Vice President Gore hammers home the California angle in announcing the selection of Lockheed Martin to build the X-33 prototype, claiming at least 2,000 high-tech jobs as a result for the vote-rich state. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand the importance of this moment," he tells an enthusiastic crowd under the California sun at JPL. Not only will the half-scale reusable launch vehicle be built at the Skunk Works, but it will be based at Edwards AFB, Calif., and will land on various California runways during its 15-flight test series.
Encouraged by strong test results, Aerojet plans to continue development of a new tripropellant preburner assembly with its Russian partners, even though the tripropellant RD-0120 engine program itself has been dropped, Aerojet's Jim Hulka told an engineering conference here.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) plans to strike out of the Senate Appropriations fiscal 1997 defense money bill funding for the two F- 16s the Air Force didn't request and $120 million added for conversion kits for the OH-58 helicopter, which the Army didn't seek. Levin notes that neither request was in the original Administration budget nor in the services' wish list. He originally planned to make the changes in the defense authorization but was persuaded to wait for the appropriations bill, which will be on the Senate floor either at the end of this week or next week.
The U.S. Air Force is soliciting industry for support of 37 C-130 aircraft of the Special Operations Forces. "This contract is unique as it transfers functions normally the responsibility of" system program offices at the AF's Aeronautical Systems Center "to the contractor," said a notice in the July 3 issue of Commerce Business Daily. "The contractor will have total system integration responsibility for" 13 AC-130U gunships and 24 MC-130H Combat Talon IIs operated by the SOF, the notice said.
Hughes is in negotiations with Japan's Rocket Systems Corp. for a deal to launch its satellites on the planned H-IIA upgrade of the all-Japanese H-II booster, and expects to reach agreement soon, a company spokesperson said Wednesday. Citing industry sources, Kyodo News Service reported from Tokyo that RSC and Hughes had agreed to at least 10 launches on the H-IIA. But the Hughes spokesperson said that while "negotiations" are underway, no contract had been signed last week.
When Congress returns from recess this week, Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) is expected to present his plan to force the Pentagon to speed its schedule for deployment of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. The plan apparently will be to make the Pentagon follow the time table laid out in the FY '96 Defense Authorization Act, passed by Congress before OSD announced a restructuring of TMD programs. The plan was supposed to be let out of the bag last week, but last-minute glitches interfered, aides say.
Gore's approach lends weight to GOP complaint that the Clinton Administration is taking political credit for a bipartisan program, and forces Republicans to scramble for a piece of the action. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), a longtime advocate of replacing the Shuttle, was on hand for the announcement even though his McDonnell Douglas constituents lost. And GOP Gov. Pete Wilson sent out a press release stressing that the state worked closely with all three competitors to ensure they would stay at home with the project. Rep.
Staffs of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (D-Ga.) will be hard at work this week drafting a far-reaching continuing resolution that will keep the government in operation if Congress is not able to pass FY '97 appropriations bills acceptable to the White House. "The leadership wants to get this CR out as soon as possible, so you could see some movement this week," one Senate aide says. The Senate defense appropriations bill is slated to come to the Senate floor this week.
Technical problems will prevent development and fielding of a cased telescoped ammunition and gun system, and the U.S. Dept. of Defense has made a good decision not to continue the program, the DOD Inspector General reported.
A Lockheed Martin Titan IV heavy lift space launcher carried a classified payload into orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Station in the third flight of the rocket this year. Liftoff from Complex 40 came at 8:30 p.m. EDT. The company's astronautics unit, which is under contract to build and launch 41 Titan IVs, said one more Titan IV launch is scheduled this year.
NEWEST C-17 AIRLIFTER, the 26th, was delivered to the U.S. Air Force last Wednesday, McDonnell Douglas said. The plane was flown from the company's plant at Long Beach, Calif., to Charleston AFB, S.C., where it was received by the 437th Airlift Wing. "The aircraft was officially accepted by the Air Force on May 31, but remained in Long Beach for installation of its airborne defensive system," MDC said.
PILATUS AIRCRAFT LTD. of Switzerland said it will locate its U.S. headquarters at Jeffco Airport in Broomfield, Colo. Pilatus Business Aircraft Ltd., its newly formed U.S. corporation, will have marketing and executive offices at the airport and will demonstrate aircraft there. Raytheon Aircraft Co. won the U.S. Air Force and Navy competition for the JPATS aircraft with a missionized Pilatus trainer. Raytheon, under an agreement with Pilatus, will manufacture 700 Beech Pilatus PC-9 Mk. II JPATS trainers.
China's troubled Long March space launch vehicle returned to flight last Wednesday, boosting the Apstar 1A communications satellite into its geostationary transfer orbit, state television reported in Beijing.
The FAA has certified General Electric's biggest engine, the GE90-92B, rated at 92,000 pounds of takeoff thrust. Flight testing will begin in September on Boeing's 777-200 IGW (increased gross weight) airliner. Pratt&Whitney's PW4090, rated at 90,000 pounds of thrust, has also received certification, and 777 flight testing will begin later this summer (DAILY, July 2).
The U.S. Army on July 2 accepted delivery of the first two production Ground Based Sensor (GBS) radars for the Short Range Air Defense System (SHORADS) from Hughes Aircraft Co.'s Forest, Miss., facility. Hughes received a contract in 1992 for up to 154 MPQ-64 GBS systems and related supplies and services. If all the units are ordered, the contract could be worth more than $400 million. The MPQ-64 is a battlefield air-defense radar that uses phased-array antenna technology.
The Air Force plans to award a contract soon for the low rate initial production phase of an effort to upgrade the F-15C/D fighter's APG-63 fire control radar. The F-15 System Program Office plans an award during the third quarter of fiscal 1997, according to a July 5 Commerce Business Daily notice.
A TRW/HUGHES TEAM won a five-year, $15.6 million U.S. Air Force contract to provide technical support for the Defense Support Program (DSP), the companies reported. The team will provide DSP mission analysis, telemetry analysis, operations and command support and other expertise to Air Force operators, analysts and programmers. They said the contract is a consolidation of two separate DSP contracts, one for spacecraft operations and the other for sensor support and mission assessment.
General Electric's GE Engine Services won a 10-year deal with Atlas Air estimated to be worth some $300 million, covering maintenance and repair of GE CF6 Series engines that power the carrier's Boeing 747-200 freighters. GE agreed to a fixed price per hour program, under which Atlas pays a negotiated maintenance cost per hour, or MCPH, to cover everything needed by its fleet of 60 installed CF6-50 turbofans and 10 -50 spares over the ten-year period.
Despite all the talk about ushering in a new era of affordable access to space, enginemakers who will work on the reusable launch vehicle (RLV) that will grow from the X-33 warned during a conference here that finding the money needed to develop its engine could be a tough proposition.
The U.S. Air Force has issued a stand down order for its E-8C Joint STARS aircraft pending outcome of a review of a rivet problem identified last month. Joint STARS prime contractor Northrop Grumman on June 13 discovered that the wrong rivets were used in various places on a Boeing 707 that was being converted into one of the surveillance planes, said company spokesman Dick Dunne. The AF placed a "precautionary stand down" on Joint STARS June 14, and the order remains in effect.
Boeing and General Electric yesterday announced a joint venture to offer a business version of the 737-700 twinjet airliner. GE itself is a launch customer, with two of the $35 million, CFM56-powered planes to be delivered in late 1998. In cost and range, the aircraft competes favorably with business jets like the Global Express, yet has "three times" the floor space, said Boeing Condit President Phil Condit.
FAA's Satellite Program Office, responding to Wilcox Electric's protest of an award of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) to Hughes Aircraft Co., said requirements for WAAS either remained the same or were made more difficult for Hughes than they had been for Wilcox.
Gulfstream Vice Chairman Bryan Moss, reacting to Boeing's announcement of a new 737-700 business jet, said "this is not their first initiative to create a business aircraft market for their commercial airliners. We have seen it with various models including the 707, the 727, the 757 and now with a version of the 737. Each time, when Boeing has gone to the market, companies have considered the size of those airliners and the infrastructure required to support them.
NASA'S THESEUS long-duration remotely piloted vehicle flew for an hour and 17 minutes July 1, reaching an altitude of about 8,000 feet, in its second test flight over Dryden Flight Research Center in California.
An Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL launch vehicle placed the latest Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) in polar orbit for NASA early yesterday, almost one year later than originally planned because of development problems with the winged booster.
