TRW Government Information Services Div., Fairfax, Va., will provide systems engineering and integration support for the U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command's Undersea Surveillance Program Directorate under a $65.5 million contract.Work is expected to begin in early October.
Acquisitive Tracor bought its partner in several mine countermeasures programs, Titan's Shaped-Charge Munitions Business Unit, for $1.65 million plus royalties on future sales of shaped-charge munitions, the companies reported. The Titan unit makes miniature explosive shaped charges used to neutralize enemy mines, and Titan and Tracor's Tracor Aerospace have teamed to win several key programs in that area.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS CORP., is supporting the update and modification of the Operational Flight Program on the F-15 aircraft under a $35.6 million contract awarded Sept. 28 by the U.S. Air Force's Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Robins AFB, Ga. On Sept. 21, McDonnell Douglas got an additional $19 million from U.S. Naval Air Systems Command for four F/A-18 operational flight trainers. On July 31, MDC was awarded $3.3 million by U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command for aircrew instruction and courseware development and revision for the F-117 and T/AT-38 aircraft.
Hughes Space and Communications Co. has sold its first commercial satellite to China, breaking into a lucrative new market that had eluded its grasp for several years. The sale, confirmed by a Hughes official yesterday, is relatively small. China's Post and Telecommunications Ministry will buy one HS-376 spacecraft-Hughes' smallest commercial bus-for launch in July 1996 to transmit television and other fixed communications.
The chairmen of the House Appropriations Committee and its national security subcommittee agreed yesterday they could pass the rejected $243 billion fiscal 1996 defense appropriations compromise without reopening funding for additional B-2 strategic bombers and the third Seawolf attack submarine if they write anti-abortion language into the bill.
U.S. NAVAL Command, Control and Ocean Surveillance Center, San Diego, has two awarded contracts for basic research on hyperspectral mine detection. Space Computer Corp., Santa Monica, Calif., got $1 million for the work on Aug. 9, and Sensor Concepts Applications, Phoenix, Ariz., received $678,387 on Aug. 15. The contracts were awarded by NCCOSC's RDT&E Div.
LOGICON INC., San Pedro, Calif., received a $6 million increase to a U.S. Air Force contract for various packages of software applicable to the Mission Planning System for the B-1 aircraft. The Electronic Systems Center awarded the contract on Sept. 29.
A faulty controller forced NASA managers to delay last Saturday's planned launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia, raising scheduling problems at Kennedy Space Center that may force a switch in the launch sequence of the next two Shuttle missions. Saturday's delay, triggered 20 minutes before the planned liftoff when controllers found that a Master Event Controller (MEC) in the aft engine compartment had failed, was the fourth for the planned 16-day microgravity science mission aboard Columbia.
ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY is soliciting proposals for design concepts and analysis leading to prototype construction and demonstration of a water craft for special warfare. "The craft will be rapidly deployable by air (fixed or rotary) or ship, and configured near [or] in theater for specific missions such as surveillance, mine warfare, counter narcotics, insertion, and fast interdiction," according to a "broad agency announcement" in the Aug. 30 issue of Commerce Business Daily.
LORAL Training&Technical Services, Horsham, Pa., will supply advanced aviation flight simulator training services to the Naval Air Forces U.S. Pacific Fleet under an $18 million contract. Under the five-year contract, the company will provide simulator-based and academic instruction and instructors for pilots and flight officers at Naval Air Stations in Washington and California, including Whidbey Island, Wash.; Lemoore, Calif.; Miramar, Calif.; North Island, Calif.; and at Marine Corps Air Stations in El Toro, Calif.; Camp Pendleton, Calif.; and Yuma, Ariz.
Pratt&Whitney (P&W) yesterday conducted the first test firing in the U.S. of a flight-qualified Russian-built rocket engine. The firing of the RD-120 took place at P&W's rocket test facility in West Palm Beach, Fla. The liquid oxygen and kerosene-fueled RD-120 delivers 187,400 pounds of thrust and currently provides upper-stage propulsion for the Ukrainian/Russian Zenit rocket. The staged combustion engine uses a high area ratio nozzle to provide a specific impulse of 350 seconds.
Former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci said yesterday that the Pentagon could re-order its budget priorities to pay for the extra B-2 bombers House and Senate appropriators have ordered it to begin buying.
LOCKHEED MARTIN'S Information Systems unit, Orlando, Fla., has won two U.S. Air Force contracts for separate simulation programs at Kirtland AFB, N.M., totaling nearly $160 million. Both are for five years. The largest contract, for $146 million, is for simulation and training support for the 58th Special Operations Wing at Kirtland. Under the second contract, for $13.2 million, Lockheed Martin will operate and maintain the Theater Air Command and Control Simulation Facility at Kirtland.
SABRELINER CORP., St. Louis, received an additional $15.3 million on Oct. 2 from U.S. Naval Air Systems Command for FY 1996 flight training services in support of the Undergraduate Naval Flight Officers Training System.
McDonnell Douglas yesterday was chosen over Lockheed Martin for the next phase of the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) program. MDC won a U.S. Air Force contract for more than $62 million to proceed with the second phase of engineering and manufacturing development for the new air- launched precision weapon. In the just completed Phase I effort, Lockheed Martin and MDC competed for more than 18 months in the development of JDAM tail kits for standard bombs. The contract includes options for five production lots, MDC said yesterday.
APAC Telecommunications, Vancouver, British Columbia, has signed a letter of intent to acquire an interest in the upgrading and expansion of a satellite ground station of Apstar 1, a Chinese telecommunications satellite orbited in 1994. APAC said its proposed enhancement "would allow a five-fold increase in channel capacity which would then be leased to off- shore operators."
BALL AEROSPACE has awarded a research and development contract to Aware, Inc. of Bedford, Mass. The contract covers technology transfer, system trade studies and consulting in the area of wavelet transform based data compression. Wavelets are recently discovered mathematical functions "which have proven themselves remarkably effective at compressing digital imagery," Aware said.
Boeing won the smallest dollar amount of three recently awarded Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) contracts, but will have executive agent responsibility for the effort. Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas are also involved. Boeing received $1.9 million under the JAST Integrated Subsystem Technology (J/IST) project to assess the life-cycle cost of the effort and to ensure that proper documentation is provided throughout the program, a JAST program official said.
SEN. SAM NUNN (D-Ga.), the Senate's authority on defense, said he will not run next year for a fifth Senate term. Nunn, 57, made the announcement on Monday. His retirement in January 1997 will elevate Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.) to the position of ranking Senate Armed Services Committee Democrat, assuming that Levin is re-elected in 1996. Nunn becomes the eighth Senate Democrat up for re-election next year to announce his retirement.
FS-X partner Lockheed Martin is declaring technology transfer a success with access to Japan's co-cured composite wing technology, but a recent RAND Corp. study suggests it's still uncertain whether the U.S. military and its suppliers will significantly benefit.
Delayed by development troubles, a balky air conditioning system, and the weather, the prototype U.S.-Japan FS-X fighter made its first flight Monday morning in a 39-minute test sortie from Komaki airport in Nagoya. U.S. principal subcontractor Lockheed Martin reported that the aircraft reached an altitude of about 15,000 feet at 250 knots with 43- year-old Mitsubishi test pilot Yoshiyuki Watanabe at the controls. Watanabe said the flight was smooth and that the plane proved maneuverable.
ART MONEY was nominated by the White House to become the new assistant secretary of the U.S. Air Force for acquisition. The Defense Dept. recommended Money for the post earlier this year (DAILY, Aug. 23, page 283). Money, who is vice president and deputy general manager of TRW Avionics and Surveillance Group, will relieve Darleen Druyun. Druyun has filled the slot since April, when acquisition chief Clark Fiester died in the crash of a C-21 executive jet in Alabama.
GLOBALSTAR mobile satellite venture announced that it has entered into agreements with two telecommunications service providers that will offer Globalstar mobile and fixed satellite telephone service in 12 nations. Globaltouch Communications Holdings Inc. of Warwickshire, United Kingdom, has been granted exclusive Globalstar service rights to Nigeria, Ghana, Togo and Benin, while Mobile Telecommunications Africa, a consortium based in Nairobi, Kenya, will be an exclusive service provider for Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.
