The system is also being modified for the SLAM Expanded Response (SLAM ER) weapon, under development by McDonnell Douglas.
U.S. MARINE CORPS EA-6B crashed Friday near Yuma, Ariz., killing all four crew members. The Prowler went down at about 10 a.m. east of the Gila Mountains in the Barry M. Goldwater range, a Marine spokesman said. It belonged to Marine Electronic Warfare Squadron 1 at Cherry Point, N.C. The USMC had lost only two Prowlers to crashes, one in 1993 and one in 1994. It was the third U.S. military aircraft crash in two days. On Thursday, the Marine Corps lost an F/A-18, and the Pennsylvania Air National Guard lost an A-10. Both pilots were killed.
U.S. military research facilities are in the early stages of a missile development effort that could change the way aviators fight in air-to-air combat. A host of Air Force and Navy organizations are laying the technology groundwork for a missile that substantially expands the envelope in which a fighter pilot can engage an enemy. The result could be a new missile, or an upgrade, that would enter the force in about 2010.
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization is not preparing to start any major cruise missile defense weapons programs anytime soon, a top BMDO official tells The DAILY. "We will not make a big push to broaden our mission space to cruise missiles until we're told to do that," says BMDO Acting Deputy Director Douglas C. Klein in an Aug. 15 interview. There are some parts of the cruise missile defense mission BMDO is interested in, but they are limited to areas like sensors and battle management command, control and communications (BMC3).
PRECISION STRIKE TECHNOLOGY SYMPOSIUM is slated for Oct. 9-10 at the Kossiakoff Conference Center at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md. Sponsors of the classified event are the Precision Strike Association (PSA), the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems - Capital Chapter (AUVS), and the Association for Modeling, Planning and Simulation (AMPS). PSA says early registration ends Sept. 9. For additional information, call 703/204-9107.
Congress has provided the AF with $4.5 million to put the AGM-130 on the B-52, a move the AF is resisting. "The Air Force has no intent to integrate the AGM-130 on the B-52 because it already carries an abundance of standoff munitions," an AF official says, citing as examples the Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile and AGM-142 Raptor. Full AGM- 130 integration would cost $21.6 million, he says, because the weapon is not immediately compatible with the 1760 data bus. Even a rudimentary integration would cost $6.3 million.
The thrust-vectoring version of Russia's Sukhoi Su-35 multi- role fighter will fly at the Farnborough air show, only a few months after its first flight and two years after designers originally promised the plane would make its air show debut. Farnborough organizers have now listed a demonstration by the aircraft, referred to in Russia as the Su-37, as one of the highlights of its September air show.
Extra Pentagon scrutiny of McDonnell Douglas processes and products prompted by the Machinists' union walkout in St. Louis has so far uncovered no quality or cost problems with the military aircraft and weapons being produced, according to the Defense Contract Management Command.
The Space Shuttle Atlantis will finally get to play the "space truck" role originally assigned NASA's fleet of reusable space planes next month on the STS-79 mission, when it will deliver fresh crew and supplies to Russia's Mir space station.
The U.S. Air Force plans a $40 million-45 million investment to demonstrate an advanced space-based hyperspectral sensor with potential for on-orbit operations. The AF Phillips Laboratory Space Experiments directorate is undertaking the effort to address shortfalls in the Space Command and Air Combat Command reconnaissance and surveillance mission area plans, according to an Aug. 13 Commerce Business Daily notice.
Controllers at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are pointing the GOES-9 weather satellite away from the sun for about six hours a day in an effort to save the platform's instruments from overheating. High temperatures knocked out a backup motor on the satellite's imager about a month ago, but controllers have found they can damp on-board temperature swings by about 50 degrees Fahrenheit if they reorient the platform periodically.
Lockheed Martin Federal Systems said it will lead a study team in a competition to develop ways for the U.S. and its allies to protect battlefield use of Global Positioning System signals and prevent hostile forces from exploiting them.
THE NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE said a second television documentary featuring the Corona satellite program will be aired Sunday, Aug. 25, at 9 p.m. EDT on the Discovery Channel. The hour-long show is entitled "Secret Satellite," and follows "Spies Above," which aired in March.
An upgraded version of the Hawk air defense system scored a first in an Aug. 21 test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., destroying a Lance missile and two BQM-34 drones at the same time. It was "the first successful demonstration of a simultaneous high-low engagement of a TBM (theater ballistic missile) target and multiple air- breathing targets by any air defense system," according to a White Sands statement. The test was the most rigorous of a series to evaluate the improved Hawk in the theater missile defense role (DAILY, Aug. 2).
Riots last month in Jakarta have led the Clinton Administration to reconsider plans to resolve its F-16 export problem with Pakistan by selling Pakistan's F-16s to Indonesia and using the money to reimburse Islamabad. "We're seriously concerned about the events that have occurred in Indonesia and we will be monitoring the situation there and considering carefully how to proceed in light of events," State Dept. spokesman Glyn Davies told reporters this week.
Lockheed Martin Corp. has won a seven-year contract potentially worth $368 million to sustain the Command and Control Segment (CCS) of the U.S. Air Force's Satellite Control Network (SCN). The company said yesterday that the contract calls for its Federal Systems unit in Gaithersburg, Md., to sustain current system performance capability while the CCS is phased out and replaced by newer system technology. Federal Systems, it said, will integrate the replacement CCS system under the recently awarded Network Operations Upgrade Contract (NOUC).
The U.S. Navy this week flew the first carrier-type landing with the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18E/F Super Hornet at NAS Patuxent River, Md., and is preparing for high angle of attack testing. Cdr. Tom Gurney flew the two-seat F-1 for the first trap using the Mk. 7 arresting gear at Pax River on Wednesday at around 12 p.m. EST, a Navy spokesman said yesterday. "All the data looks good on the trap," Gurney said after the flight.
A U.S. MARINE CORPS F/A-18A Hornet crashed into the Atlantic Ocean yesterday off the coast of Delaware. A Marine spokesman said the jet went down about 9.30 a.m. EDT. Status of the pilot and the cause of the accident weren't immediately known.
NASA's Fast Auroral Snapshot (FAST) Explorer rocketed into a highly elliptical polar orbit early Wednesday aboard an Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus XL air-launched booster, and all systems were reported functioning nominally after the launch. The winged booster ignited at about 5:48 a.m. EDT after being dropped from Orbital's modified L-1011 carrier at 39,000 feet, and the satellite entered orbit about eight minutes later.
The FAA yesterday issued nine design changes it plans to order on the flight control systems of Boeing 737s, including one to correct the galling and corrosion that has occurred on the airliner's standby rudder, and one to reduce the frequency of yaw damper malfunctions. The planned actions could cost U.S. airlines up to $10 million.
The U.S. Army is studying what it would cost to bringing back some of the Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle systems that were mothballed earlier this year under orders of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Army acquisition chief Gilbert Decker said that "I want to eventually, in the not too distant future, open the question again" about using the Hunter. But he also said "I am not advocating buying more systems."
An expansion of the U.S. Air Force's existing doctrine to include missions like counter-land and counter-sea is being eyed by service planners, a senior Air Force officer said yesterday. "Inherent in the airpower capabilities today there are counter-land and counter-sea capabilities beyond those which we have traditionally" used, said Maj. Gen. Charles Link, assistant deputy chief of staff for plans and operations. He said the service has to "work harder to develop and understand them."
Worries about safeguarding both national security data and European nations' ability to set their own defense policies led the U.K. and France to prevent European Commission antitrust regulators from reviewing the proposed Matra/British Aerospace missile unit merger. EC regulators will be free to investigate the "civilian aspects" of the deal - which would create Europe's largest single missile-maker - but London and Paris will handle the "exclusively military aspects" of the tie- up, according to the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry, or DTI.
Robert M. Valone was named vice president and division manager with program management responsibilities for the company's support to the Army's Sustaining Base Information Systems (SBIS) program. Klaus Dannenberg was appointed senior vice president and manager with lead oversight of CACI initiatives in the simulation market.
Ellen Roy, who most recently served as controller at McDonnell Douglas Technical Services Co. (MDTSC), has been appointed president of the McDonnell Douglas subsidiary. Stuart W. Thomson has been named vice president of business development at McDonnell Douglas' Military Transport Aircraft (MTA) unit in Long, Beach, Calif.
