The U.S. Army told Congress this month it can afford neither the AH-64 Apache helicopter engine upgrade program nor a Senate proposal to accelerate engine certification for the Comanche helicopter. The current AH-64D Apache remanufacture program converts the existing 758 AH-64A Apaches to a common AH-64D configuration. Plans have called for all to have the T700-GE-701C engine, upgraded from the current -701; 227 would have the Longbow Apache Fire Control Radar (FCR) kit, and 531 would not get the FCR kit.
Advanced Communication Systems, Incorporated,* Fairfax, Virginia, is being awarded a $16,322,871 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for systems engineering, technical analysis and program management support to the Navy Satellite Communications Submarine Communications and Communications Systems Engineering Programs. Work will be performed in Arlington, Virginia, and Fairfax, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by September 1996. Contract funds in the amount of $5,900,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Russian Space Forces marked the 30th anniversary of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome last week by launching a classified military satellite from the facility in the Russian arctic, apparently a photo reconnaisance platform. A Soyuz launcher lifted the satellite, officially named Cosmos 2331, from the pad at Site 43 of the Cosmodrome at 12:40 p.m. EST March 14 and inserted it into a nominal orbit with an apogee of 382 kilometers, a perigee of 175 kilometers, an inclination of 67.1 degrees and an orbital period of 89.7 minutes.
Officials of the U.S. Navy and the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle program have been looking at the idea of expanding use of the land-based UAV to ships. A Defense Dept. official said in an interview that they are now beginning a four-month study to assess the effect of full marinization on the vehicle. He said the Navy has identified three levels of marinization: - The first would allow ships to receive and exploit Predator data.
U.S. AIR FORCE plans to spend about $55 million for further work on the Joint Airborne Signal Intelligence System (JASS) Advanced Technology Transfer Demonstration (ATTD), a March 15 Commerce Business Daily notice said. The program seeks to demonstrate a new SIGINT architecture that would be applied to the RC-135 Rivet Joint, the Airborne Reconnaissance Low (ARL) and the Navy's EP-3 aircraft, the Air Force said in the notice. Sources are being sought for design, development, integration and test of three JASS High Band Subsystem demonstration units.
EVANS&SUTHERLAND COMPUTER CORP., Salt Lake City, Utah, said Spanish computer maker Indra Dtd. Spa. (formerly Ceselsa) has awarded it about $9 million for two visual simulation systems used in the Harrier aircraft trainers. The systems are slated for delivery in early 1997. E&S said each system will have an image generator, a head-tracked projector with night vision goggle capability, four projectors and a 24-foot dome.
Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), as promised, introduced an amendment Thursday to the fiscal '96 suppemental now before the Senate which would require an authorization before the supplemental's provision for a seven-year multi-year procurement buy of C-17 airlifters could go into effect. The amendment is expected to be voted on tomorrow. Warner and other senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee were annoyed at the Air Force for what the senators said was an end run around the authorizers. A spokeswoman for Sen.
The Galileo spacecraft's main engine fired for the third and final time last week, raising the low point of the spacecraft's orbit through the Jupiter system so it will clear radiation belts that could damage its circuitry in a "perfect" maneuver. However, telemetry received after the burn Thursday showed the fuel system pressure about two bars lower than it should be, raising concerns that a check valve had malfunctioned during the burn.
NASA and McDonnell Douglas are planning to begin flight testing the DC-XA vertical takeoff and landing subscale single-stage-to- orbit prototype in May, apparently preserving their schedule despite worries last year that Russia wouldn't be able to deliver an aluminum- lithium liquid oxygen tank. The company on Friday rolled out the refurbished testbed, which first flew as the DC-X "Delta Clipper," in Huntington Beach, Calif., and said test flights at White Sands Missile Range will proceed as originally scheduled.
NASA MANAGERS Friday gave final clearance to the Space Shuttle Atlantis for launch early Thursday after deciding that singed solid rocket booster o- rings discovered after STS-75 were not a safety issue. George Abbey, director of Johnson Space Center, chaired a telephone conference Friday that concluded "the nozzle-to-case joint is robust and sturdy and that the joint's design is safe to fly," NASA said. O-rings on the boosters that lifted the Shuttle Columbia were found to be singed after its Feb. 22 launch (DAILY, March 6). Atlantis is set to lift off at 3:35 a.m.
Meanwhile, the long-awaited National Space Policy has snagged again in the complex interagency review process, and its release date has faded from imminent (DAILY, March 11) to obscure. Now the first space-related policy expected to emerge from the White House is the one, also long-awaited, covering the Global Positioning System. That policy is expected on or about March 26, with the space policy due sometime thereafter.
Flight control, aerodynamic and other data developed in NASA's X-36 tailless fighter prototype set for partial unveiling tomorrow have been distributed to competitors in the Pentagon's Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program, and at least one of them has incorporated some of the data in its JAST concept.
The U.S. Air Force predicts that by the time the No. 4 F-22 fighter flies in April 1999, the program will be fully back on schedule. Boeing's strike last year had no effect on the first flight, planned for May of 1997, but it did cause slippage of about two months in the deliveries of the second and third planes. First flight of No. 2 is slated for April 7, 1998, and No. 3 is set to fly on Nov. 25, 1998. Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Pratt&Whitney are the F-22's major contractors.
As House and Senate defense appropriators prepare to resolve differences in their omnibus budget packages, some supporters of the C-17 airlifter seem to think there may be a plan in the works to extend the multi-year contract even beyond the seven years proposed in the Senate bill. The House, in its bill, declined to extend the buy from five to seven years, as requested by DOD. (Cont. p. 408)Top House defense appropriator Rep. C.W. (Bill) Young (R-Fla.) isn't satisfied with the percentage of savings that DOD estimates can be garnered from the extended buy.
Northrop Grumman Corp. will embed antennas in the leading edge flap of an F/A-18C/D aircraft under a U.S. Navy test program that the company says could cut cost and save weight. Tom Williams, manager of the advanced technology demonstration program for Northrop Grumman's Vought Commercial Aircraft Div. in Dallas, said in a telephone interview that smart skin technology will be used in the program, which began with a $10.2 million award to the company last week from Naval Air Systems Command.
Fokker collapsed Friday, ending 77 years of aircraft manufacture in the Netherlands and delivering a big blow to the balance sheets of wing partner Short Brothers and enginemaker Rolls-Royce. Amsterdam's district court rescinded the special protection it extended in January to four Fokker units - Fokker Holding, Fokker Aircraft, Fokker Aviation and Fokker Administration - declaring them bankrupt, and court-appointed administrators will now serve as receivers, selling off Fokker's pieces to satisfy some of its enormous debt.
Look for a flat line when NASA finally releases its fiscal 1997 budget request this week, but not much more detail than that. While the FY '97 number is said to be on the $13.8 billion mark set in last year's out-year figures, there won't be any out-year figures in the new document to indicate exactly where the agency plans to get the $5 billion in cuts the White House ordered last year (DAILY, Feb. 7, 1995).
Hard feelings from the extended battle over the fiscal 1996 defense authorization were in evidence last week at a hearing of the House National Security Committee on the fiscal 1997 budget. Rep. Curt Weldon (R- Pa.), chairman of the R&D subcommittee, knocked Defense Secretary William J. Perry for praising the fiscal 1996 add-ons this year, but speaking out against them last year. "Last year, [defense officials] were critical of us," remarked Weldon. "This year, they're taking credit for" the '96 increases.
The Joint Strike Fighter program office mistakenly forwarded sensitive information on Lockheed Martin's bid for the JSF concept demonstration phase to competitors Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, and Lockheed Martin protested, delaying release of the request for proposal. Rear Adm. Craig Steidle, the Joint Strike Fighter program director, told the Senate Armed Services Airland Forces subcommittee Friday that proprietary information from one JSF contractor was inadvertently released to the other two competitors.
Fiscal constraints are inhibiting the U.S. Army's efforts to modernize its intelligence and electronic warfare (IEW) systems, with a number of priority items unavailable in desired form or quantity until after fiscal year 2002.
Compliance with the ABM Treaty imposes some technical and cost burdens on the U.S., Lt. Gen. Malcolm O'Neill, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, has told Congress. The statement, made last year and included in a volume of newly released testimony, is at variance with more recent statements of Pentagon leaders, who have said compliance doesn't hinder development of theater missile defense systems.
Companies developing data-only "little-LEO" low Earth orbit satellite communications networks should put aside their competitive differences and bid cooperatively for spectrum the FCC is contemplating "loaning" to television broadcasters for advanced services like high-definition television (HDTV), the head of the Orbcomm little-LEO system said last week.
With a "badly deteriorating economy," a lack of hard currency and "severe" food shortages, North Korea's collapse is inevitable, and the only question now is "how will it disintegrate," Gen. Gary E. Luck, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, told a House panel last week.
The U.S. Air Force proposes modifying Minuteman III ICBMs to become interceptors for a national missile defense system, but a senior Ballistic Missile Defense Organization official says "guidance is a major issue" in any such conversion. Still, he says, if the U.S. needed a rapid reaction NMD capability, BMDO would have to "seriously consider the Minuteman."
The Marine Corps wants to "piggyback" on the Air Force's C-130J cargo plane buys, Marines Deputy Chief of Staff for Aviation Brig. Gen. Robert Magnus told senators last week. The Marine Corps "is enormously impressed by the cockpit avionics and performance" of the C-130J, he said. But money is a problem. Fiscal restraints won't allow the Marine Corps to budget for any C-130Js at this time.
