NASA's Spartan astronomy free-flyer will be pressed into service on the next Space Shuttle mission as a platform to test the erection of large inflatable structures in space. Astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour will deploy the free- flyer during the 10-day STS-77 science mission and watch from a safe distance while an automatic sequence deploys a 45-foot-diameter lenticular antenna on 95-foot struts inflated with pressurized nitrogen.
REPUBLIC ENGINEERED STEEL INC., Massillon, Ohio, said its Cast-Roll facility has been accredited by the National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program (NADCAP).
Five satellites built by Space Systems/Loral will be launched by Arianespace through the year 2000 under an agreement announced yesterday by the two companies. The agreement, an extension of an existing pact, calls for one firm launch on an Ariane 5 rocket in the second quarter of 1998, and four options to be launched through 2000. Payloads for the launches have not yet been identified by Space Systems/Loral.
Defense Secretary William Perry's office is studying an Air Force request to convert five Minuteman missiles into launch vehicles for small satellites, and Perry could make a decision in 30 or 40 days if no bureaucratic snags develop.
The Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office has told the House Intelligence Committee that it would cost about $16 million to replace the Tier III Minus DarkStar unmanned aerial vehicle that crashed last month, Maj. Gen. Kenneth Israel, the DARO chief, said yesterday.
The Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, marking up its fiscal year 1997 defense authorization bill, added four additional F-16 fighters to the Pentagon's request for four, SASC member Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R- Tex.) told The DAILY. In addition to the eight F-16s included in the bill, Hutchinson said SASC members "are all on board" on new F-22 fighter, and did not foresee any cuts for that program. Both fighters are built by Lockheed Martin, with much of the work conducted at the company's Fort Worth unit, in Hutchinson's state.
Boeing Co. said yesterday that it plans to launch a dividend reinvestment and stock purchase plan for shareholders. Owners of at least 50 shares who enroll in the plan, to be initiated in the third quarter, can have dividends automatically invested in additional shares. All shareholders can enroll in the stock purchase part of the plan by sending in a minimum of $100 for each purchase with a maximum of $100,000 a year. Purchases can be made twice a month.
The House National Security Committee's research and development panel okayed the Defense Dept.'s $581.8 million Joint Strike Fighter request for fiscal 1997, but barred using any of the money for an advanced STOVL (ASTOVL) variant, dealing a setback to potential Marine Corps and U.K. customers for the plane, committee sources said yesterday. Lawmakers also reportedly cut $18 million from the Joint Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (JT-UAV) program, noting that prior year unobligated funds could make up the difference.
The FAA has commissioned the first of 44 radars for both air traffic control and air defense. The first ARSR-4 Air Route Surveillance Radar - built by Northrop Grumman's Electronic Sensors and Systems Division, formerly the Westinghouse Electronic Systems Group - is at Tamiami, Fla. The others will be installed around the coastal U.S. and in Hawaii and Guam and at Guantanamo Bay. Carolyn Blum, administrator of FAA's Southern Region, described the ARSR-4 as a "giant step forward in the modernization of the air traffic system."
Military space today has advanced to the point military aviation reached just after World War II, and just as the war forced planners to integrate aviation into overall military strategy, so should the Defense Dept. begin planning space operations against space-capable foes as part of today's U.S. military strategy, the Pentagon's chief space planner said yesterday.
The U.S. Air Force in coming days plans to complete the F-22 Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP) that will lay out the precise parameters against which the fighter will be tested, AF officials say. The F-22 test organization at Edwards AFB, Calif., has signed off on the TEMP, as have the participating test organization at Eglin and Nellis AFBs, and Armstrong Lab, said Maj. Steven Rainey, the F-22's test and evaluation program manager.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems Co. is cutting up to 1,500 jobs at its Marietta, Ga., plant to cope with funding cuts and delays in the F- 22 program, slowdowns in the C-130 tactical transport line, and a gap in P- 3 Orion patrol plane production, the company said yesterday. Cuts, split evenly between hourly and salaried employees, will start in two months, and had been predicted - though not with an exact figure - up to two years ago.
The House National Security Committee approved the Defend America Act yesterday on a party line vote, passing a Republican bill calling for deployment of a National Missile Defense system by 2003 after defeating a Democratic substitute. After the Democratic bill lost in a 24-29 vote, committee members voted 31-22 in favor of a measure introduced by House NSC Chairman Rep. Floyd Spence (R-S.C.), a bill backed by Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.), the Senate Majority Leader and likely Republication presidential nominee.
Top 100 defense contractors for fiscal year 1995 The Defense Dept.'s top 100 contractors for fiscal year 1995 are listed in the following table, released this week (DAILY, April 30). Net value of prime contract awards to each contractor and the value of awards to their divisions and subsidiaries are given. Rank Companies Thousands of dollars Total 117,551,954
Funding constraints have prevented the U.S. Navy from buying the number of Penguin anti-ship missiles it needs, Navy Secretary John Dalton told the congressional defense panels. The service needs about $100 million over a three-year procurement plan to meet its Penguin requirements, Dalton said in a March 26 memo to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.). SASC is marking up its annual defense authorization bill, which funds weapons systems including Penguin missiles.
Russian Space Forces have orbited a satellite apparently intended to calibrate radars used by the Russian Air Defense Forces. The satellite, officially named Cosmos 2332, was launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome April 24 by the two-stage Cosmos-3M launcher manufactured by Polyot Aerospace Association of Omsk. According to U.S. tracking data, Cosmos 2332 was inserted into an elliptical orbit with an apogee of about 1,500 kilometers, a perigee of about 250 kilometers and an inclination of about 83 degrees.
Raytheon will become a subcontractor to Hughes during the Evolved SeaSparrow Missile engineering and manufacturing development phase to resolve a protest Raytheon filed after Hughes won the international program. The U.S. Navy, Hughes and Raytheon reached agreement last month to settle a dispute, in which the General Accounting Office told the Navy to recompete the program. This week, the GAO accepted the new agreement, according to Jerry Lockard, Hughes' product line manager for surface navy air defense programs.
LITTON INDUSTRIES said its PRC unit, McLean, Va., has received a contract with a potential value of $19.8 million for engineering and technical support services for Naval Air Systems Command. The five-year contract continues PRC efforts that have been underway since 1973. The work will support the Naval Command, Control and Ocean Surveillance Center's research, development, test and evaluation operation in Philadelphia in such areas as mission planning, imagery, command and control and data management, Litton said.
The Senate Armed Services Committee's readiness subcommittee yesterday passed a fiscal year 1997 defense budget bill that provides more than $83 billion in readiness funding, including an increase of more than $1 billion for unfunded requirements that service chiefs identified in wish lists provided to lawmakers. The wish list boost includes increases of more than $700 million in operations and maintenance accounts and over $400 million in ammunition procurement.
The House National Security Committee's procurement subcommittee yesterday approved a $7.5 billion fiscal 1997 defense budget request add- on, funding 95% of the military services' procurement wish lists, while taking its own initiatives, such as authorizing two additional C-17 airlifters and a six-year buy of C-17s.
The new European armaments agency comprising Germany, France and the U.K. marks a step towards leveling the playing field for better European-U.S. cooperation, German Defense Minister Volker Ruehe said yesterday. "If we want to be a real partner, we have to develop a European defense industry," Ruehe told defense reporters yesterday during a breakfast meeting in Washington. The new armaments agency "is going to be the beginning," he said, although he acknowledged "it is going to be a long trek."
The U.S. Army has halted live-fire testing of the Lockheed Martin/Texas Instruments Javelin anti-tank missile following problems at Ft. Hunter Liggett, Calif., on April 24. Sources said there were three failures in the Limited User Test series. In two, they said, the missile failed to ignite after being triggered, and in the one, it left the tube but was misguided and failed to hit the target. The Army said the Javelin experienced "a series of anomalies." It also said that "The missile's safety system features performed as intended."
Cold weather and an incorrect setting caused failure of the first of two Hard Target Smart Fuzes in recent tests at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. Cause of the second failure hasn't been determined. The U.S. Air Force said in response to questions from The DAILY that the weapons used in both tests will be excavated for further analysis on May 14. The first test was conducted late last year and the second was on April 9. Both were in support of the Pentagon's Counterproliferation Initiative (CPI) advanced concept technology demonstration.
