The Pentagon could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year by substituting the medium altitude endurance Tier II Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for manned aircraft, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday.
British Aerospace yesterday ruled itself out of the ranks of potential rescuers for Dutch airframer Fokker, whose collapse would remove BAe's biggest rival in the regional jet market. "The situation on Fokker is that we have no dialogue going on with them, we haven't had a dialogue with them and frankly I don't see there is any reason why we should have a dialogue," said BAe Chief Executive Dick Evans.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said yesterday that he didn't regard the issue of the size of the National Reconnaissance Office "slush fund" as closed, even though Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch has refused to disclose the amount. Specter told reporters at a breakfast meeting in Washington that the intelligence community has to tell Congress "how much they've got in the slush fund and what's going on."
MOODY'S INVESTORS SERVICE assigned mildly positive Baa3 ratings to the three new debt issues worth about $1 billion Northrop Grumman is using to raise money to buy Westinghouse's defense units. Senior debt issues of $400 million in notes at 7%, due 2016, $300 million in debentures at 7.75%, due 2016, and $300 million in debentures at 7.875%, due in 2026, were sold in privately negotiated transactions with the company's banks.
State-owned Aviation Industries of China (AVIC) emerged yesterday as an unexpected potential buyer for Dutch airframer Fokker, which is facing bankruptcy after 78 years in business. A Fokker spokesman couldn't confirm the Chinese company's interest, but company sources said it is sending officials to Amsterdam next week for talks with Fokker's court-appointed administrators.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN said that James G. Roche will become the general manager of Westinghouse defense and electronics group after Northrop Grumman completes the acquisition of the business. The Westinghouse unit will be renamed Northrop Grumman Electronic Sensors and Systems Div. Roche, a Northrop Grumman vp and chief of advanced development, planning and public affairs, will replace Francis J. Harvey at Westinghouse.
Slowing regional aircraft losses and steady defense sales helped boost British Aerospace's pre-tax profits 95% to 330 million pounds ($505.6 million) on 5.7 billion pounds ($8.78 billion) revenue for 1995 before accounting for one-time items, according to preliminary full-year results posted yesterday.
NASA engineers have taken a hard look at possibilities for retrieving Italy's Tethered Satellite and have decided it can't be done, an agency spokesman said yesterday. In consultation with officials of the Italian Space Agency, the Space Shuttle program office at Johnson Space Center considered both a close flyby to photograph the satellite for clues as to why its tether broke Sunday before it was fully deployed (DAILY, Feb. 27), and a rendezvous and recovery.
Israel Aircraft Industries and Core Software Technology, a California firm that sells satellite imagery over the Internet, plan to begin marketing imagery from a commercial version of the Offeq military reconnaissance satellite launched last April.
The U.S. Air Force has managed to protect the F-22 fighter program from funding cuts for the next year, but it will be a bill-payer like other programs to make up for $4 billion lost in the out-years as a result of changed Pentagon inflation estimates. The program is protected through first flight, which is slated for May 1997, Lt. Gen. George Muellner told The DAILY yesterday during an Air Force breakfast on acquisition reform.
High winds at the U.S. Army's White Sands Missile Range on Tuesday forced another delay in the fifth test launch of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile. It was the second delay because of weather. A spokeswoman for the Army's Missile Command said that "we're ready to fire" when the weather permits. The weather delay and the need for a new range time could mean a wait of several weeks.
A government interagency technical working group is reviewing whether the U.S. Munitions List, which regulates U.S. technology exports, sufficiently identifies all communications satellites having significant military or intelligence capabilities, Michael Wallerstein, deputy assistant secretary of defense for counter proliferation policy, has told Congress.
Boeing's recent push into commercial space ventures is the result of a decision taken at the end of the Cold War that the field offered growth potential not available in military programs like tactical missiles where the company has played in the past, the head of Boeing Defense&Space Group said.
The U.S. Air Force will add two acquisition reforms to its current nine "Lightning Bolt" initiatives, Darleen Druyun, the Air Force's principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and management, said yesterday. "We are looking at adding two more" initiatives, Druyun told reporters following a Pentagon meeting on acquisition reform that included top AF officials.
Rockwell International Corp. has won a $13 million contract to produce the Combat Survivor Evader Locator (CSEL), a system able to locate and communicate with aircrews shot down in hostile territory. Rockwell beat out Motorola and Magnavox for the CSEL contract. While CSEL has been in the works for some time, the shooting down of a U.S. Air Force F-16 last June 2 over Bosnia heightened the need for such a system, said Lt. Sam Highley, a spokesman for the U.S. Air Force Space&Missile Center, which awarded the contract on Feb. 23.
Rockwell's concept for the X-33 reusable launch vehicle testbed draws on the company's experience building and maintaining the Space Shuttle to cut space launch costs with technology that wasn't available when the Shuttle was developed in the 1970s. Top X-33 officials at Rockwell told The DAILY yesterday a Shuttle-like wing-body design gives them a "straightforward" structure that lends itself to the use of advanced composites for the weight reduction necessary for the high mass fraction it takes to achieve single-stage-to-orbit reusability.
The U.S. Air Force faces a loss in strategic airlift capability as it phases out its C-141 airlifters and acquires new C-17s, AF Secretary Sheila Widnall informed heads of the congressional defense authorization panels. "America's strategic airlift fleet will undergo significant changes as the C-141 retires and C-17s are delivered," Widnall said in a Feb. 20 memo. "Without management intervention, this transition could be accompanied by a loss in capability."
Planned commercial satellite constellations in low Earth orbit could add to the 4.4 million pounds of manmade debris already in LEO unless steps are taken to mitigate the danger, a new U.S. government study of orbital debris has found.
Vice Adm. Jay L. Johnson has been nominated for appointment as admiral and assignment as vice chief of naval operations in the Pentagon. He is currently commander of the Second Fleet/commander, Striking Fleet Atlantic, Norfolk, Va. He will be succeeded by Rear Adm. Vernon Clark. Rear Adm. (selectee) Richard W. Miles has been nominated for appointment as vice admiral and assignment as commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet and commander, Submarine Allied Command, Atlantic, Norfolk.
The Senate Intelligence Committee endorsed the decision to fire National Reconnaissance Office Director Jeffrey Harris and his deputy Jimmie Hill (DAILY, Feb. 27), but recommended that two people hold the top NRO job and the top Air Force space position, breaking a 35-year tradition that the slots are filled by one person.
The House National Security Committee today begins a lengthy election year examination of the politically charged ballistic missile defense issue, which more than any other provoked a veto of the first fiscal 1996 defense authorization by President Clinton. "The bottom line," said Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), chairman of the committee's R&D subcommittee, is that "you're going to see the most aggressive assault" on the Administration's "lack of attention to missile defense."
