NASA is looking for satellite-makers willing to split the cost of studying how "well-defined" small satellites can be adapted to carry instruments for the Earth Observing System (EOS) and other Earth remote sensing efforts. Using the four instruments intended for the EOS-Chem platform as a test case, NASA has asked satellite companies to describe how they would adapt satellite buses they have developed for other applications to carry the instruments separately.
Back-to back failures of Russia's workhorse Soyuz-U launch vehicle were caused by faulty production of a modified fairing, two commissions investigating the failures have concluded. Both Soyuz-U launchers, which failed on May 14 in Baikonur and later on June 20 in Plesetsk (DAILY, June 24), belonged to the same batch and were manufactured in 1995. Both failures began at 49 seconds into the flights and were associated with stratification of the nose fairings and their resulting premature separations.
U.S. and French safety agencies traded accusations over the 1994 crash in Indiana of an ATR 72 airliner that killed all aboard. The National Transportation Safety Board said the French-Italian manufacturer of ATR commuter airliners was "misleading" about flight characteristics that could have prevented the Oct. 31, 1994, crash of a Simmons ATR 72 at Roselawn, Ind. It also said France's civil aviation body never required ATR to correct the potentially dangerous characteristics.
PERM AIRLINES has bought the first completely Russian Tu-204 airliner, and will pay for it with engines produced in the city of Perm, the Itar-Tass news agency reported yesterday. The 200-seater is already in service in Russia, but with Rolls-Royce engines. The Perm aircraft, however, is powered by PC-90a engines made by Permskiye Mortory. Itar-Tass said the Aviastar enterprise in Ulyanovsk, which built the plane, agreed to be paid with Perm-made engines.
NASA has picked five propulsion engineering teams to work on air- breathing rocket technologies under a $20 million program intended to backstop the X-33 reusable launch vehicle (RLV) effort. Engineers from Aerojet, Kaiser Marquardt, Pennsylvania State University, Rocketdyne and Pratt&Whitney will spend two years developing "rocket-based combined cycle propulsion" technologies under the U.S. space agency's Advanced Space Transportation program. The research teams will spend the next two months negotiating the Phase I contracts, NASA said yesterday.
C. Lloyd Carpenter has been named vice president-international operations for Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Electronic Sensors and System Division (ESSD). Most recently, he was vice president-Technical Services, Logistics and Capital Resources for ESSD. William S. Carrier III, former vice president of federal marketing and sales at Cordant Inc., was appointed vice president-business development at the company's Data Systems and Services Division.
John Stanton was elected chairman of the board of governors. Stanton, who was vice-chairman, is the regional director, Americas and Europe, at Telstra Corp. Limited, Australia's INTELSAT signatory. Wolfgang Wagner has been elected vice-chairman of the board of governors. Wagner, the current governor for Germany and Croatia, is also director of Deutsche Telekom North America, stationed in Washington, D.C.
FAA associate administrator for Commercial Space Transportation names new management team members: Patricia Grace Smith, deputy associate administrator for commercial space. Manuel Vega, chief of regulations. Herb Bachner, manager of the Space Systems Development Division.
A U.S. AIR FORCE F-16C crashed yesterday near Pensacola, Fla., following a n engine flameout. It was the second such failure in less than a month. The pilot in yesterday's incident ejected safely, but initial reports said the jet, from the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw AFB, S.C., crashed into a suburb of Pensacola. On June 27, an F-16C from the 113th Air Wing enroute to Andrews AFB, Md., from a range in North Carolina landed safely at Elizabeth City Coast Guard Station, N.C., after a flameout.
LITTON INDUSTRIES said Harry Halamandaris has been elected a corporate senior vice president. Halamandaris, 57, will continue to be responsible as group vice president for the company's electronic warfare systems divisions, Litton said. The move "reflects the importance of the electronic warfare systems business to the company and the recent acquisitions which have broadened Litton's position in the technology market," Litton said. Halamandaris came to Litton in 1995 from Kaiser Aerospace&Electronics Inc., where he had been a corporate VP and group executive.
Hugo Ragnar Parr, currently director general of the Research Department at the Norwegian Ministry of Industry and Energy, was named chairman of the ESA Council.
A July 3 DAILY article (page 20), relying in part on comments of a Norhtrop Grumman spokesman, failed to note that rivet problems with the E-8C Joint STARS aircraft were caused when Northrop Grumman used the wrong rivets in some parts of the plane during modification, and not when it was originally built by Boeing as a 707.
The U.S. Air Force yesterday filed with the General Accounting Office an override to the stop work order on the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile program. The move comes a day after a Hughes motion was upheld to force all work to cease for at least ten days (DAILY, July 11). "The Air Force exercised its authority to override the stay during the GAO protest," which is ongoing, the Air Force said yesterday in a written response to questions.
Anthony Peluso, who most recently served as general manager of the United Aircraft Products Division, was named general manager of the Gas Turbine Fuel Systems Division.
Larry D. Knauer, previously deputy director of the Space Shuttle Super Lightweight Tank project, has been appointed director of the project. Terry L. Hibbard, who most recently served as director of the Super Lightweight Tank project, was appointed vice president, technical operations for Lockheed Martin Manned Space Systems.
VICE ADM. DONALD L. PILLING will become deputy chief of naval operations, resources, warfare requirements and assets, N8. Pilling, now commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet and NATO's Commander Naval Striking and Support Forces for Southern Europe, will be relieved by Vice Adm. Charles S. Abbot in a July 12 change of command ceremony aboard the Sixth Fleet command ship, USS La Salle in its homeport of Gaeta, Italy, the Navy said. Abbot is now director of operations (J-3), U.S. European Command, in Stuttgart, Germany.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said it has picked five teams to complete initial concept development work on the projected Arsenal ship. Each team will get about $1 million for six months of trade studies. The teams are: -- General Dynamics' Marine/Bath Ironworks, with GD's Electric Boat, Raytheon Electronic Systems and Science Applications International Corp. -- Hughes Aircraft with Avondale Shipyards, Advanced Marine Enterprises, Booz-Allen Hamilton, and McDonnell Douglas.
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE members voted yesterday to accept the $13.7 billion NASA funding figure set by the panel's VA, HUD and independent agencies subcommittee (DAILY, July 11). Committee leaders said they hoped to bring the bill to the Senate floor in a week to 10 days, a goal they conceded may be thwarted by the crush of other pending legislation.
Richard R. Quirin has been named executive vice president and chief financial officer effective Aug. 1. Quirin is currently serving as vice president contracts and business development on a special assignment to Lucas Geared Systems.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORP. said Dean Philpott has been named director-Wings Programs at its Commercial Aircraft Div. in Dallas. Philpott, who has been with the company since 1962 and director of C-17 and B-2 programs at the unit since 1995, replaces Steve Yarbrough, who is retiring after 28 years with the company. Northrop Grumman said Philpott will lead the Gulfstream V Integrated Product Team, and also assume leadership of the capture team for new wing business.
AIR EUROPA, a Spanish inclusive tour operator, ordered 10 737-800s valued at $510 million, and reserved options on two more, Boeing Co. said yesterday. Deliveries will begin in 1998 and continue through 1999. Boeing has announced orders for 312 of the new-generation 737 family which was launched in early 1994.
The final version of the fiscal 1997 defense authorization compromise bill will not contain the House's ban on development of an advanced short takeoff and vertical landing (ASTOVL) variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, the chairman of the House National Security subcommittee that originated the prohibition said yesterday. "I don't believe we will prohibit the development of any variant" of JSF, Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), chairman of the research and development subcommittee, told The DAILY in an interview:
