DYNCORP Aerospace Operations, Fort Worth, Tex., is modifying three C-130 aircraft to make them compatible with the Night Vision Imaging System. The company received an additional $5.9 million for the work on Sept. 15 from the U.S. Air Force's Warner Robins Air Logistics Center.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), chairman of the House National Security R&D subcommittee, is trying to get Defense Secretary William J. Perry to stake out a definite position on the issue of demarcation between strategic missiles, which are covered by the ABM Treaty, and theater missile defenses, which are not. Weldon wants to see Perry personally involved in the demarcation discussions now underway in the fiscal 1996 national security authorization conference.
Boorda says confidently that the Navy will "have a marinized version of TACMS [the Army's Tactical Missile System] in the future...that's a good weapon." He adds that "eventually we will shoot TACMS out of vertical launchers." But, he says, "the question is when, how affordable is it." The Navy fired the missile from surface ships earlier this year in a series of tests (DAILY, February 15, page 241) and is considering submarine launches (DAILY, April 14, page 73).
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS, St. Louis, received an additional $52.1 million from the U.S. Navy on Oct. 3 for on-site maintenance and support of the T-45 Training System at NAS Kingsville, Tex. The contract was awarded by Naval Air Systems Command.
M TECHNOLOGIES, Huntington Valley, Pa., will carry out engineering and manufacturing development of the BRU-55 smart bomb rack for U.S. Navy and Air Force aircraft. U.S. Naval Air Systems Command awarded a $6.2 million sole source contract for the work on Oct. 3. The effort will be performed in Horsham, Pa., and is to be completed by April 1997.
The electronic warfare industry should be more aggressive in trying to get programs started, the Electronic Industries Association recommends in its ten-year forecast released this week. "Get proactive," EIA told industry in its annual report. It said that "if you can make impact, demo it," and don't wait for the Dept. of Defense to issue requests for proposals.
THIRD U.S. NAVY UHF SATELLITE LAUNCH OF 1995 has been scheduled for Tuesday between 4:15 a.m. and 6:15 a.m. EDT at Cape Canaveral. The UHF-6 satellite is slated to be orbited on a Lockheed Martin Atlas rocket. The launch will mark the first time in 19 years that three Hughes-built satellites were launched in the same year for the same customer.
The U.S. Navy is looking to adopt a new aircraft carrier design with CVN-78, but initial expectations are that it will be a big-deck ship, Adm. Mike Boorda told defense reporters yesterday in Washington. Since last year, the Navy has put money towards studying a new carrier design and Boorda, the chief of naval operations, said he hopes "the break between [CVN]-77 and [CVN]-78 is when we go to a new design."
U.S. Air Force controllers will begin using NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) next month during Titan IV/Centaur launches as a way to save millions of dollars over the present aircraft-based tracking system. NASA said it had entered an agreement with the Air Force to support 12 Titan IV launches through 2004, beginning with the next Milstar launch in mid-November. The AF estimated it would save about $14 million by using the satellites instead of its Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft (ARIA) to support launches.
ORION SATELLITE CORP., Rockville, Md., has received conditional approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to construct, launch and operate a new fixed services satellite, Orion 2, at 12 degrees West. Orion current operates a satellite at 37.5 degrees West. Orion 2's 32 Ku-band transponders will provide coverage of the eastern U.S., South America, the Middle East, Northern Africa and Europe, including regions of the former Soviet Union west of the Ural Mountains.
ALLIEDSIGNAL ENGINES chief Jim Robinson is leaving the company to take over as executive VP of Learjet after 20 years in the engine business, AlliedSignal confirmed yesterday. Greg Summe, who heads AlliedSignal's General Aviation Avionics unit, was named Engines' president.
NASA may drop its planned launch of a Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) spacecraft on Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Pegasus XL booster, as continued delays getting the booster ready to fly threaten to make the mission redundant with a Japanese TOMS launch scheduled next summer. Vernon J. Weyers, director of flight projects at Goddard Space Flight Center, told The DAILY yesterday that the TOMS program office at NASA headquarters has asked him to study the cost trades on various options for launching TOMS, including no launch.
The U.S. Army's Communications-Electronics Command is issuing a draft request for proposals for an air traffic control system for use by the service in South Korea. CECOM said in an Oct. 13 Commerce Business Daily notice that the RFP for the HF Communications Flight Following System (HFCOM-FFS) would be available today for industry review on an electronic bulletin board.
THE SHANGHAI SPACE BUREAU, producer of China's Long March 4-A and 2-D rockets, has been granted a $7.2 million loan from the Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Bank for further research and production of carrier rockets.
The U.S. Navy fully supports the Joint Attack Strike Technology fighter program but its big hurdle will be cost, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Boorda said yesterday. "We have no [advanced aircraft] program other than JAST right now," he told reporters in Washington during a breakfast meeting; "it has to produce for us."
NASA plans to begin drop-testing a 15,000-pound lifting body/parafoil combination next month in a technology validation effort that could lead to development of a low-cost, U.S.-built lifeboat for International Space Station crews. U.S. space agency managers describe the Assured Crew Rescue Vehicle- Experimental (ACRV-X) project at Johnson Space Center as a relatively inexpensive effort to demonstrate the technology that would be needed to deploy a rescue vehicle for non-Russian Station crews after the orbiting laboratory is completed in 2002.
COMMUNICATIONS&POWER INDUSTRIES' Satcom Div., Santa Clara, Calif., formerly Carian Electron Devices, has introduced its new VStar(r)II antenna-mounted amplifier. The device is designed specifically for ground transmitters of commercial satellite communications operating in either extended C-band or extended Ku-band frequency ranges.
LORAL'S Federal Systems Div., Owego, N.Y., is in line for a U.S. Navy contract to assess specifications for integration of Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) with the SH-60R helicopter. Naval Air Systems Command said in an Oct. 13 Commerce Business Daily notice that the job will include "defining requirements for system architecture and the Multi-Mode Radar (MMR) Missile Detect Mode, defining requirements for incorporation of the Ku-band Datalink, and interface requirements between the MMR and the Integrated Mission Processor."
The U.S. Army is putting in place the final pieces of its Nov. 6-18 "Warrior Focus" exercise at Ft. Polk, La., which will feature 73 technology initiatives. The exercise will cap a series of tests that the participating units have undergone since the beginning of the year to examine the benefits of high technology for the Army.
DIRECTV, Hughes' direct-to-home broadcast satellite venture, has received an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for Outstanding Achievement in the Sciences of Television Technology. The award was presented Oct. 12 at a special ceremony in New York.
FIRST LAUNCH of EER Systems' Conestoga booster has been rescheduled for Oct. 20 at Wallops Flight Facility, Va., NASA reported. High winds and a "precipitous drop" in hydraulic pressure on the gimballing mechanism of two of the rocket's five first-stage motors forced a delay of the first launch attempt of the all-solid rocket just before liftoff Aug. 13 (DAILY, Aug. 16, page 245). The booster carries the NASA-sponsored Meteor spacecraft, a modified version of its old Commercial Experiment Transporter (COMET) vehicle.
The U.S. Army yesterday selected Lockheed Martin and a Hughes Aircraft/Raytheon joint venture for the project definition and validation phase of the Corps Surface-to-Air Missile medium-range air-defense program, or Corps SAM. The two were chosen over a team of Loral, TRW and Westinghouse. Apart from the Army work, the decision means the two teams will represent the U.S. as participants in the international Medium Extended Air Defense System.
Congress can potentially trim $4.85 billion from the Pentagon's fiscal 1996 budget, a General Accounting Office (GAO) report released yesterday concludes. Leading the list was depot maintenance funding for the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Army, which GAO said could be cut by $888 million. That's because the services are using large amounts of money provided by Congress for depot maintenance for other purposes, says the report, "1996 DOD Budget: Potential Reductions to Operation and Maintenance Program" (GAO/SNIAD-95- 200BR).
A McDonnell Douglas official, still elated yesterday after the company's win Wednesday of the competition for the Joint Direct Attack Munition program, said the market for the precision guided weapon could ultimately be worth between $3 billion and $5 billion. "We're really excited about having won JDAM," said Charlie Dillow, MDC's JDAM program manager. "It's an important win to reestablish ourselves in the strike weapon business," particularly following MDC's loss to Hughes Aircraft last year of the final phase of Tomahawk cruise missile production.
PANAMSAT CORP. has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to operate international communications satellites in two orbital locations that have traditionally been used for domestic U.S. satellites. The slots-80 degrees West and 103 degrees West-would be used to provide international communications over the C-band and Ku-band frequencies. PanAmSat said the international services would allow it to expand its broadcast and telecommunications services "throughout the Americas by the year 2000."
