NASA has started posting all of its competitive acquisitions over $25,000 on the Internet, along with fiscal 1996 acquisition forecasts, active contract data and other procurement information. Known as the NASA Acquisition Internet Service (NAIS), the World-Wide Web service lists CBD-format procurement synopses, and solicitation files as soon as they are released.
ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS, Minneapolis, will demilitarize some 25,500 M117 general purpose bombs under a 24-month, $3.3 million contract from the U.S. Army Industrial Operations Command, Rock Island, Ill.
The U.S. Army's THAAD program suffered a setback yesterday when it failed to hit its target during its first intercept attempt at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. "There was nothing immediately obvious" that led to the failure, a spokesman for the Army's Missile Command, Huntsville, Ala., said yesterday.
NASA, ROCKWELL AND ORBITAL Sciences representatives failed to settle a dispute over engine selection for the X-34 small reusable launch vehicle in a meeting with Administrator Daniel S. Goldin yesterday (DAILY, Dec. 11, page 387), a space agency spokesman said. Goldin sought more information and set another meeting late next week.
U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Office of Aerospace, will sponsor a trade mission April 2-10 to Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey and Cairo, Egypt. The mission will be lead by Ellis Mottur, deputy assistant secretary of commerce for technology and aerospace industries. The mission will feature one-on-one appointments with government and industry officials and site tours of aviation facilities. For more information, call Audrey Smerkanich, Office of Aerospace, at 202-482-6235.
British Aerospace and Dassault Aviation revealed plans yesterday for a military aircraft joint venture that could work together on improvements to Dassault's Rafale and the Eurofighter, as well as the successor to those two aircraft.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) has told those supporting preservation the Pentagon's independent Operational Testing and Evaluation office that the defense authorization compromise delays the elimination until January, giving Defense Secretary William J. Perry a chance to appeal. But Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) will continue to oppose the decision. "We'll keep fighting it," an aide to Grassley said Tuesday.
U.S. aerospace industry sales fell in 1995 for the fourth year in a row, but new orders - the barometer of the future - came in for their second straight year of gains, leading Aerospace Industries Association President Don Fuqua to declare yesterday that the once-fragile recovery is now underway.
Litton Industries said yesterday that it had signed a definitive agreement with Black&Decker to purchase PRC Corp. for $425 million in cash. PRC, based in McLean, Va., had 1995 estimated sales of $720 million. Litton Chairman and CEO John Leonis cited the company's rationale for the purchase as centering on PRC's information technology and systems integration expertise, which are of key interest to Litton. "This purchase will continue the execution of our strategy to grow by acquisition," he said.
The House and Senate have agreed on a fiscal 1996 defense authorization conference report that faces the strong prospect of a veto by President Clinton over the issue of ballistic missile defense, and fences the unrequested $493 million B-2 stealth bomber appropriation until next March 31.
U.S. Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall on Tuesday awarded the Pacer Crag program an acquisition reform award to highlight savings achieved through streamlining. Pacer Crag upgrades the KC-135 tanker's navigation system, including the additional of a Global Positioning System. The Lighting Bolt award, named for the Air Force's Lighting Bolt acquisition reform program, was the first in a series that Widnall plans to present. Receiving the award for Pacer Crag was program director Col. William Foster.
The Defense Dept. wants to expand its acquisition reform initiatives next year, in part to increase flexibility in reprogramming funds, according to Paul Kaminski, the Pentagon's acquisition chief. DOD is looking to double the dollar threshold at which Congress must approve any reprogramming, Kaminski told industry representatives in Reston, Va., during a conference on acquisition reform Tuesday. The proposal is a continuation of this year's effort at acquisition reform through legislative relief, he said.
Although advanced microwave components to be developed under ARPA's Microwave and Analog Front End Technology (MAFET) program are aimed primarily at military applications, there are also potential commercial markets for electronics packages operating at the higher microwave and millimeter wave frequencies.
Whittaker Corp.'s aerospace business turned in its best full-year results in the 50-year history of the company this week, and CEO Thomas Brancati declared that the company is now poised for major growth with aerospace as a focal point.
Aerospatiale is one of the five companies on the European team for the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program - not Dassault as reported in The DAILY of Dec. 7, page 374. The other members are Thomson CSF, Daimler-Benz Aerospace, Siemens, and Aliena.
Hughes Aircraft Co. has created a new structure for some of its information systems units to better target large U.S. and foreign government software-based markets, the company reported. Effective Jan. 1, it will combine Hughes Information Technology Corp., its Command and Control Systems and Aviation Management Systems units, and the Systems Div. of Hughes Aircraft of Canada into a single umbrella organization to be known as Hughes Information Technology Systems.
Senate Assistant Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has been negotiating a proposal with House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) that would authorize the $493 million appropriation for the B-2 bomber, but fence the money until next March 31 pending a study by Defense Secretary William J. Perry on the future budget implications of buying more of the planes, Senate sources said yesterday. Perry has said repeatedly that funds aren't available to buy more than the 20 stealth bombers now planned for.
Editor's Note: Following is the text of a Dec. 6 memo from Defense Secretary William J. Perry to Secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top Pentagon officials, on the new Single Process Initiative (SPI), intended to cut acquisition costs by eliminating mil spec restrictions (DAILY, Dec. 11, p. 389A).
ECHOSTAR COMMUNICATIONS CORP., Denver, said Carl Vogel has been named president and chief operating officer of subsidiary EchoStar Satellite Corp. Vogel was executive vice president and chief operating officer of EchoStar Satellite Corp. for about two years.
Expected Russian proposals to recycle expensive Mir hardware into the proposed International Space Station are likely to complicate what a National Research Council panel has found to be the least flexible period of International Station assembly. The NRC's Committee on Space Station determined in a review of several Station issues that the early stages of assembly, planned for 1997 and 1998, offer so little flexibility for contingencies that the U.S. and its international partners should consider building spares of critical hardware.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS AEROSPACE'S Space&Defense Systems unit won a one-year, $152 million extension to its Kennedy Space Center payload ground operations contract, NASA reported.
THE AERO INTERNATIONAL (REGIONAL) joint venture of France's Aerospatiale, Italy's Alenia and British Aerospace expects Germany's Daimler-Benz Aerospace - which controls both the Dornier Do 328 and Fokker regional aircraft lines - to sign on eventually as a partner. "I even believe it is, eventually, a necessity if one believes in Europe," AIR chief Henri-Paul Puel told reporters at a press conference yesterday in Toulouse confirming plans unveiled at the Paris Air Show to open for business January 1 (DAILY, June 13, page 407).
Boeing and the Machinists union will put a tentative settlement before some 32,000 striking workers today that could put them back on the job by Thursday after a 68-day walkout that has disrupted airline plans and sent subcontractors scrambling to cope. Both the company and the union yesterday pronounced themselves satisfied with the new, four-year deal, and urged strikers - who have rejected two previous settlements, including one backed by union leaders - to accept the new contract.
HIGH-ALTITUDE WINDS yesterday forced a third delay in launch of NASA's X- ray Timing Explorer (XTE) from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., the U.S. space agency reported. The launch, originally set last Sunday, was bumped to Saturday or Sunday because Lockheed Martin is scheduled to launch the Galaxy III-R satellite for Hughes from Cape Canaveral Thursday on an Atlas IIA booster.
Will the contract that makes Boeing Machinists the highest-paid in the aerospace industry set a precedent for the eight major aerospace companies likely to work out new deals with their workers in 1996? The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers stops short of using the word "precedent," but hopes the package's effects will nonetheless be felt during negotiations next year.
