Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Wash.) called the House National Security Committee's decision to kill the Medium Extended Range Air Defense System (MEADS) or Corps SAM "a mistake," and said he hoped that "we can turn it around" in the legislative process. Dicks said Tuesday at a Capitol Hill breakfast seminar on ballistic missile defense that if the U.S. is going to deploy maneuver forces then "you're going to have to deploy a system like Corps SAM that they can take with them."
Aviall, Inc., sold its Miami-based accessory overhaul and repair services business to Curtiss-Wright Flight Systems as part of a larger restructuring aimed at getting out of the market for repairing airline engines, components and accessories. "This sale represents an important step in the strategic move" to exit those businesses, Aviall Chairman Robert G. Lambert said in a prepared statement. "We expect completion of the remainder of the sales shortly."
Shortcomings in the $6.3 billion Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle program, canceled last January, were substantiated in a report released Tuesday by the Pentagon Inspector General. The report said that an "audit partially or fully substantiated the allegations that the LRIP [low rate initial production] system did not conform to contract requirements, operator safety was at risk, reliability was inadequate, and the system was never subjected to operational testing." Three charges were not substantiated.
Boeing and Sikorsky have concluded a mandatory 50-hour engine run on its RAH-66 Comanche stationary propulsion test bed, completing an important milestone before the prototype low-observable armed reconnaissance helicopter can make its second flight.
The U.S. Air Force plans to install a new data and voice communications bus on the chief of staff's airplane that would allow greater flexibility in configuring the aircraft. The communications architecture upgrade to the C-135C, known as "Speckled Trout," is based on a concept demonstrated on a KC-135 during last year's Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (JWID).
Although rhetoric on deployment has been the focal point of the debate between Congress and the Defense Dept. on a national missile defense system, a senior DOD official didn't find many differences between the two on NMD. "Everybody is talking about a defense that will be good only against a certain rogue state threat and not against a Chinese potential," Walter Slocombe, the Pentagon's under secretary for policy, told defense reporters Tuesday during a breakfast meeting in Washington.
Despite requests on behalf of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and a last-ditch effort by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the House leadership decided yesterday not to begin debate on the GOP's Defend America Act before leaving today for the Memorial Day recess, House and Senate aides told The DAILY.
After a one-week stand-down, U.S. Air Force/Northrop Grumman B-2 bombers have started returning to flying status, although the service said yesterday it will inspect each of the bombers' exhaust duct clamps before an individual aircraft is cleared for flight. Cracks found on one of the clamps connecting the internally mounted General Electric F101 engine with the exhaust duct prompted the stand-down (DAILY, May 15), but the service said yesterday that five B-2s have been cleared to fly following inspections.
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin wants to see $10 billion worth of performance-based contracts by the turn of the century, but he isn't as ready to rush into privatizing the International Space Station. Goldin told the Washington Space Business Roundtable yesterday the agency's top priority is a safe transition to private Space Shuttle operations under a single contract with United Space Alliance, the Rockwell/Lockheed Martin venture formed to seek the consolidated Shuttle operations contract.
Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, intends to offer an amendment increasing funding for the DarkStar Tier III Minus unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) by either $22 million or $25.5 million when the fiscal year 1997 intelligence authorization bill comes to the floor for debate today. Dicks will decide the amount by the time the bill comes to the floor today, a committee aide explained. The DarkStar is built by Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
The two contenders to fill Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole's shoes both have leadership political action committees (PACs) that they could use to support their races for the post. Senate Majority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Sen. Thad Cochran (R- Miss.) are vying for the job. They and other lawmakers use leadership PACs to cover expenses such as fund raisers and to contribute to the races of other candidates. Senate Republicans will vote to elect Dole's replacement when he departs June 11 to pursue his bid for the presidency.
The Defend America Act, the missile defense bill Republicans hope to deploy against President Clinton in the presidential race, would cost $10 billion over the next five years, or about $7 billion more than is currently budgeted for national missile defense, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry said yesterday it "would be a significant mistake" for Russia to transfer SS-18 ICBM technology to China. "We do have information that the Chinese are seeking SS-18 technology from Russia," Perry told reporters at the Pentagon. He said both Russia and Ukraine have been told the U.S. is against the proliferation of technology for the 6,800 mile-rang missile to China.
THE U.S. AIR FORCE on May 31 plan to release a request for proposals for at least one more contractor for the Space and Missile Tracking System demonstration/validation phase, according to a May 21 Commerce Business Daily notice. It said bids will be due July 1, and that a contract will be awarded around Aug. 1. The contract would be in addition to the work already being done by TRW.
The U.S. Air Force is trying to figure out if it can settle for three systems like the one it is using now to give it battlespace awareness in Bosnia, or if it should buy more.
In an attempt to force the U.S. Navy to proceed with a reactive jamming program for the EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft, the Senate Armed Services Committee has directed the Secretary of the Navy to certify that funds have been obligated for such a program by June 1, 1997, or lose the money to the Air Force's EF-111 program. The use-it-or-lose it approach, involving $138 million added to the EA-6B account, is recommended by the committee in its report on the fiscal 1997 defense authorization.
Litton Industries said May 15 that it has completed its acquisition of Sperry Marine Inc. from an investment partnership led by J.F. Lehman&Co. for about $158 million in cash. The companies initially planned a purchase price of about $160 million (DAILY, Feb. 12), but later modified it (DAILY, May 9).
Russian cosmonauts installed a U.S. built solar array on the space station Mir's Kvant astrophysics module Tuesday, taking time at the end of a five-hour spacewalk to film a Pepsi commercial. U.S. astronaut Shannon Lucid remained inside Mir as crewmates Yuri Onufrienko and Yuri Usachev shifted the solar array from the new docking module delivered by the Space Shuttle Atlantis last fall (DAILY, Nov. 15, 1995).
The House Appropriations national security subcommittee will come "close to" the $7.5 billion procurement add-on provided in the fiscal 1997 House defense authorization, subcommittee chairman Rep. C.W. (Bill) Young (R- Fla.) said yesterday. "It'll be as close to it as we can get it," Young said during a break in the subcommittee's closed consideration of the FY '97 defense appropriations bill.
The Senate is expected to vote today on an amendment calling for abolition of the "firewalls" in place to protect the defense budget from being raided to pay for non-defense discretionary portions of the budget or to reduce the deficit. Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.) will offer the amendment, which is expected to fail, during debate of the fiscal year 1997 budget resolution. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) led the fight to reinstate the firewalls to protect defense when Republicans took control of the Senate last year.
Senate Democrats have caused "legislative gridlock" that could prevent action on the fiscal year 1997 defense authorization bill and the GOP's Defend America Act until after the Memorial Day recess, Senate Majority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) told reporters yesterday. If Democrats continue to threaten to hold up the bills, via a filibuster or other procedural means, the Senate leadership will file cloture on the bill. That would force a vote on the bill soon after Congress returns from Memorial Day recess. The Senate is slated to begin the recess Thursday.
NASA's DC-XA testbed is still targeted to fly again June 7, despite minor fire damage the vehicle suffered at the conclusion of its first flight Saturday. A spokesman for Marshall Space Flight Center, where the U.S. space agency's DC-XA program is managed, said yesterday there was "superficial damage to the exterior of the vehicle" when a six-by-four-foot flap caught fire after the subscale single-stage-to-orbit prototype touched down tail first at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., as planned.
The Senate Armed Services Committee increased fiscal 1997 funding for the new generation of Global Positioning System satellites by $12.1 million, but tied the funds to the Clementine follow-on program. SASC boosted the U.S. Air Force's GPS IIF request by $7.1 million "To sustain the development and support a production rate of three Block IIF satellites per year." It also provided $5 million to ensure a high precision GPS signal to U.S. forces and to deny that signal to enemy forces.
Russian insurers are planning to pay $2.7 million for an optical reconnaissance satellite lost at launch May 14 that was to combine its military duties with commercial imaging over U.S. territory.
HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS national security subcommittee, which will begin marking up the fiscal 1997 defense money bill today, was given its budget ceilings yesterday, and will be able to boost the Clinton Administration request by about $12 billion in budget authority and by about $10 billion in outlays. The Appropriations Committee targets were $246.340 billion in budget authority and $243.804 billion in outlays.
