Eighty companies shared $7.9 million in funds from the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) for leading edge research under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) portion of ARPA's Technology Reinvestment Project (TRP), the Pentagon announced Thursday.
Mobile telecommunications markets in the U.S. will become more competitive in the next two or three years as new personal communications services delivering voice, data and images come on line, a recent General Accounting Office report concludes. The report - "Telecommunications: Competition in the Mobile Communications Industry" (GAO/NSIAD-95-200BR) - updates a 1992 GAO report which found that cellular service was unlikely to be competitive because of limited offerings within markets.
One way for the intelligence community to overcome problems associated with downsizing would be for the agencies and Congress to work together more closely when formulating the budget, former deputy director of central intelligence John McMahon. "The budget process is pure agony in downsizing," he tells the House Intelligence committee Thursday in a hearing on the intelligence community in the 21st century. Congress should be involved during the budget formulation, he recommends, rather than acting on the administrations budget request.
Work has started on the first Space Shuttle external tank crafted from aluminum lithium alloy to save weight. Terry L. Hibbard, super lightweight tank program manager at Lockheed Martin Manned Space Systems in New Orleans, said in Washington recently that the first of 25 of the tanks NASA is buying to help its Shuttles reach the 51.6 degree inclination of the International Space Station is on track to launch the first U.S. Station node late in 1997. The lightweight alloy trims about 7,500 pounds from Shuttle takeoff weight, he said.
China will modernize its air force and build up its force projection assets, but it isn't territorially motivated, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command said. "I see very strongly that they're economically aggressive and that they're politically aggressive," Adm. Richard Macke told reporters in Washington Friday. "They want to be a world power," but don't have territorial ambitions. However, "I firmly believe they'll build a power projection capability," Macke said. He explained that this "helps their economic and political [ambitions]."
Performance testing of the replacement for the Defense Dept.'s aging World Wide Military Command and Control System (WWMCCS) should show the superiority of the new system and lead to shutdown of WWMCCS in about 90 days, a Pentagon official said.
The U.S. should reduce the number of its theater missile defense and unmanned aerial vehicle programs for cost reasons and because other requirements have to be met, according to Adm. Richard C. Macke, commander- in-chief of Pacific Command. "A lot of the gee-whiz technology - UAVs, TMD - get a lot of attention," Macke told reporters Friday during a breakfast meeting in Washington. But "we still have a requirement for things like tents, sleeping bags, trucks and the things the military runs on."
THE OFFICE OF COMMERCIAL SPACE TRANSPORTATION officially joined the FAA Nov. 15, the date that President Clinton signed the Dept. of Transportation appropriations bill. OCST, which had been in the office of DOT Secretary Federico Pena, will now be under FAA Administrator David Hinson. It will be run by Associate Administrator Frank Weaver. OCST should have joined FAA Oct. 1, but it couldn't be legally transferred because the agency was operating under a continuing resolution.
The House yesterday approved a compromise $243 billion fiscal 1996 defense appropriations bill, which supporters and detractors agreed faces a veto by President Clinton if it goes to the White House now. "This bill is a dead duck," said ranking Appropriations Committee Democrat David Obey (D-Wis.) during House debate. He said he had spoken to White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta 15 minutes earlier, and "he told me [President Clinton is] going to veto this bill."
Engineers at the Russian Space Agency are studying the possibility of linking early components of the International Space Station with the existing Mir space station as an alternative to full-scale International Station development, according to press reports here. Under the reported plan, the first two International Station components scheduled to be launched - Russia's FGB propulsion unit and the first U.S.-built pressurized node - would be attached to Mir as a way to extend the life and expand the capability of the nine-year-old orbital station.
Shares of McDonnell Douglas and Boeing soared yesterday as traders and analysts got wind of something the aerospace industry has known for months - the companies are talking about what they might do with some of their assets in a consolidating aerospace industry. Finance industry sources told The DAILY that a report in Thursday's Wall Street Journal claiming that Boeing is holding talks with MDC about acquiring all or part of its business are premature, but that the two are in contact with each other, as well as with their peers.
Apart from Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, everyone else had something to say yesterday about the Wall Street Journal's report that the two were considering merging - and that fact alone could do a lot of damage to MDC, some analysts noted.
FAIRCHILD DEFENSE DIV. of Orbital Sciences Corp. will support the U.K.'s Royal Air Force Jaguar 96 upgrade program under a $2.75 million contract from British Aerospace Systems&Equipment (BASE). OSC said the agreement calls for Fairchild Defense to integrate BASE's Terrain Profile Matching (TERPROM) software algorithm with MDTC/P, or Mega Data Transfer Cartridges with Processor, a mass memory system. TERPROM uses a terrain database and radar altimeter information to correct and refine an aircraft's navigation outputs.
E-SYSTEMS INC.'S, Greenville, Tex., unit received an additional $16.4 million contract from the U.S. Navy on Nov. 1 for the fabrication of 12 Sustained Readiness Program core kits and miscellaneous condition kits for the P-3 aircraft. The contract was awarded by U.S. Naval Air Systems Command.
FAA'S WIDE AREA AGUMENTATION SYSTEM is in trouble again because the Pentagon has renewed its reservations over accuracy enhancements and whether such enhancements, if permitted, should be encrypted. WAAS is to be a network of ground stations that will permit use of signals from the Global Positioning System. Richard Arnold, FAA's GPS program manager, was meeting yesterday with Pentagon officials, and the issue is likely to arise at a Nov. 30 hearing called by Rep. James Duncan (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House aviation subcommittee.
Lockheed Martin's entry in NASA's reusable launch vehicle (RLV) competition would push the state of the art in large-scale composite cryogenic tank construction and rocket propulsion and control to achieve the performance and operational efficiencies of a commercial aircraft.
PEMCO AEROPLEX subsidiary of Precision Standard said the U.S.Air Force has exercised an option for the second year of a seven-year contract for programmed depot maintenance of KC-135 aircraft for fiscal year 1996. Exercise of the option puts the company's current order backlog at about $169 million. A year ago, said the Denver-based Precision Standard, backlog was about $184 million.
Arthur Money, nominated to be the U.S. Air Force's acquisition chief, said Tuesday at his confirmation hearing that he plans to review R&D investments for science and technology. "One of the things I will do if confirmed is to reinvestigate, make sure that we are in fact investing in defense-peculiar, or defense-unique technologies," Money told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He assured senators that there will be a balance between research and development and commercial investment.
The Defense Dept.'s military intelligence forces lag both the human and systems resources to support the strategy of being able to carry out two nearly simultaneous major regional conflicts, a former chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency said yesterday. "I have great concern about our ability to support two major regional conflicts," retired Lt. Gen. James Clapper, told the House Intelligence Committee during a hearing on the intelligence community in the 21st century.
Although the Defense Dept. is disbursing fewer procurement dollars and, accordingly, has fewer civilian acquisition employees doing it, the average salaries have risen so high that total employment costs for acquisition have remained steady.
House and Senate negotiators yesterday were close to wrapping up an agreement on the New Attack Submarine in the fiscal 1996 defense authorization conference, but didn't appear to be close to settlement of the missile defense issue. A Senate source, commenting on the missile defense talks, said, "It's not looking very good now."
House National Security Chairman Rep. Floyd Spence (R-S.C.), whose handling of the fiscal 1996 defense authorization in conference has come in for criticism, has received two expressions of support from other Republicans following a published report that his chairmanship was in jeopardy.
LUCAS INDUSTRIES said its share of new orders for Boeing and Airbus aircraft could amount to $71 million. This is the combined value to Lucas of the Singapore Airlines order for 61 Boeing 777 airliners and the Gulf Air order for six Airbus A330s, both powered by Rolls-Royce Trent engines, the company said yesterday. Lucas supplies the engine control system, fuel pumps and thrust reverser actuation system for the Trent, the flight control actuation system and the electrical power generation equipment for the A330, and cargo system components for the 777.
Worldwide spacecraft launches in the third quarter of 1995 are listed in the following table. A total of 21 launches with 30 spacecraft were attempted, of which one launch vehicle failed and one satellite failed to separate in orbit. At the same time, the Jovian atmospheric probe separated from the Galileo bus on July 13 and became a new independent spacecraft, designated 1989-84E.
The government shutdown won't keep McDonnell Douglas from making its 11th consecutive early delivery of a C-17 airlifter next week, a company spokesman said, and overall the shutdown will have only a "minor impact" on C-17 production.
