The Central Intelligence Agency has told Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) that while North Korea's Taepo Dong II ballistic missile, potentially capable of reaching portions of Alaska "but not beyond," may be in development, the likelihood of it being operational within five years "is very low." The CIA also told Levin that the Intelligence Community believes that it is "extremely unlikely" any nation with ICBMs will be willing to sell them.
South Korea is considering buying an airborne early warning platform and wants to complete a study by next spring to see which one would best suit its needs, an industry source confirms. Among the candidates the Boeing 767 AWACS, the Grumman E-2C, Lockheed's C-130 and Israel's Phalcon.
NASA officials last week rejected Russian proposals to incorporate the Mir space station into the early phases of the International Space Station, but agreed to help Russia find ways to save money in meeting its Station responsibilities.
The current statutory requirement for awarding most federal contracts on the basis of "full and open competition" would be redefined under the fiscal 1996 defense authorization conference report to permit officials to winnow out firms with no realistic chance of winning. The decision - overshadowed by other veto-provoking provisions in the compromise defense authorization - settled what was the most contentious procurement provision in the bill.
The U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin have added an Improved Data Modem to Block 40 F-16s to improve their close air support capability for operations supporting NATO forces in Bosnia. Thirty-eight F-16C/Ds based at Aviano AB, Italy, received the modem under a quick reaction capability modification called Project Sure Strike, Lockheed Martin said. Block 50 F-16s have IDM as standard equipment.
House National Security procurement subcommittee chairman Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) yesterday defended procurement increases over President Clinton's request in the $264 billion fiscal 1996 defense authorization conference report as funding favored by the services.
Australia's air force confirmed yesterday that it will buy at least 12 Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 transports in a A$900 million program over five years, but Canberra's deal also includes options covering another 32 transports - 24 for the Royal Australian Air Force and eight for New Zealand. Last year, Defense Minister Robert Ray unveiled plans to replace at least half of the RAAF's 24 existing C-130s as part of a continuing defense buildup (DAILY, Dec. 1, 1994), but if Australia exercises all its options the transport fleet will actually grow by a third.
Malaysian Airline System is expected to reveal today its choice for a big jetliner order, and industry executives are betting on an all-Boeing buy of as many as 25 aircraft. Airbus Industrie, beaten badly so far this year in the market share battle with Boeing, is fighting harder than ever, executives with key suppliers told The DAILY this week. But Boeing is believed to have the edge, and at least one executive said to expect an announcement for 10 747- 400s and 15 777 widebody twins.
The U.S. Air Force's acquisition arm will take on a new form early next year when the service institutes a reorganization that will lead to a new distribution of mission responsibilities. The move is intended to bring the acquisition side in line with the service overall, and to more accurately reflect the Global Reach-Global Power theme the Air Force has been advocating since release of a white paper on the subject in June 1990 by then-Secretary of the Air Force Donald B. Rice.
McDONNELL DOUGLAS will launch 15 more Iridium low-Earth orbit communications satellites under a deal announced Wednesday. Five Delta II 7420s will launch three satellites each beginning in April 1998 and running through July 2000, with the spacecraft earmarked for the system's operations and maintenance phase. McDonnell Douglas already had a contract to launch 40 Iridium platforms in the initial deployment of the system.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS received a $6.3 million U.S. Air Force contract to retrofit four C-17 airlifters (production aircraft 1-4) with an Airlift Defensive System, the Dept. of Defense said yesterday.
McDonnell Douglas has completed a series of injector tests for a new cryogenic rocket engine Rockwell International's Rocketdyne Div. is developing for McDonnell Douglas's entry into the Pentagon's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, dubbed the "Delta IV."
U.S. NAVY has accepted from Northrop Grumman the first E-2C with the Group II upgrade that includes structural enhancements and an avionics systems improvement. The ceremony took place Nov. 28 at Northrop Grumman's St. Augustine, Fla., facility, the company said yesterday. Airframe and integration work was performed in St. Augustine and engineering work was carried out at Bethpage, N.Y. Twelve E-2Cs will be upgraded by program completion in mid-1997.
U.S. commercial space transportation manifest Here is the latest manifest of U.S. licensed commercial space launches, as published Dec. 18 by the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation. There are 19 U.S. commercial space launches planned for 1996, according to the manifest. PAYLOAD (COUNTRY)/ LAUNCH COMPANY/ DESCRIPTION VEHICLE KOREASAT-2 (Korea) McDonnell Douglas Telecommunications satellite Delta II
Boeing said it has completed testing of a 94% model of its JAST design, and that the testing has validated its approach for the future Joint Strike Fighter. Since September 1994, Boeing's Defense&Space Group has conducted testing of the 40-foot long, approximately 50,000-pound model in a specially designed facility at Tulalip, Wash. The model was put through "free-air conditions" testing to simulate hover and vertical landing, Boeing said yesterday.
A Russian "space tug" that will be the first element of the International Space Station launch to orbit was damaged when a test operator erroneously created a vacuum inside part of it, causing its "primary structure" to crumple, Station prime contractor Boeing reported yesterday on the basis of information from its Russian subcontractor.
The McDonnell Douglas team competing for the concept demonstration phase of the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program says testing has shown the carrier approach speed of its design to be within one knot of the requirement. The initial results are "extremely encouraging" and "confirmed our analysis," said John Steurer, MDC's vice president for JAST. The test data, gathered about three weeks ago at MDC's slow-speed wind tunnel in St. Louis, were briefed to the JAST program office this week.
The U.S. is ready to let its fighter-makers market aircraft to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and to support those marketing efforts with good financial terms, Administration officials told industry executives at an industry-only briefing yesterday in Washington.
AEROSPACE DAILY will not publish regular issues dated Wednesday Dec. 27, Thursday Dec. 28 and Friday Dec. 29. We will use those days to upgrade and replace computer and production equipment. Our editorial offices will be open and staffed throughout the period, and if important, time-sensitive events occur, we will publish one or more extra issues as necessary to keep you informed. We will resume a normal publishing schedule with the issue dated Tuesday Jan. 2, 1996.
The Commandant's Warfighting Laboratory (CWL), activated Oct. 1 by the U.S. Marine Corps, is beginning operations here with an annual budget of about $30 million, initial staff of 40 and eight operational areas of interest for which supporting technologies are being sought.
A main engine liquid oxygen valve failed to open shortly before liftoff yesterday of a McDonnell Douglas Delta II launch vehicle carrying NASA's X-ray Timing Explorer (XTE) space telescope, aborting the launch after the Delta's vernier engines had already ignited. The verniers were safely shut down, and there was no damage to the spacecraft stack at Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., NASA reported. Later analysis indicated the cutoff came only 2.5 seconds before liftoff.
AlliedSignal Communications Systems, Towson, Md., said it has divided its command, control, communications and intelligence business into two separate but integrated operations: -- Tactical Information Systems, under Obie Johnson, who joins AlliedSignal Corp. from E-Systems of St. Petersburg, Fla., where he was business development manager as well as engineering manager for a variety of Dept. of Defense programs, and
THE BODY OF ONE of four Russian Su-27 pilots has been recovered following the crash last week of three Su-27s in Vietnam, according to Russia's official ITAR-TASS news agency, but his identity wasn't released. Four pilots have been listed as missing since Dec. 12 - identified only as Grechanov, Grigoryev, Kordyukov, and Syrovoi - when their aircraft were believed to have crashed into the side of a mountain slope near the Cam Ranh Peninsula. They were part of the Russian Knights airshow demonstration team, returning from the LIMA '95 airshow in Malaysia.
