NASA has the green light to continue its role with Russia and France in the Bion series of space adaptation studies using rhesus monkeys as test subjects. The Senate appropriations committee dropped a House-passed measure deleting funds for the program (DAILY, June 28), and the NASA Advisory Council unanimously accepted the unanimous recommendation of a special "blue ribbon panel" to go ahead with Bion 11 and 12 (DAILY, July 15). But animal rights activists and taxpayer advocates say Sens.
Defense Secretary William Perry has sent a letter to Congress terminating the Joint Defense Conversion Commission (JDCC) with China, blaming the action on the limited activities of the JDCC resulting from "strains in U.S.-PRC relations." A primary focus of the JDCC was modernization of the air traffic control system in China. Perry said DOD has proposed to China that it work with the FAA as the lead in this effort in the U.S.
The Intelligence Community intends to use its national reconnaissance system to monitor environmental events worldwide so U.S. leaders will have new insight into how they unfold and affect national security, Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch said last week. "Environmental trends, both natural and man-made, are among the underlying forces that affect a nation's economy, its social stability, its behavior in world markets and its attitude toward its neighbors," Deutch said at a World Affairs Council meeting in Los Angeles on Thursday.
The Administration and Senate Republicans are in a standoff on a proposal to alter the ABM Treaty, Senate aides say. Administration officials earlier this month said they favor making "substantive" changes to the ABM Treaty, but have yet to say if they will bring those changes to the Senate for approval (DAILY, July 23). GOP senators say the Administration must bring the changes to the Senate for approval if they are substantive. Administration officials were expected to come back to the Senate to discuss the issue last week, but never did, Senate aides say.
PIONEER unmanned aerial vehicles have crashed more frequently than usual in recent weeks, Paul Kaminski, the Pentagon's acquisition chief, told reporters yesterday during a Pentagon briefing. The most recent crash occurred earlier this week during Operation Joint Endeavour in Bosnia. "We need to get to the bottom of what's going on," he told The DAILY later, although he said that recent crashes were linked to operator training and engine problems.
The Defense Dept. plans to spend $277.8 million next year on 18 Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations which heavily emphasize command, control, communication, computers and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
JAPAN is asking to buy $200 million worth of logistics support for its four Boeing 767 Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) aircraft, the Pentagon said Wednesday. Congress still must approve the deal.
NASA officials are convinced an understanding reached with Russia on the International Space Station last week will keep the project's cost and schedule on track, but the General Accounting Office (GAO) warns cost increase threats abound with no guarantees of funding stability.
The National rotorcraft Technology Center (NRTC) has identified a number of rotorcraft technology programs to pursue over fiscal year 1997 and intends to narrow the list of approved projects by December, Army Assistant Secretary for Research, Development and Acquisition Gilbert F. Decker tells lawmakers.
Pentagon leaders will not allow the services to fund their high- profile tactical aircraft programs at the expense of command, control, communications, computers, intelligence and surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) initiatives, the Pentagon's acquisition chief says. "In some cases" sensors are receiving lower priority than other programs, Paul Kaminksi, the Defense under secretary for acquisition and technology, said Tuesday in describing the service's initial budget plans. He said, however, that "my forecast is it won't end up that way."
Lockheed Martin's use of a metallic skin thermal protection system, or TPS, and an aerospike engine emerged as "technical discriminators" in the race to develop the X-33 reusable launch vehicle prototype, NASA RLV Director Gary Payton told members of NASA's Advisory Council yesterday.
The French Navy has completed the first successful test firing of the laser-guided AS 30 penetrating missile. The laser-guided, boosted missile has a standoff range of 12 kilometers and was fired Wednesday at a range of nine kilometers, missile manufacturer Aerospatiale announced. The missile flew a very low level attack profile at 175 meters above surface and hit the center of the target, Aerospatiale said. The AS 30 has a listed accuracy of one meter.
House Appropriations Chairman Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), who last week ruled out going to conference on a compromise defense appropriations package before September, said yesterday that he would make a stab at getting a conference on the House and Senate versions next week.
Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine's 11th-hour intervention cleared the way for Britain's Defense Ministry to go ahead yesterday with procurements of the replacement maritime patrol aircraft, or RMPA, the conventionally armed stand-off missile, or CASOM, and a new air- launched anti-armor weapon system, or AAWS, before Parliament's summer recess.
RAYTHEON'S E-SYSTEMS unit will outfit four Raytheon-built Hawker 800XP light jets as airborne reconnaissance aircraft for the Republic of Korea, the company reported yesterday. In addition, Korea is buying four additional Hawkers from Raytheon which will be outfitted by Loral. Raytheon's share of the program could be worth as much as $250 million over its life. Raytheon builds the Hawker, and Raytheon's E-Systems will handle both the electronics and aircraft modification work at its Greenville, Tex., facility beginning this fall.
Hughes is arguing that a U.S. District Court judge had authority to review the U.S. Air Force's claim that continuing work on the Joint Air-to- Surface Standoff Missile development program is in its "best interest" and that he didn't have to allow work to continue automatically.
AN ATLAS II rocket boosted the Navy's seventh UHF Follow-On communications satellite into an intermediate transfer orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Station yesterday morning. Lockheed Martin Astronautics has the contract to launch three more of the satellites, which have extremely high frequency broadcast capability.
Demand for space launch will average about 31 spacecraft a year through 2010, although demand will peak in 1998 and then settle into a "trough" that will last until 2005, the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) reported yesterday. Based on published manifests, the U.S. Transportation Dept. advisory panel found an average total of 464 payloads between 1996 and 2010. The average projection for 1996 approached what COMSTAC estimated would be a "high-growth" projection last year.
Resupply of the two Russian cosmonauts and U.S. astronaut aboard the Mir space station will be delayed for a second time following an equipment failure early yesterday that triggered a last-minute shutdown of the Soyuz booster carrying a Progress resupply capsule to Mir.
The Air Force cannot afford to expand the scope of the B-1B Conventional Munitions Upgrade (CMUP) program at this time and will not do so in its program objective memorandum for the next fiscal year, Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall informed the congressional defense panels this month.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. John M. Shalikashvili has informed Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman that plans for the fifth joint service EA-6B squadron will go ahead despite current funding problems, so the Air Force won't have to extend the use of its EF-111 Ravens. In a July 23 letter, Shalikashvili told Fogleman he shared the Chiefs' concerns about the EA-6B, and said the Joint Staff was working the issue, a source familiar with the letter's content told The DAILY. "The Navy will establish the fifth squadron," he wrote.
A recommendation by House defense authorizers that DOD leave its Operational Support Aircraft (OSA) program unchanged until a plan is provided on how to reduce and redistribute all OSA aircraft would be a bad move, the Pentagon tells lawmakers. "The proposed congressional language halts an ongoing DOD initiative to streamline and consolidate OSA operations," DOD says in a second appeal package sent to defense authorization conferees. House and Senate conferees are in the midst of resolving the differences in their FY '97 defense authorization bills.
The Pentagon's restructuring of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program will result in a one-year production break before delivery of the user operational evaluation systems (UOES), Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Acting Director Rear Adm. R.D. West has told lawmakers. The production break will occur between the demonstration/validation phase of the program and delivery of the (UOES) missiles, West says in a memo sent this month to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.).
An internal Marine Corps memorandum says using a mix of CH-60 Black Hawks and four-bladed AH-1W Cobras to meet the Light Attack Helicopter requirement rather than the four-bladed Cobra/four-bladed UH-1N Hueys (4BW/4BN) mix would require more money and personnel than planned.
NASA's Langley Research Center and Marshall Space Flight Center are expected to launch a year-long study next Thursday of how work on the reusable launch vehicle (RLV) and advanced reusable propulsion initiatives will fit together in defining advanced launch vehicle options, RLV Director Gary Payton told the space agency's Advisory Council yesterday.
