ROBERT F. OVERMYER, commander of the Space Shuttle Challenger on the third Spacelab mission in 1985, was killed Friday in a flight test accident near Duluth, Minn. The 60-year-old retired Marine colonel was testing a VK-30 prototype built by Cirrus Design Corp. when the aircraft crashed near the Duluth International Airport. Overmyer was pilot on STS-5 in November 1982 and commanded STS-51B in April 1985, and later worked for Martin Marietta Astronautics in Denver.
The U.S. Air Force last week accepted the first production E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) aircraft during ceremonies at Northrop Grumman facilities in Melbourne, Fla. Current Air Force plans call for 20 operational Joint STARS. However, Pentagon officials have identified a requirement for additional systems, and NATO is evaluating Joint STARS to meet its airborne ground surveillance requirements. Boeing 707-300 cargo aircraft are remanufactured for the Joint STARS mission.
Lockheed Martin Corporation, Sunnyvale, California, is being awarded a $7,539,754 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to provide Trident Cost of Ownership Reduction Initiatives. Work will be performed in Sunnyvale, California, and is expected to be completed by February 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Navy's Strategic Systems Program, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity (N00030-96-C-0043).
China's Long March space launch vehicle lost three valuable commercial payloads over the weekend, as two customers pulled their satellites from the booster in the wake of last months' fatal liftoff explosion. The board of governors of the Intelsat telecommunications satellite consortium shifted two of its satellites from upcoming Long March flights to Lockheed Martin's Atlas IIAS launchers, while the Asia Satellite Communications Co. Ltd. said it would launch Asiasat 3 on a Russian Proton rather than using Long March.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense isn't satisfied with the source selection criteria the U.S. Air Force has submitted for the Joint Air-to- Surface Standoff Missile program, and has held up its final approval of the request for proposals. JASSM program director Terry Little told The DAILY yesterday that "the basic issue is how much to count past performance" in the downselect for the pre-engineering and manufacturing development phase. Two contractors will be selected for that phase.
BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE ORGANIZATION Director Lt. Gen. Malcolm R. O'Neill told Congress yesterday that he would expect "three to five" successful tests of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in the next ten tests. The system has had four unsuccessful flight tests so far. O'Neill told the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee during testimony on the $2.8 billion fiscal 1997 BMDO request that in fiscal 1997, demonstration and validation flight tests of THAAD would be concluded.
A recently concluded Defense Dept. assessment of the specialty metals and advanced composites industrial base found both sufficiently intact to meet military demands, noting only that metal matrix composites warrant closer DOD attention.
A multi-year industry-sponsored effort to gain greater recognition and public support for the U.S. space program will feature a "space-certified" seal for products spun off from space developments.
With the Pentagon likely to undergo a national security review next year, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman says computer modeling tools now in use may not be up to the task.
The U.S. Air Force is telling Congress that its top unfunded requirement is two additional Joint STARS aircraft. In a list that ranks programs by priority in case additional funding comes from Congress, the AF says it would need an another $450 million in fiscal year 1997 for two E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System planes and about $16 million in fiscal year 2001 to cover operations and maintenance costs of the planes.
Ceridian Corporation Computing Devices International, Bloom-ington, Minnesota, is being awarded an $8,820,000 fixed-price-delivery order to procure 90 Mission Computer Upgrade Kits for the F/A-18 Aircraft. Work will be performed in Bloomington, Minnesota, and is expected to be completed by April 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Indianapolis, Indiana, is the contracting activity (N00163-96-D-0014).
The U.S. Navy is going ahead with plans to shut down the Transit satellite navigation network at the end of the year, replacing the 32-year- old system with the Global Positioning System (GPS) for military and civilian navigation. Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Lab, which used radio signals from Russia's Sputnik I to develop the Doppler-shift navigation method used by Transit, said the system will shut down Dec. 31. The first Transit satellite was launched in April 1960, and the Navy began using the system in 1964.
NASA's cooperative program with Russia to send two rhesus monkeys into orbit aboard a modified Vostok capsule is running into rough sledding on Capitol Hill and may be canceled. Animal rights activists have targeted the $33.2 million Bion 11 project as cruel and unnecessary (DAILY, Jan. 3), and their arguments have found sympathetic ears in Congress. Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, cautions Administrator Dan Goldin that the issue will come up on the House floor this year.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Larry Combest (R-Tex.) wants legislation overhauling the structure of the intelligence community (IC) out of committee and ready for House floor action by the end of April. He intends to introduce his Intelligence Community 21 proposals as separate legislation, and is unclear if it will in any way be attached to the committee's annual authorization bill.
Combest confirms that Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch has tasked a working group to look into options for increased use of small satellites. The study, results of which are due in May, was prompted by a fight on Capitol Hill last year between lawmakers promoting small satellites and those who were happy with the status quo. Also, Combest notes, there "had been resistance" in the National Reconnaissance Office to move away from "programs they felt comfortable with." In addition, he thinks NRO was too limited in its review of options.
U.S. Space Command and NORAD are prepared to support a national missile defense (NMD) system regardless of when it's deployed, Ashy says. Republicans are pushing for sooner rather than later, but "We can accommodate any deployment date," he says.
U.S. Special Operations Command officials are concerned the CV-22 tiltrotor aircraft won't fill all the joint requirements to meet the needs of the special operations forces (SOF), says Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chief of U.S. Special Operations Command. He tells a congressional committee that the Office of the Secretary of Defense has been working the problem hard over the past few weeks. He says he's particularly concerned that the integrated avionics package needed by SOF might not materialize.
The U.S. Marine Corps demonstrated a capability to protect against tactical ballistic missiles like the Scud during two weeks of testing that including the launching of three Lance missiles. During a test last Dec. 7, a Lockheed Martin AN/TPS-59 radar detected Lance missiles and relayed the data to a Hawk air defense missile system before the missiles actually entered the Hawk engagement zone. In a Dec. 8 test, two Lance missiles were fired nearly simultaneously. Hawk missiles were launched to destroy the targets in both tests.
While the U.S. Army's new modernization master plan shows a continued requirement for 131 Light Utility Helicopters (DAILY, March 13), Army requirements chief Maj. Gen. Joe Riggs says the requirement will be reviewed and might be changed. The Army has never specified the platform for the LUH requirement.
Congress has restricted the Pentagon from buying foreign built ships to fill its roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) ship requirements, but no U.S.-built RO/ROs are available, the head of Army Special Operations Command confirmed at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing When questioned Thursday by SASC Ranking Member Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), Gen. Henry H. Shelton acknowledged that "there are not any U.S. built ships to meet our requirements." U.S. Special Operations Command is short five RO/ROs to meet its requirement of 36 in the Ready Reserve Forces, Shelton said.
Boeing and General Atomics plan to capture early attention in the Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (TUAV) competition. A company official tells The DAILY they plan to fly their bid to the program office using their proposed air vehicle. The office has said it wants to see air vehicles fly before bids are received.
House National Security Chairman Floyd Spence (R-S.C.) has formally notified the House Budget Committee that he is seeking a $13 billion to $14 billion increase in fiscal 1997 budget authority for the national security function, which includes the Pentagon budget and the nuclear weapons programs funded in the Dept. of Energy budget. Noting the heavy emphasis on recapitalization of the force in the services' testimony on the FY '97 request, Spence told The DAILY that "Most of it will have to be for procurement."
The U.S. Air Force had to drop 148 Joint Direct Attack Munition kits from its fiscal year 1997 budget request because of the Pentagon's downward adjustment of the projected inflation rate. The initial plan to buy 1,085 JDAM kits in FY '97 was included in budget information released two weeks ago. But revised budget documents show that the AF will now buy only 937 kits. A service spokesman confirmed that the rate adjustment stripped about $3 million from the program.
Iraq remains a "formidable nuclear proliferation problem" and continues to mask its intentions on ballistic missiles, senior intelligence and United Nations officials told senators. Iraq is believed to have hidden between six and 16 Scud missiles and continues to try to allude U.N. inspection teams, Executive Chairman of the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq Ambassador Rolf Ekeus said before the Senate Government Affairs Subcommittee on Investigations on Wednesday.
Should Russia refuse to ratify the START II treaty, the Pentagon will need additional funds to maintain an adequate level of strategic forces around FY 1998-'99, according senior military officers. U.S. Strategic Command CINC Gen. Eugene E. Habiger tells senators that additional funds would be needed to maintain 18 Trident subs equipped with D-5 missile upgrades. U.S. Space Command CINC Gen. Joseph W. Ashy says funds for the Peacekeeper missile force would amount to "less than $500 million." The Minuteman III force would also require extra money.
