McDonnell Douglas won a $1.8 billion contract covering C-17 Lot Eight, production aircraft 33 through 40, the Pentagon reported Friday. Lot Eight completes the 40-aircraft buy authorized before the C-17 program went through a two-year probation. Lots Nine through 18 for another 80 aircraft would be covered under a multi-year procurement package now under development by the Air Force.
The Senate Armed Services Committee is trying to limit the number of hearings it will hold this year to about 10, with its subcommittees limited to three or four. The tight time constraints of the election year make it impossible to drag out the hearing schedule, one aide said. The panel hopes to start markup of its fiscal '97 defense authorization bill before leaving for Easter recess at the end of next month. Meanwhile, the Senate defense appropriators have 14 hearings on their schedule, starting with a DOD budget overview on March 6.
Due to a typographical error, The DAILY said in the Feb. 23 issue (page 277) that the Clinton Administration's fiscal year 1997 top line number for defense is $263.2 billion. The correct number is $253.2 billion.
U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command is soliciting proposals for the third mission package for the AN/SLQ-48(V) Mine Neutralization System. "Mission Package 3 (MP-3) is launched, transported, deployed, and under certain circumstances, recovered by the Mine Neutralization Vehicle (MNV)," NavSea said in a Feb. 15 Commerce Business Daily notice. "Both Mine Countermeasures (MCM-1) and Coastal Minehunter (MHC-51) Class Ships will be equipped with MP-3 systems to perform mine neutralization," it said.
Clinton Administration officials have decided not to pursue the proposed $2.3 billion National Wind Tunnel Complex, opting to shelve the project after a System Design Review scheduled next month. A NASA spokesman said Friday that the White House dropped plans for the advanced subsonic and transonic wind tunnels "given the tough budget environment for the foreseeable future." The decision will affect about 100 workers nationwide, and will close the National Wind Tunnel Project Office at Lewis Research Center in Cleveland by June.
The Avionics Lab of the U.S. Air Force's Wright Laboratory wants proposals on a research effort titled "Coherent Angle/Velocity/Range Countermeasures Technique." Wright Lab said in a Feb. 23 Commerce Business Daily notice that the goal of the project "is to develop/optimize coherent radar electronic countermeasures (ECM) techniques that exploit the unique capabilities of advanced digital technology."
Defense spending cuts have finally forced France out of the Future Large Airlifter program it championed for years, but Paris hopes its seven NATO partners will let it re-join FLA later on when the government can afford it. "At the moment, [FLA] is not in the draft budget law," Defense Minister Charles Millon said Friday in an interview published in the French newsweekly Le Point, "but we hope that the national and European industrial groupings in the aircraft industry will eventually allow us to come back to the project."
SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA lifted off on time at 3:18 p.m. EST yesterday for STS-75, a reflight of the Tethered Satellite System. During the two-week mission, NASA's oldest Shuttle will first attempt to deploy the Italian- built satellite to the end of its 12.5-mile electrically conductive tether to study the dynamics of large tethered spacecraft systems and the potential for power generation with such systems. Later in the flight the seven-member crew will conduct microgravity experiments (DAILY, Feb. 16).
Blasting the Administration's efforts to expand the scope of the Anti- Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, a group of 14 Republican lawmakers told President Clinton they remain opposed to any efforts that would put "strict and unnecessary limits" on the capabilities of U.S. theater missile defense (TMD) systems. "We completely disagree with your Administration's stated view that a demarcation agreement would be a step forward," the lawmakers said in a letter sent to Clinton this past weekend. "In fact, such an agreement would be a big leap backward."
Foreign-owned defense firms can easily gain unauthorized access to classified data on major U.S. weapons programs like the F-22 and F-117 fighters and the B-2 bomber, the General Accounting Office says in a new report.
Russia launched its 21st human mission to the Mir space station Wednesday, setting the stage for the second long-term visit to the 10-year- old orbital facility by a U.S. astronaut beginning next month. Cosmonauts Yuri Unufrienko and Yuri Usachev blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:34 a.m. EST and reached orbit in their three- seat Soyuz capsule nine minutes later, according to press accounts from Moscow. They are scheduled to dock with Mir today.
McDonnell Douglas Corp., which has proposed a tailless design for its entry in the Pentagon's Joint Advanced Strike Technology program, has teamed with NASA on a $17 million effort to build and fly two subscale unpiloted X-planes to demonstrate tailless flight control technology. Designated X-36, the two aircraft will be rolled out at MDC's St. Louis "Phantom Works" on March 19, and will begin test flights at Dryden Flight Research Center, Calif., this summer, NASA said yesterday.
Lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle expect the White House to deliver to Capitol Hill a fiscal 1997 defense budget request of about $263.2 billion - $14 billion shy of what Republicans call for in their seven-year balanced budget plan.
Russia's RSC Energia yesterday confirmed that its Block DM-2 kick stage exploded during an attempt to place a Raguda military communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit Sunday, after U.S. Space Command trackers counted almost 200 pieces of space debris from the blast.
Raytheon Aircraft Co., winner of the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) program, wants information from potential bidders for the ground portion of the effort by March 8. The company says in a Feb. 23 Commerce Business Daily notice that it will use the information to establish a final source list for the Ground Based Training System (GBTS).
The crash of a F-14A fighter in the Persian Gulf yesterday, the third for the F-14 in less than a month, prompted the U.S. Navy to halt flight operations of the Northrop Grumman plane for three days.
A 10-year tax holiday on profits is a better way to spur commercial space development than transferring government-developed hardware to the private sector, but whether there is enough support in Congress for the idea to become reality remains an open question, House Science Committee Chairman Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.) said yesterday.
Senate Armed Services Committee Staff Director Dick Reynard has resigned from his post, aides said yesterday. They said George Lauffer, the deputy staff director, may be asked to become director. In any case, they said, the hope is to have a new director in place before the president releases his fiscal year 1997 defense budget request next month.
Only "a couple of hundred pounds" are expected to be added to the weight of the Super Hornet as the new McDonnell Douglas plane goes through its flight test program, the U.S. Navy's F/A- 18E/F program manager said here yesterday. Capt. Joe Dyer told reporters as the test program formally began that the strike fighter is now 1,000 pounds under the 30,516 pound specification weight, and that "we'll spend some of" that during the three-and-a-half year flight test program.
Russia kicked off its Gonets data relay system Sunday with a launch from Plesetsk Cosmodrome that its backers hope will someday lead to a Russian version of the "Big LEO" Iridium and Globalstar low Earth orbit communications networks. Liftoff of the Tsiklon-3 launcher carrying three Gonets D-1 satellites and three similar military satellites came at 7:58 a.m. EST from Site 32 at Plesetsk. The satellites were bound for orbits at about 83 degrees inclination at altitudes of between 1,400 and 1,500 kilometers.
Kaman Aerospace Corp. said three firings of the Maverick missile by an SH-2G Super Seasprite helicopter last week demonstrate the air-to-ground missile capability of the aircraft to potential international customers.
Request for proposals for the concept definition phase of the JAST program will be released March 7, according to the Joint Advanced Strike Technology Program Office. Two contracts will be awarded for concept definition in fiscal 1997, and one contract for the follow-on engineering and manufacturing development (E&MD) phase, the office said in a Feb. 23 Commerce Business Daily notice.
The U.S. Navy has completed the first phase of its Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration known as "Mountain Top," engaging 100% of simulated enemy cruise missiles in a Pacific Ocean test while they were still beyond the horizon of their target ships' radars, a Navy officer said yesterday. On Jan. 20 and 21, the Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie fired four SM-2 Standard Missiles, destroying four in-bound BQM-74 drones beyond the range of its SPY-1B radar.
The Pentagon would have to spend $32.4 billion, in fiscal 1995 dollars, to buy 20 additional B-2 bombers if a decision to reopen the production line is made in FY 2004, according to a Defense Dept. study provided to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond (R- S.C.). The estimate assumes that no RDT&E work is required, and includes 25 years of operation and maintenance costs. It also assumes production would start again in FY '07.
Hughes Electronics Corp. said Tuesday that its acquisition of Itek Optical Systems from Litton Industries has been concluded. Itek, of Lexington, Mass., will report to Hughes Danbury Optical Systems Inc., a subsidiary of Hughes Aircraft Co. in Danbury, Conn.
