The funding level for defense contained in the Senate's fiscal year 1997 budget resolution could be severely slashed when the budget package comes to the floor for debate this week, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) told the DAILY yesterday in a brief interview. The Republican-drafted budget resolution, which contains $266.4 billion in budget authority and $264.6 billion in outlays for defense and Dept. of Energy defense-related programs, is slated to be brought to the Senate floor for debate today.
THE HOUSE yesterday began consideration of the $266.7 billion fiscal 1997 defense authorization - $12.4 billion over the Administration's request. It is expected to complete consideration of the bill tonight.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS said it has delivered the second of four refurbished flight test C-17 airlifters to the Air Force for operational use at Charleston AFB, S.C. Aircraft P-4 was flown to Charleston on May 10. P-2 is now also in the fleet.
U.S. AND ISRAEL will shortly sign an additional agreement on the Arrow missile defense program, according to Israel's Ministry of Defense. The memorandum of agreement "will cover the support of the U.S. government for the next stage of development of the Arrow Weapon System," the ministry said in materials for reporters at a press conference on Arrow yesterday in Israel. The agreement would be the third since 1986, when the U.S. and Israel moved to cooperate in the field of ballistic missile defense.
Lt. Gen. Malcolm O'Neill, head of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, says the Army and Air Force have proposed strategies for deploying a national missile defense (NMD) system by 2003 that they believe will not violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Loral Space&Communications Ltd. has received approval from the Federal Communications Commission to build and launch two telecommunications satellites to provide digital voice, data and television services to commercial and individual users in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
A PALAPA-C SATELLITE, built for Pt. Satelit Palapa Indonesia, is slated for launch on a Ariane 4 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, on Wednesday night. The satellite, the second in the Palapa-C series built by Hughes Space and Communications Co., is designed to provide a range of telecommunications services to the island nation. Palapa-C2 will be positioned at 113 degrees East longitude over the equator. Palapa-C1, launched Jan. 31, will be moved to 150.5 degrees East.
BAe pledged to back Matra parent Lagardere Group in its bid to become Thomson-CSF's majority shareholder, a move published reports in France claimed was key to moving ahead with stalled missile venture talks between BAe and Matra. Although BAe and Matra have been in talks for more than two years (see accompanying story), major French dailies reported yesterday that Paris had been blocking negotiations with a demand that the new joint venture would win Britain's Conventionally Armed Stand-Off Missile, or CASOM, competition.
U.S. ARMY Communications and Electronics Command has slated an "advanced planning briefing" for industry on omnibus procurement of Driver's Vision Enhancer (DVE) and Thermal Weapon Sights (TWS). The session is set for May 23 at CECOM, Ft. Monmouth, N.J. CECOM said in a May 10 Commerce Business Daily notice that the plan is to issue the final RFP in December 1996, and award a Thermal Omnibus contract in the second quarter of fiscal year 1997.
The U.S. Navy is considering awarding a series of contracts to vertically replenish ships at sea using commercial helicopters, following demonstration of the concept under two separate contracts by Kaman using its K-Max helicopter.
After two decades, Europe's Airbus Industrie consortium may be nearly ready to junk its fudgy status as a risk-sharing partnership under French law in favor of becoming a full-fledged company - a change U.S. trade policymakers have championed for years. Aerospatiale Chairman Louis Gallois recently backed such a change in a prepared statement newly republished by Airbus partner British Aerospace, arguing that airline customers are demanding it as reassurance about the airframer's future.
TRW Inc. filed a lawsuit against ICO Global Communications, seeking an injunction to halt ICO Global's development of its proposed cellular telephone system, Odyssey, which would let subscribers call any phone, from anywhere on Earth. TRW said it got the patent for such a system in July 1995. TRW said its patent "describes a method for providing worldwide, satellite-based cellular communications that employs a constellation of satellites in a medium-Earth orbit, low-power pocket telephones and gateways to terrestrial phone systems."
With commercial communications companies reaching out to sailors afloat and providing telephone access even in remote locations, the U.S. Navy is wondering whether it can use the same information infrastructure for some of its tactical communications. The service has promoted telephone access for sailors as a major quality of life improvement, and has also looked at increasing bandwidth to ships for tactical communications under the Challenge Athena program (DAILY, April 18, 1995).
The U.S. Army has completed tactical demonstration testing of its Sense and Destroy Armor (SADARM) submunition, paving the way for prime contractor Aerojet to go ahead with the second lot of low-rate production. During the testing, completed late last month, the Army scored eight hits with nine SADARM projectiles fired from an M109A6 Paladin self- propelled howitzer at a range of 19 kilometers, the service said. The 82% success rate met established criteria for completion of engineering and manufacturing development, it said.
Aurora Flight Sciences Corp. has delivered its twin-engine robotic aircraft Theseus to NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California, where flight testing is expected late next month. The lightweight aircraft, constructed largely from composite materials laid up at Aurora's Fairmont, W.Va., facility, arrived at Dryden Monday. It will undergo taxi testing before flight tests from Rogers Dry Lake, NASA said.
JAPAN'S Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries, with an 8.5% stake in GE Aircraft Engines' GE90 turbofan program, is considering whether to take a role in the proposed GEAE-Pratt&Whitney joint venture to develop a new engine for growth versions of Boeing's 747. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, with a 10% stake in the rival P&W PW4000 series program, is also mulling over joining the team. Industry executives, however, expect both to take some role in the new engine program.
As Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director Lt. Gen. Malcolm O'Neill prepares to retire from his position at the end of the month, House lawmakers expressed relief that the Administration will appoint another three-star general as his successor. O'Neill, who has been BMDO chief since December 1993, retires from his post May 31.
