Hughes Aircraft reported that two ground test models of its Split- Stirling cryogenic coolers had completed two years of continuous operation, and that it has begun developing the next-generation cryocooler for the U.S. Air Force.
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.
HUGHES TRAINING INC., Binghamton, N.Y., received a $16.9 million contract Dec. 5 from the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Div., Orlando, Fla., for development of five reconfigurable man-in-the-loop simulator prototypes in support of the Battle Lab Reconfigurable Simulator Initiative (BLRSI), to be managed by the U.S. Army Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM) in Orlando. If contract options are exercised, cumulative value of the contract will be $53.2 million.
The Pentagon yesterday announced the first 17 projects to be funded in ARPA's Microwave and Analog Front End Technology (MAFET) program, successor to the agency's previous Microwave and Millimeter Wave Integrated Circuit (MIMIC) effort to push the state of the art in RF integrated circuitry for radars, precision weapons, electronic countermeasures and secure communications. Funding awarded to date, according to the announcement, is $105 million, with one of the projects still to be finalized.
CAE-LINK CORP., Binghamton, N.Y., was awarded a $17.1 million increase to an earlier contract for FY 1996 operation, maintenance and services for the Aircrew Training System of the C-130 aircraft. The contract was announced Dec. 6 and was awarded by the Air Logistics Center, Hill AFB, Utah.
EVANS&SUTHERLAND COMPUTER CORP., Salt Lake City, Utah, is working under a $10 million contract for two visual systems to be integrated with full mission simulators for C-130J aircraft. The simulators are being manufactured by Reflectone of the U.K., and will be installed at Lyneham Air Field in the U.K.
The JAST program office awarded General Electric and partner Allison Advanced Development Co. a one-year, $7 million contract to start work on an engine concept that would compete with Pratt&Whitney's F119 Advanced Tactical Fighter turbofan, a program that could wind up worth as much as $85 million through the rest of this decade, GE confirmed last week. "It's put us back in the ballgame now," a GE official explained, noting that the contract was awarded in mid-November.
B-2 bomber language is one of the last few issues outstanding as House and Senate defense authorization conferees work to wrap up the compromise bill, perhaps as early as today. Ironically, it's an issue that didn't even have to be addressed. That's because no matter what the conference said, it would have no impact on funding - the defense appropriations conference report, which has already become law, accepted the House position of providing an unrequested $493 million for long lead funding for B-2s beyond the present program of 20.
CONSTRUCTION of the largest and most advanced pilot training base in China has begun in Shanghai, according to a Dec. 5 report from AsiaInfo China Daily News of Beijing. It said the base will cover more than 30,000 square meters and cost $100 million. First phase of the project is due for completion by the end of 1996.
NASA'S Galileo orbiter received data for 57 minutes as its atmospheric probe parachuted into the ammonia clouds of Jupiter last week, program managers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported. A first look at the data, stored in the spacecraft's computer memory as a backup to its balky tape recorder, is set to be released Dec. 19. The 746-pound probe was designed to last as long as 75 minutes before failing, but scientists were reported to be "absolutely ecstatic" at the amount of data recovered.
The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) will spend $5 million to $6 million to develop an advanced solar array that will be tested on NASA's first New Millennium spacecraft, a 220-pound probe that will use solar-electric propulsion to visit a comet and an asteroid. BMDO has already announced plans to award a sole source contract to Able Engineering Co. of Goleta, Calif., for a Solar Concentrator Array with Refractive Linear Element Technology (SCARLET) to be mounted on the tiny NASA spacecraft.
A large Russian spacecraft plunged back to Earth southeast of the Hawaiian Islands Sunday, almost 25 years after it was launched from Baikonur as part of Russia's vain attempt to put a cosmonaut on the moon. Cosmos 398 reentered at 3:09 p.m. EST Sunday and some heavy pieces of the 4,400-pound spacecraft may have splashed down in the Pacific about 1,300 miles southeast of Hawaii, according to Russian news accounts. Russian experts reportedly believed part of the spacecraft's propulsion system would survive the heat of reentry.
The U.S. Air Force and Navy are homing in on what they want out of an improved High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) - and what changes they can afford, officials of the services say. HARM developer Texas Instruments is under contract to build and deliver HARM Block V missiles. The Navy and AF are considering funding the next upgrade, Block VI, in the 1998 Program Objective Memorandum now being formulated and slated for submission to the Office of the Secretary of Defense next year.
EVANS&SUTHERLAND will also provide visual systems for two truck driving instruction and training simulators (Advanced Driving and Maneuvering Simulator, or ADAMS) to be supplied to the Swiss Army by Oerlikon-Contraves AG in Zurich, Switzerland. The Swiss Army plans to begin troop trials of the devices - being procured by the Swiss Ministry of Defense under the project name FATRAN - in September 1996. E&S said the ADAMS/FATRAN business could mean more than $7 million in revenues over the next three years.
