USAF LT. GEN. LESTER L. LYLES has been nominated to become director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. The Pentagon said he would replace Army Lt. Gen. Malcolm O'Neill, who has retired. Rear Adm. Richard D. West, the assistant BMDO director, will remain acting director until Lyles is confirmed by the Senate. Lyles has been commander of the U.S. Air Force's Space and Missile Center. Maj. Gen. Roger G. DeKok has been nominated to replace Lyles at SMC, and is in line for promotion to the grade of lieutenant general.
Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee members has raised a red flag over the Joint Strike Fighter, based on a classified briefing on tactical fighter programs they got last May. Terming the problem of merging the requirements of four services in a single airframe "a major challenge," the subcommittee warned in its report that "it is far too early to rule out the prospects for major cost growth in this program." Given that possibility, and the demands of competing programs, the panel questioned "the current pace of the...program."
Top science officials of the European Space Agency will meet in London tomorrow to decide how to try to capture some of the science lost with the three Cluster satellites on the failed first launch of the Ariane V booster.
With commercial satellite imagery providers making increasing inroads in selling their products to the government, Dennis D. Fitzgerald, the CIA's director of systems applications, says "some companies have approached us" about providing commercial satellite signals intelligence. But "that is a very touchy subject," he adds. Fitzgerald says "it is a little bit harder to see the same type of transition in SIGINT" that has taken place in imagery.
The Small Satellite Review Panel convened earlier this year by Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch says that "a decision should be made now" to build small spy satellites. The House Intelligence Committee released an unclassified version of the panel's finding on Friday, a day after the National Reconnaissance Office said it is embracing smallsats (DAILY, June 28).
Look for a final NASA decision this week or next to go ahead and install extra struts in the pressurized nodes Boeing is building for the International Space Station. Andy Allen, the new head of Station requirements at agency headquarters, says top space flight managers have all but decided not to lower the requirement that the nodes be able to handle one and a half times their normal operating pressure of 14.7 psi.
Gulfstream said it received certification for its GIII, GIV and GIV-SP aircraft from the Aviation Register of the Interstate Aviation Committee for the Commonwealth of Independent States and Russia, a "first for a U.S.- designed and -manufactured business jet aircraft." It said the aircraft are the first approved under new CIS certification rules for transport category aircraft. The rules have been harmonized with the U.S. FAA.
The Philippines government has submitted to its legislature a detailed $12.7 billion spending measure to implement an armed forces modernization program enacted last year, embassy officials said Wednesday in Washington. The measure details funding requirements for each service, said Capt. Juan A. De Leon, the Philippines defense attache. He said the plan was submitted early this month, and is likely to be debated until later in the year.
CANADIAN MARCONI CO. said Lauda Air has chosen a dual-antenna configuration of its CMA-2102 high-gain satcom antenna to prepare for the Future Air Navigation System (FANS) environment and in-flight services. Initially, Canadian Marconi said, two antennas will be installed in each of Lauda Air's two Boeing 777 airliners when they are commissioned next year. Lauda also has options for two more 777s.
House Budget Committee Chairman John R. Kasich (R-Ohio) has asked NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin for specifics on how he plans to meet Clinton Administration spending targets for his agency, charging that Goldin himself has offered evidence "Administration officials do not take the president's budget seriously." In a letter dated Wednesday Kasich cited statements Goldin made when he presented NASA's fiscal 1997 budget, and subsequently, to the effect that out-year spending figures are open to negotiation (DAILY, March 20).
The Senate on Wednesday night approved an amendment striking a compromise on intelligence community reform issues. Over the past few months the Armed Services and Intelligence committees have delayed each other's fiscal year 1997 authorization bills because of differences on IC reform. While several deals have been struck at the staff level over the past few weeks, an amendment passed during debate on the defense bill Wednesday resolved three disagreements.
Europe's Arianespace launch services consortium posted net income of 189.7 million French francs (about $38 million) in 1995, up from about $28 million the previous year.
The Defense Department's plan to procure the F-22 fighter, the F/A- 18E/F strike fighter and the Joint Strike Fighter all in the next decade understates their cost, "may not be affordable, and will probably need to be scaled back...," a Congressional Budget Office witness told Congress yesterday.
The Senate disagreed with its Armed Services Committee on the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program and gave the Administration the full $56.2 million it requested for the effort in fiscal year 1997. The committee had cut the amount by $10.8 million to $45.4 million. The action was taken Wednesday night in a vote on an amendment as the Senate worked on the FY '97 defense authorization bill. Earlier, it passed a series of other amendments, including one to stop the sale of high resolution satellite imagery of Israel (DAILY, June 27).
U.S. assistance for air traffic control modernization in China, which has been a function of the Dept. of Defense, will be shifted to the FAA. The move follows several years in which ATC modernization was a key agenda item of the U.S./China Joint (Defense) Conversion Commission (JCC). Now, according to DAILY affiliate ATC Market Report, the JCC is giving up its focus on ATC modernization.
The U.S. Naval Space Command has assumed control of the Fleet Satellite Communications (FLTSATCOM) spacecraft for the first time, taking over from the Air Force operation of the satellites that provide the service with communications to its ships at sea and other U.S. forces. Controllers at the Naval Satellite Operations Center, part of the Naval Space Command at Point Mugu, Calif., are flying four FLTSATCOM spacecraft around the Equator. The satellites provide communications at ultra-high and extremely-high frequencies.
The National Reconnaissance Office yesterday for the first time publicly embraced the idea of pursuing small satellites and will now move towards their comprehensively use. David A. Kier, the NRO's associate director for technology, said "we believe we need to move with the next generation of systems into a smaller class" of satellites. "We will be downsizing our satellites."
Egyptair ordered four A321s which it will begin receiving in mid-1977, Airbus Industrie said Wednesday. The carrier already operates seven A320s, 14 A300s and one A340. The A321s will seat 200 in a single class with the option of convertible seats at the front of the cabin. No engine choice was made. Egyptair has three more A340s on order with deliveries beginning in November.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin has ordered major changes in his nation's civil aviation affairs, including development of a code of aviation regulations and performance standards for airlines, airports and civil aviation personnel.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense has released $51 million in funding it was withholding from the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Tracking Systems program. The release allows the program to continue on the accelerated deployment that Congress mandated. The funds were released June 18, one Air Force official told The DAILY yesterday. It was exactly what "we had to have" to abide by the language Congress enacted into law as part of the fiscal year 1996 defense budget.
NASA's Office of Space Access and Technology, better known by its mail room designation "Code X," would be scaled back into a small office in charge of space transportation programs under the latest proposal to reduce the U.S. space agency's headquarters staff as a cost-cutting measure.
House members voted 244-171 for an amendment deleting $15.5 million from NASA's fiscal 1997 appropriation for a U.S./Russian experiment that has drawn protests from animal rights groups for its planned use of rhesus monkeys in space. In action late Wednesday the House accepted an amendment offered by Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.) to prohibit the use of NASA funds for the Bion 11 and Bion 12 experiments. The experiments would send two rhesus monkeys each into orbit for two weeks to measure their adaptation to microgravity.
While information warfare techniques of countries potentially hostile to the U.S. are now aimed mostly at battlefield dominance, they could shift to more vulnerable commercial infrastructures, Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch said.
The Senate yesterday passed an amendment to the fiscal year 1997 defense authorization bill prohibiting sale on the world market of spy- quality commercial satellite imagery of Israel. Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) sponsored the amendment, which passed by voice vote. The action could be blow to some U.S. companies, including Lockheed Martin, which have been trying to market such imagery, congressional aides said.
Alliant Techsystems' Defense Systems Group received four contracts worth a total of $29.7 million for medium caliber ammunition. The company said yesterday that the contracts are as follows: -- $14.3 million for over 1.2 million rounds of 25mm Bushmaster target practice ammunition; -- $8.7 million for 625,000 rounds of 25mm PGU-32/U ammunition for tactical aircraft and shipboard defense systems; -- $3.8 million for 623,000 rounds of GAU-8/A 30mm ammunition for the A-10 aircraft;
