The Congressional Budget office has estimated that it would cost the U.S. between $5 billion and $19 billion to pay its share to support expansion of the NATO alliance to include Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary (DAILY, April 4). In making that estimate, the CBO examined five levels of NASA support for the four East European nations. Here are the options that went into the CBO estimates:
The Navy has until the year 2000 to complete its CV-X concept exploration phase, but Kaminski requested in the ADM that the service's acquisition plan be presented to him next January. An Overarching Integration Product Team should get the Navy's recommended Air Wing size for review in late fiscal 1997 and review the platform size in late FY '98, he said.
House defense authorization and appropriations chairmen agree with the general thrust of assured GOP presidential nominee Robert Dole's extravagant support of increased B-2 bomber production. Dole wants a total of 19 more B-2s, with immediate funding for 10 more to keep production lines open. House Appropriations national security subcommittee chairman C.W. (Bill) Young (R-Fla.) says while decisions on defense must not be based on election promises, he agrees with Sen.
The 737 crash that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others last week could boost visibility for long-stalled U.S. Air Force plans to replace some of its elderly VIP transports, executives involved in VC-X and similar programs speculate. Until last week, AF officials felt uncomfortable asking budget-conscious lawmakers for money to buy plush jets for top officials.
Dutch airframer Fokker could keep on building airplanes for as long as another year while in bankruptcy to satisfy customers pressing the company to make good on delivery promises, the company's court-appointed receivers said Friday. When Fokker collapsed (DAILY, March 18), plans were just to finish building 15 aircraft already underway. But the company reported that its caretakers "are investigating the feasibility of completing...another 12 to 18 aircraft...which would prolong aircraft production for a further eight to 12 months."
The House International Relations Committee has approved the first post-Cold War revision of U.S. export control laws, which its backers say will make the export control system more effective, more efficient and more transparent. Approved by the committee on a voice vote last Friday, before Congress went on a two-week Easter recess, the bill appears to have sidestepped the legislative hurdles that tied up the attempt to rewrite the Export Administration Act in 1994.
Russia is expected to give Vice President Gore an answer this week or next to his request for assurances it will pay its share of International Space Station costs on time (DAILY, March 15), but Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin is finding it difficult to tell Gore what he wants to hear. Last week his government was able to find only $2.1 million to keep the doors open at NPO Molniya (DAILY, April 5), which built the Buran space shuttle.
Pilots flying missions in Bosnia are taking laptop computers onboard their aircraft so they can get easy access to national intelligence data, says Marine Corps Capt. Brian Schmanske, deputy director of a National Reconnaissance Office division that monitors integration of national intelligence data receivers into weapons platforms. Trying to get around the time and cost problems associated with integrating intelligence data receivers in the cockpit, Schmanske says the pilots are using laptops to get reconnaissance and surveillance updates.
MACHINISTS AT LOCKHEED Martin Aeronautical Systems, unhappy with the prospect of company managers sending work outside the plant, are ready to strike Thursday unless they can win agreement on a new contract by then, union leaders told the company Friday. A union spokesman said the union hand-delivered a mandatory five-day strike warning after company negotiators failed to show up for Friday's talks. The company said it plans to meet with union negotiators again today.
The Pentagon's acquisition chief Paul Kaminski has told the U.S. Navy to study the use of mobile offshore bases as part of the concept exploration phase for a new class of aircraft carriers, the CV-X. Kaminski said in the March 29 acquisition decision memorandum that mobile offshore bases should be considered "as part of the mix of sea-based platforms." The idea of using floating bases assembled at sea for aircraft takeoff and recovery was promoted heavily by former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff William Owens.
The Navy is in the midst of developing new sensor and fuse capabilities that could be put on a weapon like the Joint Direct Attack Munition so it could be used as a mine, says Rear Adm. Dennis V. McGinn, director of the Navy's air warfare division. The Navy also will be able to "plug in" an offensive mine warfare capability on the New Attack Submarine to lay mines clandestinely, says Deputy Chief of Naval Operations Vice Adm. Thomas J. Lopez.
The U.S. Air Force's Wright Laboratory is embarking on a 60-month effort to investigate and demonstrate the application of commercial technology to existing aircraft. The Air Force plans to spend a total of about $4.8 million on two 60- month contracts "to determine the extent that commercial-based hardware and software technologies can be cost-effectively applied for currently-fielded Air Force avionics," an April 4 Commerce Business Daily notice stated.
The Navy's science and technology (S&T) programs increasingly will focus on development of new and better models and simulators for weapons testing purposes, Rear Adm. Stephen H. Baker, the Navy's Commander for Operational Test and Evaluation, told the Navy League Symposium yesterday. Baker told his Washington audience that the most promising technologies in Navy S&T plans on the horizon are virtual environments, information handling and distribution systems, autonomics and artificial intelligence.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense has signed off on the Navy's plan to design and develop a new class of aircraft carriers that would first enter into service in 2013. Senior Navy and OSD officials met March 28 in a Defense Acquisition Board readiness meeting (DRM) to discuss the CV-X program in anticipation of a formal DAB meeting next week. But no issues were raised during the meeting, prompting OSD to approve the program, a Navy spokesman said yesterday.
RETIRED ADM. STANLEY R. ARTHUR, now vice president, naval systems in Loral Corp.'s Washington office, was named the 1996 recipient of the Navy League's Adm. Arleigh A. Burke Leadership Award. A naval aviator who completed more than 500 combat missions during the Vietnam War, Arthur commanded U.S. naval forces in the Gulf War and wound up his 38-year Navy career as vice chief of naval operations.
The Defense Dept. announced yesterday it is setting aside $450 million for the Small Business Innovation Research program that will fund technologies that can assist the Pentagon and have commercialization potential.
The Air Force is considering developing an ultra-wide-band antenna for the Tier II Plus "Global Hawk" unmanned aerial vehicle that would allow a radar system to penetrate foliage. "This antenna development will focus on such issues as power, size, weight, cooling, use of multiple polarizations and the methods for platform integration," an April 3 Commerce Business Daily notice stated.
The Russian government has decided to allocate 10 billion rubles to Molniya Science and Production Assn. of Moscow to maintain the concern's experimental testing base in operational status and to preserve Molniya's scientific and technological capabilities. The money, equivalent to about $2.1 million, is drawn from the portion of the federal budget slated for conversion of defense industry and will also be used to keep skilled personnel on staff.
The Hughes and Raytheon-built Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile will face competition for foreign sales from the U.K. Future Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile, prompting Hughes to want to participate in the U.K. program, according to an industry official. Foreign sales "in the near term are going to remain there," Bill West, a business development manager for Hughes missiles, said during an interview Wednesday. But, he said, "I'm sure there will now be competition" in the long run.
A LOCKHEED MARTIN Atlas IIA booster orbited the Inmarsat 3 mobile communications spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., late Wednesday in a launch that marked the 250th flight of the Pratt&Whitney RL-10 rocket engine. The satellite, built by Lockheed Martin Astro Space, will provide mobile communications services for the London-based international consortium from a geostationary position at 64 degrees East longitude. Two RL-10A engines powered the Centaur upper stage that boosted the satellite to its transfer orbit.
The Navy will need about 130 F/A-18C2Ws to meet its future airborne electronic warfare requirement, a McDonnell Douglas official said. The command and control warfare F/A-18F derivative is being pitched by McDonnell Douglas as the replacement for the EA-6B Prowler (DAILY, April 25, 1995). Paul Summers, MDC's F/A-18C2W program manager, said Wednesday that "I believe the Navy needs to buy nominally 130 of these airplanes."
Nichols Research Corp. has signed a letter of intent to acquire Advanced Marine Enterprises Inc., an Arlington, Va.-based firm that provides naval architecture and marine engineering services to the government. Details of the transaction were not disclosed by Nichols, an information systems and technical services provider based in Huntsville, Ala.
To abide with a congressional mandate, the U.S. Air Force has started looking for competitors for the low Earth orbit component of the Space Based Infrared System which would compete against TRW for the pre- engineering and manufacturing development phase. The Air Force "solicits an alternative system concept to reduce technical and schedule risk" for SBIRS-LEO, or the Space and Missile Tracking System (SMTS), a April 4 Commerce Business Daily notice said.
Justice Dept. attorneys in Baltimore have filed a civil claim against EER Systems Corp., its president and a group vice president charging the Seabrook, Md., aerospace company improperly reassigned labor costs from firm fixed price government contracts to cost-reimbursable contracts.
The U.S. Air Force and Navy are planning to invest about $11 million to demonstrate improved accuracy in a 250-pound small smart bomb and an advanced cruise missile using a Laser Radar (LADAR), according to an Air Force official. The Demonstration of Advanced Solid State LADAR (DASSL) program is slated to reduce the average miss distance of a weapon from about five meters to three meters, Rick Wehling, the technical director of Wright Lab's advanced guidance division, Eglin AFB, Fla., told The DAILY in a telephone interview.
