SECHAN ELECTRONICS INC., Litiz, Pa., won a $10.9 million contract from the U.S. Air Force for 43 (best estimated quantity) Global Positioning System (GPS) modification kits for the C-5 aircraft and 10 (best estimated quantity) GPS mod kits for the training system for the C-5 aircraft. The Defense Dept. announced the contract on June 28. It was awarded by the San Antonio Air Logistics Center, Kelly AFB, Tex.
ARIANESPACE will launch the ST-1 telecommunications satellite for Singapore and Taiwan early in 1998 under a contract with Matra Marconi Space, which is building the Eurostar-class platform. Singapore Telecom and Chunghwa Telecom Co. Ltd. of Taiwan will operate the satellite, the first to be owned by interests in the two Asian nations.
F/A-18E/F SUPER HORNET completed its first catapult launch on Tuesday at NAS Patuxent River, Md., the Navy said. Cdr. Tom Gurney flew aircraft F-1 off the steam catapult at the base. "This brings us one step closer to the Super Hornet earning its sea legs," he said. F-1 will be used for carrier suitability testing, with the first sea launch slated for January. McDonnell Douglas has delivered two single-seat F/A-18Es and a two-seat F/A-18F to the Navy.
EVANS&SUTHERLAND said July 2 that it has won a $6 million contract from Thomson Training&Simulation for "a high-end visual system for a fast jet simulator for an East Asia customer."
NAVY TRAINING SQUADRON 4 at NAS Pensacola, Fla., has changed its mission. The Navy said VT-4, which has trained E-2 and C-2 pilots since 1960, will now train Naval Flight Officers and Air Force navigators. It said advanced pilot training will now be conducted at NAS Meridian, Miss.
Aircraft and engine-makers' total exposure to customer financing shrank last year for the first time in the 1990s, but only modestly, and debt-watcher Moody's Investors Service thinks the industry will continue to have to shoulder an increasingly higher share of the burden of financing their products - just in time for the expected boom in deliveries.
Senate and House defense authorization conferees have directed the Navy to conduct a competitive evaluation of two candidate systems to meet its requirement for an Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS). The two light detection and ranging (LIDAR) candidates that might meet the requirement are the ATD-111 and the Magic Lantern, the conferees said in the report accompanying their fiscal year 1997 defense bill.
LITTON GUIDANCE AND CONTROL SYSTEMS, Northridge, Calif., won an $8.7 million contract for 225 (best estimated quantity) Transponder Test Sets for the Identification Friend or Foe System on the F-16 aircraft, the Defense Dept. said on July 30. "This effort supports foreign military sales to Lebanon, Morocco, Taiwan, Thailand, Spain, and Singapore," it said. San Antonio Air Logistics Center, Kelly AFB, Tex., awarded the contract.
LOCKHEED MARTIN Federal Systems Inc., Manassas, Va., got a $15.1 million sole source contract from U.S. Naval Air Systems Command to upgrade the AN/USQ- 78(V) display control set for the P-3C Update III aircraft. The Dept. of Defense announced the contract on June 24.
GE STARSYS, a GE Capital Services company that plans to offer data messaging services for a variety of applications through a fleet of small satellites in low Earth orbit, has tapped France's Alcatel to distribute its services in Europe. Starsys Europe, operated by Alcatel, will obtain in-country licenses in Europe and work with value-added service providers to offer the satellite messaging for fleet and cargo management, logistics, remote data collection and asset security.
Defense authorization conferees have directed the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) to add four flight tests to its Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) program to better support a National Missile Defense (NMD) system deployment decision before the turn of the century. They believe BMDO's current test program is inadequate to allow a decision on when to deploy an NMD system.
Discovery of evidence that suggests microscopic life once existed on Mars could hasten NASA's plans to fly a sample-return mission to the Red Planet in an effort to confirm the early findings released yesterday. Space agency officials said the sample return mission, now tentatively set for 2005, could be advanced to as early as 2001 if the international scientific community deems it worthwhile. Initial political reaction to the discovery was positive.
The executive committee overseeing the military/civilian National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) has given its initial approval of the Integrated Program Office's revised program plan and allowed program officials to work toward a Milestone One decision next March.
MATERIALS SCIENCE research and development results produced by nine federal departments are described in a new on-line report available through the World Wide Web. To locate "The Federal Research and Development Program in Materials Science and Technology," published by the Commerce Dept., go to http ://www.msel.nist.gov and look for the title in the "Technology Policy and Assessment Reports" section.
A NASA-funded study of a meteorite believed to have been blasted from Mars by a cataclysmic collision more than 3 billion years ago has found "inconclusive" evidence that primitive life once existed there.
A low-cost anti-cruise missile defense program of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will focus on interceptor technology with the hope of demonstrating a concept in fiscal year 2000. The objective of the program is to "develop low-cost cruise missile defense system - with emphasis on interceptor - to defeat proliferated cruise missile threat," DARPA said in unclassified charts prepared for a recent industry briefing. It said the program "must be substantially more cost effective than proliferating and planned weapon systems."
CHRYSLER TECHNOLOGIES AIRBORNE SYSTEMS INC., Waco, Tex., was awarded an $18.8 million increase to an earlier U.S. Air Force contract for 90 modification kits encompassing the Automatic Flight Control System, the Control Display System, and the Ground Collision Avoidance System for the C-130 aircraft. The Pentagon, announcing the contract on Aug. 1, said Chrysler Technologies Airborne Systems will do 37% of the job, and that AlliedSignal, Teterboro, N.J., will do 46%. The contract was awarded by Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Robins AFB, Ga.
The Democratic party, putting the finishing touches on its platform as the Chicago convention nears, reiterated the Administration's missile defense plan and blasted the Republicans' Defend America Act.
Fourteen more U.S. Air Force officers have been punished or reprimanded as a result of the April 3 crash of a CT-43 aircraft in Croatia that killed 34 persons including Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. Brig. Gen. William E. Stevens, the commander of the 86th Wing at the time of the crash and the wing's operations commander, and Col. John E. Mazurowski, were reprimanded earlier.
INMARSAT will open regional offices in Latin America, South and East Asia, and Africa under a decision taken by the consortium's council during a meeting in Berlin last month. The Asian and Latin American offices will open later this year, while the African office will open early in 1997. Longer term plans call for offices in the Middle East and Central and Western Asia later in 1997.
NASA expects to award cooperative agreements in October for government/industry partnerships aimed at improving reciprocating and gas turbine engines for light aircraft under its General Aviation Propulsion (GAP) program. The U.S. agency said the GAP program was established "to develop technologies and manufacturing processes for revolutionary, low-cost, environmentally compliant propulsion systems and to flight demonstrate" them on advanced aircraft of six or fewer seats.
MAJ. GEN. ROBERT E. LINHARD, the U.S. Air Force's director of plans, died Saturday of an apparent heart attack. Linhard, 49, was slated to take over the Air Force's long-range planning study as the assistant deputy chief of staff for plans and operations.
The U.K. Ministry of Defense is evaluating whether to initiate a program to improve the accuracy of its iron bombs. The effort, known as Staff Target 1248 (ST 1248), would be similar to programs pursued by the U.S. in recent years, industry sources said.
