The offer Senate defense authorization conferees made Thursday to their House counterparts endorses the Senate's expansion of the Nunn-Lugar program favored by the Clinton Administration, congressional sources said Friday.
Hughes has designated its Galaxy X communications platform as the first payload on McDonnell Douglas' new Delta III booster, and has exercised an option for an 11th launch on the new Delta variant. The C- and Ku-band Galaxy X will be launched in 1998 as the first in a 10-launch deal for the new two-stage booster. The satellite-maker also ordered another 1998 launch as its first option under the launch agreement that helped bankroll the new booster (DAILY, May 11, 12, 1995).
The Pentagon, in a second appeal package sent to Senate and House defense authorization conferees this month, urges the lawmakers not to delay procurement of Dark Star unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) until completion of the flight test program now underway. The Senate, in its version of the fiscal year 1997 defense authorization bill, prohibits DOD from entering into a contract for the procurement of Dark Star vehicles other than the three needed for the remainder of the test program until that test program is completed.
Senior Clinton Administration officials told defense authorization conferees in a closed meeting last week that an agreement on the table in Geneva to alter the ABM Treaty requires making a "substantive change" in the U.S.-Russian arms control regime, congressional aides said. Under current law, any "substantive change" to the ABM Treaty requires Senate approval, which puts the agreement in jeopardy because the Republican-led Senate is opposed to the move.
July 19, 1996 Rockwell International Corporation Rockwell International Corporation, Seal Beach, California, is being awarded a $37,000,000 face value increase to a time and material contract to provide for FY1997 sustaining engineering services for the air vehicle of the B-1B aircraft. Contract is expected to be completed September 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma is the contracting activity (F34601-94/C-0120, P00083).
In what appears to be a major departure from its rigidly free market doctrine, the Czech government is halting privatization of the aviation industry and is now expected to begin temporarily renationalizing some or all of the bankrupt companies which have been languishing on the auction block. Government officials say the companies will be restructured and have their debts forgiven before being reoffered for sale, this time to a group which might include Boeing.
Russian space officials delayed yesterday's planned launch of a Progress supply capsule to the Mir space station until at least Thursday to give technicians more time to check out the Soyuz booster that will carry it to space.
Eight House members urged defense authorization conferees to drop funding for McDonnell Douglas' F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, citing what they said in a letter to the conference Friday was its high cost and marginal improvement over the C/D strike fighter. The six Democrats and two Republicans who signed the letter pointed to a General Accounting Office report released last month which concluded that the Navy isn't buying enough of an improvement over current capabilities in the F-18E/F (DAILY, June 20).
Moody's Investors Service hopefully assigned high-end junk bond ratings to some $150 million of new debt issued by high-performance alloys specialist Haynes International, noting that while the company's history and markets pose serious risks, there are also some good things on the horizon for the company as it restructures.
Radar and infrared data for missile defense programs were collected July 15 during a test near Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, according to Army Space and Strategic Defense Command. It said the data will be used by the government and industry to characterize potential countermeasures and to develop and test computer algorithms designed to mitigate their effects.
A U.S. District Court Judge on Friday dismissed a motion by Hughes Aircraft to continue a work-stoppage on the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile program until the General Accounting Office rules on the company's bid protest. The decision allows the government and JASSM development contractors Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas to pick up where they left off when the stop work order was issued earlier this month.
NASA officials say there has been no slip in the schedule for delivering the Russian Service Module and the first full-time crew to the International Space Station, even though the milestone chart signed by top U.S. and Russian officials in Moscow last week seems to indicate otherwise (DAILY, July 17). John D.
House Appropriations Chairman Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.) says the House will probably start drafting a continuing resolution by Sept. 15 to meet the objective of the House and Senate Republican leadership to adjourn Congress by early October. With the fiscal 1997 defense appropriations conference not scheduled to start until Sept. 3, the conferees are under the gun to come up with a compromise bill acceptable to the White House the first time around.
House conferees working on the fiscal year 1997 defense authorization bill intend to spend some time this week ironing out differences with their Senate counterparts on intelligence reform matters, a House aide says. One reason HNSC marked up its version of the FY '97 Intelligence Community Act last week was to take a formal position for conference on the defense authorization bill, which addresses many of the same intelligence issues, the aide says. Rep.
BGT of Germany received a contract to supply $10 million in EHUD debriefing systems to the German Air Force, according to BVR Technologies of Tel Aviv, Israel, which makes the systems.
Among amendments passed by the Senate last week before it approved the $244.7 billion defense appropriations bill (DAILY, July 19) was one requiring a Pentagon report on the cost of F/A-18E/F strike fighter program and a comparison with the F/A-18C/D.
Chinese flag carrier Air China ordered three Boeing 747-400s worth some $510 million, Boeing confirmed Friday, some three months after Beijing snubbed the company in favor of a $1.5 billion buy of Airbus A320s in a narrowbody campaign earlier this year. The carrier expects to use the new aircraft on long-range routes to the U.S., Europe and other Asian destinations.
The latest NASA launch manifest details the demands the International Station will place on the Space Shuttle. Beginning in December 1997 with the Node 1 delivery aboard the Shuttle Endeavour, only two non-Station Shuttle missions are scheduled through fiscal 1999. The Shuttle Columbia will carry the Neurolab mission in April 1998 and launch the AXAF x-ray telescope the following September before going into a maintenance period.
Anatoli Kisselev, head of the Khrunichev rocket production center, says he can build a Station crew rescue vehicle "cheaper than the French" even though it is his factory that is behind on the Service Module. During a factory visit last week Administrator Daniel L. Goldin lectured Kisselev that "we cannot delay the launch date" of the Service Module, but praised his work on the FGB tug.
