British Aerospace Defense Dynamics won a $100 million contract from Turkey to upgrade Rapier missiles to the latest Rapier II, or B1X, standard, BAe said here. Turkey is the largest non-U.K. customer for the ground-to-air/anti- aircraft attack missile, and is the fifth international customer to contract for the Rapier upgrade. The upgrades will be done in Stevenage over the next three years by BAeD Dynamics, GEC-Marconi and Racal.
The new BMW Rolls-Royce BR710 turbofan that powers the Gulfstream V and Global Express bizjets flunked a bird ingestion test, but program officials say engine certification seven months from now isn't in jeopardy. Gulfstream President and CEO Fred A. Breidenbach confirmed to DAILY affiliate Show News that a fan blade tip came off just a few seconds short of the engine's required 10-minute post-ingestion run after being fed four 1.5-pound birds.
The 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), 2,000-strong, has deployed from Morehead City, N.C., for a six-month tour in the Mediterranean to relieve the 26th MEU (SOC), which has spent the last two months of its deployment in the Adriatic Sea in support of the NATO Implementation Force in Bosnia. Equipment to be used in the 22nd MEU (SOC) deployment includes the landing platform helicopter USS Guam, landing platform dock USS Trenton, and landing ship docks USS Tortuga and USS Portland.
Boeing engineers are working to redesign kiss seals inside the engine nacelle of its new 777 widebody twin after discovering that the seals' lifespan is unexpectedly short, a problem that forced British Airways to ground two recently delivered 777s while new seals were installed. Boeing and BA spokesmen said yesterday that one of the two aircraft has already been returned to service, and the other should resume flying in a few days.
National Steel and Shipbuilding, San Diego, won a $207.6 million NavSea contract for a Strategic Sealift ship (T-AKR), a roll- on/roll-off (RO/RO) ship to preposition and transport U.S. Army equipment. Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Va., received a $5 million modification for execution of USS Tucson (SSN 770) post-shakedown availability. The work is expected to be completed in August.
Westinghouse Electric Corp. received a $4.8 increment Wednesday from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for an expedited Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) of semi-automated image intelligence (IMINT) processing of sensor data from unmanned aerial vehicles and the U- 2R reconnaissance aircraft.
HUGHES SPACE COMMUNICATIONS International won a $640 million contract to build two satellites for mobile communications services in China and the rest of Asia, the company reported yesterday in Singapore. The Asia-Pacific Mobile Telecommunications (APMT) project picked Hughes over Lockheed Martin and Space Systems/Loral for the job, which includes launch services aboard a Long March booster. One platform is set for launch early in 1998, and the other will be a spare.
COSMONAUT YURI GIDZENKO and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter spent about three hours outside the Mir space station yesterday, retrieving two space debris sample cassettes they placed earlier in their four-month- old mission but dropping work on the station's antennas for a later extravehicular activity (EVA). They recovered the two cassettes from the Spektr module after using the Strela telescopic arm to maneuver there from the Kvant-2 airlock 75 feet away. Although the EVA, which started at 9:03 a.m.
After fending off disgruntled stockholders, Concurrent Computer Corp. of Oceanport, N.J., and Harris Computer Systems Corp., Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., have worked out a new merger agreement under which they will combine their real-time computer businesses into a single corporation based in Florida, and spin off Harris' secure computing business into a new company.
The Naval Research Laboratory, in a Feb. 2 Commerce Business Daily announcement, said it is seeking sources of information to develop Shipboard Multifunction Shared Apertures (SMSAs) that would consolidate the proliferation of antennas that are making Navy ships top heavy. Another perceived benefit is reduced radar cross section. Among the technologies of interest are photonic beamsteering control, wideband solid state devices (including transmit/receive modules) and low-cost architectures.
Human factors improvements represent the best way to drive down aircraft accident rates, according to Brig. Gen. Orin Godsey, chief of safety of the U.S. Air Force, and he told a Pentagon breakfast news briefing Wednesday that advanced display and navigation technologies can help.
Later this year, the U.S. Navy will christen the third of three oceanographic research ships, the R/V Researcher (AGOR 26), at the facilities of contractor Halter Marine, Moss Point, Miss. The ship will be owned and operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"The problem we have is not with the additional money that [Congress] added in [fiscal] '96" for the B-2, Lt. Gen. George Muellner, the Air Force's top acquisition officer told The DAILY Wednesday in an interview. "There are value-added issues on the B-2 we can use that on," he said. But if the White House decided to buy more bombers, the AF would have had to "give up force structure somewhere else to pay the bill," which would have meant F-22, Joint Strike Fighter, Joint STARS, C-17 and other programs, he said.
One support services contractor at the U.S. Air Force Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom AFB, Mass., has bought the Massachusetts-based activities of another in a $2 million cash deal. Dynamics Research Corp., Andover, Mass., acquired the support services operations from Support Systems Associates, a private company headquartered in Hauppage, N.Y.
AT&T's Advanced Technology Systems, Greensboro, N.C., received a $26.1 million fifth year contract modification from Naval Sea Systems Command to provide AN/UYS-2A(V) production units and kits for the U.S. Navy's next generation standard signal processor. Litton Systems, Woodland Hills, Calif., received a $41.3 million contract for repairs and logistics support of the AN/ASN-92(V) carrier aircraft inertial navigation systems (CAINS) from the Naval Inventory Control Point, Philadelphia. Work is to be performed in Salt Lake City (50%), Norfolk, Va.
Northrop Grumman and France's Hispano-Suiza, already teamed in a variety of aero-engine nacelle programs, won the competition to supply the nacelle for Pratt&Whitney's newest small engine, the Mid-Thrust Family Engine, designed to replace the venerable JT8D, P&W reported Wednesday.
Loral Corp. has entered a joint venture with three Russian firms to build, launch and operate commercial communications satellites, with the first two Russian platforms scheduled for launch with Loral payloads in 1997. The agreement, signed yesterday at the headquarters of RSC Energia near Moscow, could also lead to a new source of geostationary satellite launches with modifications to the venerable Soyuz booster, according to an Energia official.
Four Senate opponents of additional B-2 bomber production have warned President Clinton that funding for more of the planes will "be difficult to win" and promise to "make every effort to prevent its approval." The senators at the same time urged Defense Secretary William J. Perry and Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall "to stand firm in opposing the procurement of additional B-2 bombers, as you have in the past."
The Defense Dept. has established a new joint program office under U.S. Army auspices to oversee development and construction by fiscal year 2002 of two prototype cruise missile defense systems using tethered balloons.
Hughes Missile Systems, Tucson, Ariz., received a $19.75 million modification from NavSea for the Mk. 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapon System (CIWS), combining purchases for the U.S. Navy (91.4%) and the British Navy (8.6%). Loral Defense Systems received a $22.7 million modification from NavSea for Vertical Launch ASROC (VLA) anti-submarine weapons. The procurement is split 50:50 between the U.S. Navy and the Japanese Navy. The contract covers FY'95 purchases, and a modification is expected for FY'96 to bring the total value to $52.7 million.
The Pentagon will again study the feasibility of procuring more than the 20 B-2 bombers it has staunchly maintained is adequate - this time as part of a much broader study of all potential deep strike capabilities - but spokesmen for both the National Security Council and the Defense Dept. yesterday left no doubt that the conclusion is foreordained. In response to congressional concerns, the White House in the second part of the deep attack study will look at the potential for consolidation of ships, aircraft and missiles that deliver munitions.
U.S. military space is following the rest of the Defense Dept. in changing the way it procures systems, with a shift to greater commercialization inevitable as budgets become tighter and civilian systems challenge military systems in capability, the Air Force acquisition director of space programs said yesterday.
Memry Corp., Brookfield, Conn., has received a $308,000 contract from McDonnell Douglas to develop a new control surface for helicopter blades. The contract is part of a program to develop adaptive control surfaces for commercial and military use. Memry will deliver microprocessor-controlled tabs for the trailing edges of the helicopter blades. These pilot-controlled tabs will make possible the fine tuning of each blade for improved performance and reduced vibration. The actuator, which will provide the tab motion, is a unique shape memory alloy torsion device.
Egyptair, the Egyptian national airline, has chosen the Canadian Marconi CMA-2102 high-gain satcom antenna for its new Boeing 777- 200 aircraft. Under an agreement between Canadian Marconi and Boeing, the antenna may be selected by B777 customers for installation and certification at no additional charge over the basic aircraft. Egyptair is the first carrier to take advantage of this option on this airplane model. Installation on three aircraft is scheduled for March through May, 1977.
Boeing is studying new 757 and 767 versions to help round out its product line and enhance its competitive stance, said product strategy VP Borge Boeskov. The 757-200X would be an extended-range version of Boeing's largest single-aisle transport, he said, with range 600 nautical miles greater than the 757-200. That would give it transatlantic range with extremely low seat-mile costs.
