JAPAN ROYAL HELICOPTERS is the first Japanese customer of Kaman Aerospace's K-Max helicopter, Kaman said. Certification and delivery were celebrated yesterday with a rollout ceremony and flight demonstration at Tokyo Heliport. The event was hosted by Kyokuto Boeki Kaisha Ltd (KBK), Kaman's Japanese distributor. Kaman said Japan Royal will use the K-Max for logging and power line work. It owns about 19 helicopters.
Europe's Ariane booster lifted two Aerospatiale-built communications satellites toward their geostationary transfer orbits Tuesday after a launch from the Guiana Space Center delayed slightly by weather. It was the second launch for the Arianespace consortium since the first Ariane V booster was lost to an apparent computer error soon after liftoff June 4 (DAILY, June 5). The European and French space agencies are scheduled to release the results of an investigation into the mishap soon.
FOURTH B-2 BOMBER to be delivered to the U.S. Air Force this year arrived at Whiteman AFB, Mo., on July 3, the AF said. It said Majors Gavin L. Ketchen and Richard Vanderburgh of the 509th Bomb Wing flew the aircraft to Whiteman from the Northrop Grumman plant at Palmdale, Calif. Eight B-2s have arrived at Whiteman since the first was delivered Dec. 17, 1993. Nine more are slated for delivery by early 1998 to complete the planned fleet of 21.
Hughes Aircraft Co. won an initial victory over the U.S. government yesterday when a District Court Judge granted its motion to make the Air Force stop work on the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) program for ten days. The court will then determine if work can continue while the General Accounting Office reviews a Hughes bid protest.
NASA ROLLED BACK the Space Shuttle Atlantis early yesterday as Hurricane Bertha threaten the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But Shuttle managers said it will be Monday at the earliest before they decide whether to replace the Solid Rocket Boosters on Atlantis. Analysis of hot gas penetrations on the SRBs that lifted the Shuttle Columbia to orbit last month continued (DAILY, July 9).
The Pentagon has asked Congress to reconsider several of the unmanned aerial vehicle provisions in the fiscal 1997 defense authorization bills of both the House and Senate. The Defense Dept.'s appeal to the authorizers is dated July 3 and geared to a Senate vote Wednesday. The House has already passed its '97 bill. DOD objected to: -- A House provision to move procurement of the Predator vehicle from the UAV Joint Program Office to the Air Force.
DATUM INC., Irvine, Calif., said its Frequency and Time Systems Div. of Beverly, Mass., has been chosen to supply cesium atomic standards for the FAA's Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). The company said it will "provide cesium frequency standards for the functional verification system to verify implementation, installation, functional and operational performance prior to implementation at all operational WAAS sites."
The General Accounting Office says the Desert Storm air campaign shows that the U.S. must make improvements in a number of areas, including targeting sensors and battle damage assessment, and should review the mix of smart and unguided munitions it plans to buy. In "Operation Desert Storm: Evaluation of the Air War" (PEMD-96-10),
The U.S. Air Force has decided to hold off temporarily on buying the interim Global Positioning System sets Defense Secretary William Perry ordered following the April crash iin Croatia of a CT-43 transport carrying Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.
Russia's government has accepted a proposal from the Russian Space Agency for a joint venture with Aerospatiale and Arianespace to use the Soyuz booster for commercial launches of foreign spacecraft, as well as for development of space technology for microgravity experiments. A directive signed by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin authorized RSA and TsSKB-Progress, the State Science and Production Rocket and Space Center of Samara, to complete negotiations with the French and, upon agreement, to establish a Russian-French stock-holding company.
The Pentagon has asked lawmakers to drop a provision in the House version of the fiscal year 1997 defense authorization bill restructuring a plan for competition for the Navy's next-generation attack submarine. Language in the House bill calls for design of a new sub to begin without designating either of the two competing shipyards - General Dynamic's Electric Boat or Newport News Shipyard - as the lead contractor. Alternative designs proposed by each would be competed for serial production beginning no earlier than FY '03.
Researchers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have logged more than two months of ground-test time on a foot-wide ion drive thruster designed to push NASA's first New Millennium space probe to rendezvous with an asteroid and a comet in 1998. Testing in a JPL vacuum chamber began April 30 and will continue until the engine has logged about 8,000 hours over 330 days. In the test the ion engine fires continuously for two days, then shuts down for an hour before repeating the cycle.
National Transportation Safety Board officials found an inch-deep crack in the fan hub of the Delta Airlines MD-88 engine that came apart Saturday as the aircraft was taking off from Pensacola, Fla. Two aboard the aircraft were killed and others were injured when the Pratt&Whitney JT8D- 219 blew up. A P&W spokesman said the company had "never seen" such a fatigue crack or experienced a break-up of a fan hub like the one in Pensacola.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS' fourth F/A-18E/F Super Hornet has completed its first flight, the company reported yesterday. Four of the planes are now flying. They have flown a total of more than 100 flights and logged over 200 flight hours. The fourth E/F completed its first flight July 2 from Lambert International Airport in St. Louis. The single-seat aircraft flew for 1.6 hours and then returned to the airport, MDC said. It is slated to fly later this summer to NAS Patuxent River, Md., where it will be used primarily for high angle of attack testing.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has awarded AlliedSignal Technical Services Corp. a $28.694 million contract to supply a low-Earth orbit tracking system (LEO-T) for the Wallops Flight Facility on the Virginia coast. AlliedSignal will supply an antenna, radome house and ground station equipment for the autonomous, remotely controlled tracking system, which can handle spacecraft up to 600 miles in altitude.
VIETNAM AIRLINES took delivery of the first of 10 new A320 airliners which Airbus Industrie said begins a major acquisition program organized in conjunction with Aerostar Leasing. All 10 aircraft are to be delivered by early next year and will be operated from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to domestic and Asian destinations. The aircraft are powered by CFM56 engines.
A group of Republican lawmakers intends to file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against President Clinton for ignoring the direction on theater missile defense program milestones included in the fiscal year 1996 defense authorization act.
BOEING CO. said it delivered 62 commercial jet transports in the quarter ended June 30, including 23 737s, eight 747s, 12 757s, 12 767s and seven 777s. Total deliveries so far this year are 102 - 38 737s, 11 747s, 19 757s, 19 767s and 15 777s. One non-commercial 767 was also delivered in the second quarter, the third of four to be modified as AWACS aircraft for Japan. Boeing projects total deliveries for the year of about 215 aircraft.
Hughes Aircraft Co. yesterday filed a motion for a temporary restraining order to stop work by Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas on the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) program. Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas were chosen over Hughes and other competitors on June 17 to proceed into the next stage of the program. Hughes protested to the General Accounting Office on June 27.
PRATT&WHITNEY yesterday completed assembly of the first of two F119 engines slated to power the F-22 on its first flight next spring. It is the first of 27 engines P&W will build to support the nine flight test F-22s. Assembly of the second F119 is underway, the company said yesterday.
Space nuclear power research has fallen on hard times in the U.S. and should be terminated unless the government can refocus its efforts and remove "political" restrictions on work with nuclear fuel, a panel of the National Research Council has concluded. Commissioned by the Defense Nuclear Agency, which inherited the Topaz International Program from the old Strategic Defense Initiative Organization with the end of the Cold War, the NRC study found the program to study Russia's Topaz II space nuclear reactor does not address realistic applications.
July 2, 1996 E-Systems Incorporated E-Systems Incorporated, Dallas, Texas, is being awarded a $6,280,000 face value increase to a firm fixed price contract to provide for hardware and software upgrades for three Joint Service Imagery Processing Systems. Contract is expected to be completed November 1997 Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Maine is the contracting activity (F19628-93-C- 0201, P00045)
July 1, 1996 Lockheed Martin Corporation Lockheed Martin Corporation, Denver, Colorado, is being awarded a $1,155,086,944 modification to a firm fixed price contract to provide for administrative transfer of all remaining Titan launch vehicle production effort from the 1985 contract. The contract is expected to be completed September 2003. Contract funds will expire September 1996. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles, California is the contracting activity (F04701-96-C-0001, P00007).
