Rockville, Md.-based Tracor subsidiary Vitro Corp. bought the Aegis Shipbuilding Program support business from Litton Industries' PRC unit, Tracor reported this week. Terms weren't disclosed, but the acquired business is dedicated to carrying out a five-year, $42.4 million U.S. Navy contract supporting acquisition of Aegis ship systems. The assets were originally part of McLean, Va.-based PRC and all the affected employees in Crystal City, Va., will immediately transfer to Vitro to continue supporting the contract, Vitro said.
The government of Brunei would get its first Harpoon missiles from the U.S. under a sale by the Dept. of Defense. DOD notified Congress of the sale on Tuesday, saying that Brunei would buy 48 of the McDonnell Douglas weapons for an estimated $57 million.
Saab Aircraft is eyeing development of a new commuter aircraft by 2004. The plane would seat between 60 and 89 passengers, offering more space than the Saab 340 and somewhat larger Saab 2000, according to Ulf Edlund, Saab's vice president for strategic planning. The 2004 date, he said here Monday, would be ten years from completion of development of the Saab 2000 - the same time it took to go from introduction of the 340 to the 2000.
Shorts Missile Systems of Belfast, Ireland, will continue an R&D effort for the U.S. Army to demonstrate use of the Air-to-Air Starsteak missile on the AH-64A Apache helicopter. The U.S. Army's Aviation Applied Technology Directorate, Ft. Eustis, Va., said in a June 13 Commerce Business Daily notice that it plans to award a sole-source, follow-on contract to Shorts "to investigate electrical, mechanical, aerodynamic, structural, operational, environmental and effectiveness issues affecting the integration of the" missile onto the Apache.
The House today takes up the $245.8 billion fiscal 1997 defense appropriations bill, with Rep. C.W. (Bill) Young (R-Fla.) planning to cut procurement $500 million while holding off an attempt to freeze the Pentagon money bill at last year's level.
GE Aircraft Engines and Russia's Rybinsk Motors agreed to form Rybinsk-GE Aviation Motors to make aircraft engines and aeroderivatives in Russia, the first definitive agreement to emerge between the two since GE named the company its strategic partner in Russia last year. Executives didn't disclose financial terms, but said the new company should be officially registered in Russia within two months.
SEN. TRENT LOTT (R-MISS.) yesterday was elected Senate Majority Leader by a surprisingly lopsided vote over Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), 44-8, succeeding Bob Dole, who gave up his Senate seat as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee so he could campaign full time.
Prices charged to launch Western satellites aboard Chinese and Russian launch vehicles have run well below those set for comparable services aboard Western launch vehicles, yet the Clinton Administration has been slow to challenge them under the bilateral trade agreements that permit the launches, House Republicans charged yesterday.
SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE Chairman Strom Thurmond (S.C.) and senior SASC Republican John W. Warner (Va.) both won Republican primaries for another Senate term. Thurmond, 93, easily won his party's nomination for an eighth term in the South Carolina Republican primary against an opponent who tried to make age an issue. He won about 60% of the vote. Warner rolled up about 66% of the vote against former Reagan Administration budget director James C. Miller III, who sought to make an issue of Warner's refusal to back certain Republican candidates.
Even as GE Aircraft Engines and partners Fiat Avio and Alfa Romeo Avio continue tests in Naples, Italy, on a T700/CT7 turboshaft that's up to 80% more powerful than the very first T700/CT7 family models, program chief Lou Bevilacqua said last week there's room for easy growth to accommodate heavier Black Hawk, Apache and EH101 helicopter derivatives.
The Saab-British Aerospace team working on an export variant of the Gripen fighter is due to define a baseline plane this year, with the first likely to be available in about 1999. One issue to be decided is how capable to make the electronic warfare suite, according to Peter Anstiss, director of sales and marketing for BAe's Military Aircraft Div. He told reporters here during a tour of Swedish defense facilities and companies that his company and Saab will "work with existing vendors where possible."
Hughes Aircraft Co. will carry out preliminary design of elements of the anti-air warfare suite for the Trilateral Frigate program of The Netherlands, Germany and Canada. Hughes said Tuesday that its Naval and Maritime Systems unit, Fullerton, Calif., won a contract for the work from Hollandse Signaalapparaten B.V. of The Netherlands (Signaal). Terms of the contract weren't disclosed. The Netherlands and Germany will adopt the AAW suite for their new LCF and F-124 frigates, and Canada will also be involved, Hughes said.
Ericsson Microwave Systems is considering the idea of the C-130 Hercules as a platform for its Erieye airborne early warning radar, according to Lars Tornquist, the company's general manager for marketing and sales. He told The DAILY during a tour here that Ericsson has been discussing the C-130 version with American companies for about a year. The radar itself would be largely unchanged from the one being procured by the Swedish Air Force and flown on modified Saab 340s.
The Societe Europeenne des Satellites (SES) of Luxembourg has ordered the Astra 2A spacecraft from Hughes Space and Communications International Inc. The satellite will be launched into SES' new orbital position of 28.2 degrees East longitude. Hughes is slated to deliver Astra 2A by summer 1997 for launch on an Ariane rocket, making it the ninth in the Astra broadcast satellite constellation and the seventh from Hughes.
The House Appropriations defense subcommittee will have to cut $500 million more in budget authority from the $245.7 billion fiscal 1997 defense appropriations bill and will seek to trim a variety of procurement programs to reach the target, subcommittee chairman Rep. C.W. (Bill) Young (R-Fla.) said yesterday. Young said he wanted to work out the details first with ranking subcommittee Democrat John P. Murtha (Pa.), and then with the subcommittee. The bill is expected to be on the House floor tomorrow.
The Pentagon's new policy of encouraging acquisition programs to budget R&D funds for low rate initial production (LRIP) of test articles has aroused House Appropriations Committee concern that the policy could be used to initiate procurement without approval of Congress or the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The committee, in its fiscal 1997 defense appropriations report, noted that the Defense Dept. recently established the policy of encouraging programs to budget RDT&E instead of procurement funds for LRIP of test articles.
HUGHES TRAINING INC., Binghamton, N.Y., will provide sustaining support for the F-117A flight simulator program under a U.S. Air Force contract planned for award on about Oct. 1, according to a May 28 Commerce Business Daily notice from Sacramento Air Logistics Center, McClellan AFB, Calif. The effort will be conducted at the contractor's plant and at Holloman AFB, N.M.
McDonnell Douglas and Daimler-Benz Aerospace are considering a venture in which they would jointly offer slots for microgravity research on the Eureca spacecraft. Eureca, built and first flown as a European Space Agency project and now owned by Daimler-Benz which designed and developed it, will be launched and retrieved by the Space Shuttle. MDC will perform operations and maintenance work on the free-flyer, which can carry 2,200 pounds of experiments.
JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER design of McDonnell Douglas, Northrop Grumman and British Aerospace has been validated by more than 7,500 hours of scale model tests, MDC said yesterday.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) is seeking Senate co-sponsors for an amendment he may offer that would transfer $10 billion to Pentagon modernization programs from infrastructure accounts. The funds would come from infrastructure savings in budgets planned for fiscal 1997 to 2001. Grassley, in a June 4 "Dear Colleague letter," solicited the support of other senators for the amendment he may offer to the fiscal 1997 Senate Armed Services defense authorization. The authorization could be on the Senate floor as soon as tomorrow.
The Swedish Air Force is looking at four engine options as it considers its next buy of Saab's JAS-39 Gripen fighter, according to industry officials here. Volvo Aero Corp. is studying the alternatives, Roland Sunden, senior vice president and general manager, told reporters during a briefing here Sunday. The air force decision about the size of the procurement will be made this fall, he said, but the engine decision can be made as late as next year.
Boeing Co. said it will add more than 1,000 jobs in Oklahoma City during the next three to five years, more than tripling its current employment level there, the company said yesterday. Larry Debrot, general manager of Boeing Defense&Space Group's Product Support Div., said 1,005 jobs will be added. Boeing, which has operated sites in Oklahoma City for some 40 years, now employs nearly 460 people in logistics training services for U.S. Air Force E-3 AWACS mission crews based at Tinker AFB.
ECC INTERNATIONAL, Wayne, Pa., is working under a $23.2 million, 36-month contract from McDonnell Douglas to provide Simulated Aircraft Maintenance Trainers for the U.S. Navy's F/A/18E/F aircraft. The company also won $9.2 million from the Martin Marietta/Texas Instruments joint venture, constituting the third Low Rate Initial Production order for classroom and field tactical trainers for the Javelin missile, with field service support. The work will be completed in about 18 months.
A Russian design bureau has displayed for the first time a nuclear rocket engine developed and tested as a kick motor for near-Earth and interplanetary missions but abandoned because of safety concerns. At the Engines-96 exhibit that opened in Moscow June 4, the Design Bureau of Chemical Automatics (KBKhA) displayed the RD-0410 engine, development of which began in the 1960s and continued into the 1980s.
In response to the failed flight of the Ariane V booster last week, the European Space Agency and French Space Agency (CNES) have established a special board. A spurious computer command sent the booster heeling over sideways only 37 seconds after liftoff on its inaugural flight June 4 from Kourou, French Guiana, wrecking what had been shaping up to be a textbook flight and throwing Europe's civil and commercial space program into uncertainty (DAILY, June 6)
