After more than two years of talks, British Aerospace Dynamics and Matra of France have worked out commercial terms for combining their missile businesses in a new 50/50 joint venture called Matra BAe Dynamics, BAe reported yesterday. Regulators have yet to rule on the combination, the company noted, adding that "other conditions need to be satisfied before the joint venture can become effective."
A TITAN IV on Sunday launched a classified payload into polar orbit from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The Lockheed Martin rocket was launched from Space Launch Complex 4-East at 5:32 p.m. EDT, the Air Force said. It was the first Titan IV launch from Vandenberg this year.
The U.S. Army has released a draft request for proposals to kick off development of an anti-tank weapon to replace its TOW missiles. Army Missile Command said in a May 10 Commerce Business Daily notice that it plans a 66-month engineering and manufacturing development phase for the Follow-on To TOW (FOTT) system. Only U.S. companies can compete as prime contractors, the Army said. Firms from other countries can participate as subcontractors.
The U.S. Marine Corps has adapted several computer games to hone teamwork in small combat units, and is considering developing such games to its own specifications, officers said here Thursday. One of the applications is called "Marine Corps DOOM," an adaptation of the popular DOOM II computer game that replaces the futuristic setting and weapons with environments Marines might actually face.
The House National Security Committee increased the Pentagon's $100.6 million fiscal 1997 request for the EA-6B aircraft by $95 million to equip it with improved electronic countermeasure transmitters and stronger wing center sections. The jamming transmitters in the plane haven't changed substantially since they were designed in the 1960s, the House defense authorizers say in draft report language to accompany their FY '97 defense bill.
The U.S. Air Force is moving forward on the development of a Link 16 data-link for its F-15s but has held off on starting a similar effort for its F-16s, even though pilots for both aircraft have said they want the situational awareness Link 16 gives them. Now it seems the top brass has heard the F-16 pilots. One Air Force official says the F-16 data- link enjoys very high priority and has generated high-level interest. "I would predict that it would be fielded relatively quickly on the F-16 fleet," he says.
The Pentagon's legal officials have yet to decide if Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system can be developed as planned, says Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Director Lt. Gen. Malcolm O'Neill. Concerns have been raised in the legal community that THAAD, when cued externally, could possibly have an anti-ballistic missile capability prohibited under the ABM Treaty. "I think its ridiculous, " O'Neill says, adding that technically it makes no sense. "However, we are still discussing the issue with our legal people," he says. "I am concerned about THAAD.
The U.S. isn't going to join Britain's Future Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (FMRAAM) program because it can't afford it, but it will keep a close eye on the program for potential improvements to the U.S. Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), says Harry E. Schulte, the Air Force's conventional strike program executive officer. FMRAAM could develop a bigger booster which would allow the U.S. to meet its main objective of increasing AMRAAM's "no-escape zone," he tells The DAILY.
It's about five times riskier to fly a commercial transport in a nonprecision approach - like the one that claimed the life of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and everyone else aboard an Air Force CT-43A VIP transport in an April 3 crash in Croatia - than in a precision approach, researchers say in a report made public last week.
The House National Security Committee is serious about barring use of the $581 million Joint Strike Fighter budget request for an advanced STOVL (ASTOVL) variant (DAILY, May 2), writing the prohibition directly into the fiscal 1997 defense authorization instead of putting it in the committee report. "None of the funds authorized to be appropriated...may be used for Advanced Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing aircraft development," the bill states.
Congressional sources opposed to additional production of the B-2 bomber say uncertainty over prospects in the full House led key House National Security Committee Republicans to back off a plan to fund an additional B-2 in the fiscal 1997 defense authorization. Republican backers hope the environment for additional B-2 production will be better after the elections this fall, the sources say.
House Intelligence Committee Chair Larry Combest (R-Tex.) promised Rep. Norm Dicks (Wash.), ranking Democrat on the panel, that hearings will be held on the committee's bill to overhaul the intelligence community (IC) before a conference is held with the Senate. When the committee marked up its bill last week, Dicks blasted Combest for refusing to hold hearings on IC reforms before the markup. Combest says there wasn't time. Dicks also expressed concern about plans to attach the IC reform bill to the annual intelligence authorization bill.
RAYTHEON E-SYSTEMS, Goleta, Calif., will modify 10 AN/ALQ-184(V)9 electronic countermeasures pods under a $5.2 million contract from the U.S. Air Force. The company said it will install the AN/ALE-50 towed RF decoy into the ALQ-184 pod. Additional modifications, it said, will enhance the combined performance of the pod and decoy. Raytheon has delivered more than 850 ALQ-184 pods to the U.S. Air Force since 1989. It said the decoys are part of the ALE-50 expendable countermeasures dispensing system designed to reduce the lethality of radar-guided missiles.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory hopes advanced computer techniques will ease the strain that building "faster-better-cheaper" spacecraft puts on the design process. Computer-aided spacecraft design will be a must as space probes are cranked out on the order of one a month, even with the modular approach JPL is developing (DAILY, May 9). But mission design is a big problem, too.
JOINT SIMULATION SYSTEM (JSIMS) Joint Program Office is asking interested prime contractors to declare their intention to participate in the acquisition effort by close of business today, May 13. The U.S.
The House on Friday adopted ground rules for consideration of the $267 billion fiscal 1997 House National Security Committee-approved fiscal 1997 defense authorization that prohibit amendments cutting any of the $12.9 billion add-on.
ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL CORP., Collins Avionics and Communications Div., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received a $24.5 million modification to a previously awarded contract to exercise an option for AN/ARC-210 electronic counter- countermeasure equipment. The Dept. of Defense, announcing the award on May 2, said it "combines purchases for the U.S.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS CORP. on April 30 received a $14.2 million increase to a previously awarded U.S. Air Force contract for installation of defensive systems kits in 16 C-17 airlifters. "Logistics Support Analysis is included in this modification to enable fitting on aircraft P-33," the Defense Dept. said in announcing the contract.
U.S. Army Apache pilots looking forward to receiving a new forward looking infrared system will have to wait longer because no money is planned in the Army's fiscal '98-'03 program objective memorandum for the upgrade. The $700 million fleet-wide upgrade "turned out to be too expensive," says Col. Albert Patterson, the Army's aviation chief in the operations and plans directorate. The Army was to equip its Apaches with a derivative of the RAH-66 Comanche FLIR being developed by Lockheed Martin.
An Air Force/BMDO experiment designed to test a missile defense sensor cooler in space is scheduled to ride the Space Shuttle Endeavour to orbit next week, but it may not be switched on once it gets there. The Brilliant Eyes Ten Kelvin Sorption Cryocooler Experiment (BETSCE) has no moving parts to throw off warhead targeting with vibrations, yet can freeze hydrogen solid to chill infrared sensors. If Endeavour lifts off on May 19 as planned, or one day later, there will be enough electric power aboard to drive BETSCE.
RAYTHEON E-SYSTEMS' Falls Church, Va., unit received a sole source $7.5 million U.S. Army contract for production of additional Enhanced Trackwolf equipment. Enhanced Trackwolf is a high frequency signals acquisition, collection and exploitation system for use at the theater level and in contingency deployments. It incorporates high performance hardware and a wideband digital delayed architecture enabling state-of-the- art HF signals collection and direction, Raytheon said. Scheduled to support the European theater, the equipment will be delivered to the U.S.
The Pentagon on Friday announced $515 million worth of proposed foreign military sales for congressional approval. The largest contract is valued at $118 million and would go to GTE Government Systems' Army Tactical Communications Div., Taunton, Mass., to supply Improved Mobile Subscriber communications equipment to Taiwan. Taiwan also wants 30 Bell Helicopter Textron-built TH-67 training helicopters and 30 AN/AVS-6 (V)1 night vision goggles at a total cost of $53 million.
The House Rules Committee last week rejected lawmakers' requests to try slash funding from the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program and to alter language on the Marine Corps variant of the aircraft when the annual defense authorization package is debated by the House this week.
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said yesterday that those in the Senate who support abrogating the ABM Treaty to permit deployment of a national missile defense system at multiple sites don't want to confront the issue this year, but prefer to wait until after the November elections when they hope they will have a better chance.
