LAUNCH PACELaunch of the second Milstar communications satellite on Nov. 6 marked the beginning of a busy time for Titan IV launch crews. According to a launch schedule released by Lockheed Martin Astronautics, the heavy lift booster is scheduled to fly once more this year from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., and five times in both 1996 and 1997. All but three of those flights will be from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., which will see the first flight of the new Titan IVB configuration late next year.
The U.S. Army will have the best equipment available in sufficient numbers for its peace enforcement mission in Bosnia, said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Dennis J. Reimer. Non-lethal weapons are "certainly something we've looked at early on," Reimer told defense reporters at a breakfast in Washington Wednesday. "I think there is potential for using them over there," he said.
Pentagon lists TRP contracts Awards by the Advanced Research Projects Agency to 80 companies for leading edge research under the Technology Reinvestment Project (TRP) are listed in this compilation, prepared by the Dept. of Defense (DAILY, Nov. 20, page 288). Company Proposal Title City State Cost ------- -------------- ---- ----- ---- Focus Area: Affordable Advanced Controls Technologies
Tracking defense expenditures has been a problem since the days of the Founding Fathers, DOD Inspector General Eleanor J. Hill tells the House Government Reform Committee. She notes that in 1779 Quartermaster Jacob Greene refused to use ledgers preprinted by the Continental Congress on the grounds that the military could not be run like the "plain business of the common storekeeper." Commented Hill: "Simply put, here we are 216 years later in the computer age and we still cannot supply Congress with an acceptable accounting of expenditures."
Lockheed Martin thinks more focus on spare parts and modifications could help improve the generally dismal mission-capable rate posted by the U.S. Air Force's big C-5 transports, an improvement that the General Accounting Office concluded could work out to the equivalent of adding 10 McDonnell Douglas C-17s to the active fleet.
The U.S. Army's RAH-66 Comanche helicopter won't fly for the first time in November as program officials had planned because of delays in two areas. The Boeing/Sikorsky team developing the helicopter was hoping to complete first flight of a prototype by the end of next week, but one Army official said first flight is now unlikely before mid-December.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) defended the Pentagon-backed Affordable Composites for Propulsion program yesterday, which has spent its first two years of life trying to shake the "corporate pork" label hung on it by budget-cutters in Congress. Lieberman was at the Dow-United Technologies Composite Products operation in Wallingford, Conn., to install the final bolt on an all- composite resin-transfer molded fan exit case developed under ACP, the largest of the Advanced Research Projects Agency's Technology Reinvestment Program, or TRP, projects.
Northrop Grumman Corp. on Jan. 1 will combine its B-2 and Military Aircraft divisions into a single element of 15,000 workers and annual revenues of $3 billion to be called the Military Aircraft Systems Div. The company said yesterday that the move is part of a continuing effort to cut costs and streamline operations. A spokesman said some jobs would be lost, primarily in the headquarters staffs and support functions of the two current divisions. It's too early to say precisely how many employees would be affected, he said.
NASA came out of last week's government shutdown relatively unscathed and, the agency said, it managed to stay on schedule for planned missions this year and early next year. The shutdown forced NASA to operate with a skeleton staff - all but 1,300 of its 21,000 employees were forced to stay home. The 1,300 employees deemed essential supported the Space Shuttle Atlantis mission that was completed Monday (DAILY, Nov. 14, p. 251).
Eighteen House Republicans, including Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), have told Defense Secretary William J. Perry of their "strong opposition" to any cuts or delays in the Theater High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD), Navy Upper and Lower Tier, and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) programs. In a letter sent to Perry last Wednesday, the signers noted "recent press reports" indicating that Pentagon officials may recommend "significant cuts" in fiscal year 1997 and the outyears for critical theater missile defense (TMD) programs, particularly THAAD.
Arianespace said the European Telecommunications Satellite Organization has chosen it to launch three satellites starting in mid-1997. An agreement signed yesterday in Paris calls for two telecommunications satellites and a direct TV broadcast satellite, Hot Bird 4, to be launched from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana, using either Ariane 4 or Ariane 5 rockets.
EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY boosted the orbit of its Infrared Space Observatory from 518 km perigee to 1,030 km, ESA said yesterday. The maneuver was performed Nov. 19 and controlled from ESA's Darmstadt, Germany, facility. An apogee lowering maneuver is set for Friday that would put ISO in its final operational orbit. On Nov. 27, ISO will discard the cover on its cryostat allowing it to start receiving infrared radiation.
The Defense Dept. is concerned about the scope of the proposals received for its Enhanced Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program and it is trying to resolve a funding impasse, DOD's space chief said yesterday.
DUTCH ARMY awarded about $82 million to French manufacturer SAGEM for four squadrons of Sperwer unmanned aerial vehicles. Sperwer, a derivative of SAGEM's Crecerelle UAV in use by the French army, was chosen earlier this year, but the deal didn't become official until the Dutch parliament approved the army's choice.
The Defense Dept. last Friday awarded contracts totaling $10.5 million to three U.S. firms to help Ukraine convert former Soviet military production facilities into commercial joint ventures. The recipients are: -- ABB Combustion Engineering, Windsor, Conn., $4.8 million to convert a manufacturer of military guidance systems into a producer of control systems for nuclear power plants. -- Die Casters Inc., Wayne, N.J., $3 million to convert a radar facility into a factory that manufactures die cast automotive and other consumer products.
HOUSE-SENATE defense authorization conferees have adopted a waiting game, congressional sources said yesterday. They said the conferees didn't get into the still unresolved missile defense policy issue, but preferred to wait and see what President Clinton does on the $243 billion defense appropriations bill. He's expected to veto the bill as too big when domestic appropriations are being cut, but sources said conferees still wanted to hear what Clinton says in his veto message to get a better idea of what's unacceptable to the White House.
The American military deployment to Bosnia to implement the peace agreement worked out yesterday at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, by the three contending factions will proceed in three phases, one of which is already under way, a Pentagon spokesman said yesterday.
AEROJET said its Tennessee Operations, in Jonesborough, Tenn., has met requirements for certification to ISO 9002, the international standard for quality systems. It said the facility was inspected by a team of seven auditors from the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Command, the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and the U.S. government's Industrial Operations Command. Aerojet said ISO 9002 will soon be required for companies doing business internationally.
ORBITAL SCIENCES CORP. said a mission planning system built by its Fairchild Defense unit, Germantown, Md., has been selected by the Egyptian Air Force for use with its F-16 fighters. The contract for the MSSII+ system is valued at more than $7.5 million, OSC said. The system was used during the Gulf War and now incorporates lessons from that conflict, the company said.
The U.S. and U.K. yesterday signed the long-awaited Memorandum of Understanding that formally establishes Britain as a partner in the Joint Advanced Strike Technology concept demonstration phase. Since early this year, JAST program officials have anticipated the signing (DAILY, April 1). Under the agreement, signed by Pentagon acquisition chief Paul Kaminski and U.K. chief of procurement Malcolm McIntosh, the U.K. will contribute $200 million to concept demonstration, the Dept. of Defense said.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS named Fred Whiteford to the position of executive assistant to the CEO, and Harold S. "Bud" Coyle to the office of vice president, corporate ethics. Whiteford joined McDonnell Douglas in 1989, and was most recently as director of strategic planning. In his new post, Whiteford will assist Harry C. Stonecipher in day-to-day operations. Coyle joined McDonnell Douglas in 1984. Before that, he served for 26 years in the U.S. Air Force. MDC said Coyle will now be responsible for guiding and maintaining the highest ethical standards within the corporation.
STANDARD MISSILE CO., Falls Church, Va., received a $79.5 million U.S. Navy contract for production of 243 Standard Missile-2 Block III/IIIA all-up rounds for fiscal 1995 and related materials, the Defense Dept. said yesterday. The missiles are for the U.S. Navy and the government of Japan. Naval Sea Systems Command awarded the contract.
NASA's Office of Inspector General has questioned the savings claimed in the agency's cost-cutting zero-base review from consolidating aircraft operations at Dryden Flight Research Center, and recommended the move be halted until a more thorough analysis can be conducted.
Wall Street is sticking to its collective guess that A-12 prime contractors McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics will probably win about $350 million each from the government, now that a federal judge has ruled that the Pentagon didn't prove the companies owed the U.S. $1.9 billion in advance payments because they lied about A-12 development troubles.
