A Titan IV lifted the second Milstar U.S. military communications satellite to its geosynchronous transfer orbit early yesterday, and initial reports gave the $1 billion satellite a clean bill of health. The launch from Cape Canaveral Air Station was an all-Lockheed Martin affair. The newly merged aerospace giant built the Titan IV, its Centaur upper stage and the satellite itself, and integrated the stack before launch.
CANADA'S RADARSAT was working well after its launch on a Delta II rocket, according to early reports. Liftoff came at 9:22 a.m. EST Saturday from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., and the satellite was placed in a circular polar orbit at 430 nautical miles altitude. It will map sea ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic and produce radar images for commercial use (DAILY, Sept. 12, page 390).
BALL AEROSPACE&TECHNOLOGIES CORP., Broomfield, Colo., will improve and expand capabilities of the U.S. Air Force's Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT) Exploitation Directorate of the National Air Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. The company will carry out its work under a $49 million contract, which follows a previous MASINT support contract for $24 million that began in September 1990.
U.S. NAVAL SURFACE WARFARE CENTER, Dahlgren Div., and the Marine Corps Systems Command, are soliciting research and development proposals in areas related to obtaining, processing and communicating tactical battlefield information. The two organizations said in a "broad agency announcement" in the Oct. 26 issue of Commerce Business Daily notice that they were interested in tactical and targeting information/intelligence of importance to Marine maneuver elements in particular and expeditionary forces in general.
Motion-control specialist SatCon Technology Corp. won five small business innovation research contracts from NASA and the Defense Dept. for projects ranging from gryoscopes to flywheels. Awards to the Cambridge, Mass., company total $350,000, but with options could wind up worth nearly $5 million. Four are with NASA's Small Business Innovation Research Program, while one is under DOD's Small Business Technology Transfer Program. SatCon's newly created Technology Div. will handle each project:
Northrop Grumman expects to wrap up a flight test program by the end of the year demonstrating how a new digital avionics suite can give an F-5E capabilities similar to an F-16's.
A smaller, much more capable and more costly tactical air force on a program unit basis is forecast is a new report, "Modernizing U.S. Air Power - Pivotal Capabilities, Trends and Supporting Technologies," issued by the Project on Defense Alternatives, Cambridge, Mass. Just as the lessons of World War II shaped the evolution of modern air forces, the 1990-91 Gulf War experiences revised military thinking about the new uses of air power, the 26-page report said.
The U.S. Army is surveying industry to determine interest in its plan to improve the Sense and Destroy Armor (SADARM) munition. The service said in a Nov. 3 Commerce Business Daily notice that it would award a four-year contract for development and testing of the upgrade, which would feature greater standoff range, "approximately three times the current footprint, with an improved lethal mechanism. It urged the use of commercially available electronics.
A MAJOR INVESTOR in ammunition specialist Alliant Techsystems cut its stake in the company by a third. A group including Tudor Investment Corp. reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it sold 267,100 common shares of Alliant Techsystems at anywhere from $46 to $46.88 a share, and its 530,500 shares remaining gives the group 4.11% of the company.
The U.S. Air Force wants technical proposals to help it evaluate the idea of using a voice-based system to help a pilot with radio chores and thus increase his efficiency. Wright Laboratory's Avionics Lab said in a Nov. 7 Commerce Business Daily notice that a 29-39 month research effort is planned, and that $866,000 would be spent.
NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia landed safely Sunday after 16 days of microgravity science in its Spacelab module, while crews at Kennedy Space Center prepared the Shuttle Atlantis for a Saturday launch to Russia's Mir space station. Both missions foreshadow the coming International Space Station era, with the seven members of Columbia's crew having conducted just the sort of experiments planned for the Station, while the five-member Atlantis crew prepares for a complex assembly flight of the type that will be common during Station assembly.
The Pentagon's Joint Project Office for Biological Defense hopes to boost to 100 kilometers the range of its laser-based biological agent detection system, an official of the JPO said yesterday. The office is building three long-range, Lidar-based systems. Each consists of a laser, receiver and processor. Mounting on a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter takes about 30 minutes.
The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Joint Program Office has released a new request for information for the Maneuver UAV - now called the Tactical UAV - once again raising contractor hopes for the long-awaited RFP.
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, Dallas, in cooperation with the South Carolina Research Authority, will conduct a 12-month technology transfer pilot project to demonstrate ways commercial enterprises can meet defense needs for difficult-to-obtain spare parts. The effort is part of DOD's Rapid Acquisition of Manufactured Parts (RAMP) program, and one of the tasks is to demonstrate that DOD's use of production information in its Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data format is acceptable for acquiring spare parts from the commercial sector.
Representatives from more than a dozen airlines are at Boeing in Seattle this week to start fleshing out their ideas for the future of the big 747-400 jetliner, including larger versions of the plane.
Northrop Grumman, meanwhile, is trying to slim down to survive. Its inertial gyroscope business at Norwood, Mass., is due to be phased out by the end of the year. Next year the ax falls on two Long Island flight test facilities from the Grumman side of the house: Great River and Calverton.
