Managers at Spacehab, Inc., hope the flexibility they demonstrated to win a $54 million contract from NASA this month for Shuttle/Mir logistics will serve them well as they seek new business for their pressurized Space Shuttle payload modules in the Space Station era. NASA picked the 1,100-cubic-foot module to carry "food and underwear" to Russia's aging space station, not because it was cheaper than the alternative, but because it could be turned around faster on the ground, according to the U.S. space agency's chief payload scheduler.
The U.S. Air Force, betting that reactivation of the SR-71 reconnaissance plane will continue through fiscal 1996, plans to run flight tests at the end of September with a Blackbird equipped with a modified U-2 datalink, according to an AF official. Both of the two reactivated SR-71s initially were to be operational as of today, but the decision to integrate a modified L-52 link changed that deadline, the official told The DAILY. A crew has been qualified for the other SR-71A, No. 971, which is ready for operations.
Litton Industries wound up its fiscal 1995 with strong earnings and cash flow despite modestly lower sales, contending yesterday that its healthy balance sheet means it can now speed up its search for new businesses to acquire.
AEROSPACE DAILY will not be published Monday, Sept. 4, 1995, in observance of the Labor Day holiday. The next issue will be dated Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1995.
A SHOULDER-FIRED MISSILE is believed to have downed the French Mirage 2000 lost over Bosnia Wednesday afternoon, according to Adm. Leighton W. Smith, U.S. commander in chief allied forces southern Europe. "When the Mirage was shot down, we did not see or hear any of the radars that we associated with radar-guided missiles" such as SA-6s, he said in Naples. Smith said shoulder- fired missiles also brought down a British Harrier over Gorazde in April 1994, and that two other planes had been damaged by such missiles.
SOUTH AFRICA's first international military airshow is slated to be held at Waterkloof air base near Pretoria Oct. 4-7. A wire service report said 13 countries will participate in the show. Some 145 military aircraft will take part, including a French Mirage 2000C, a Russian MiG-29S, and a U.S. F-16.
NASA scrubbed launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour yesterday after technicians discovered a faulty fuel cell that agency officials said will take several days to replace. The launch was canceled at 3:30 a.m. EDT, less than eight hours before scheduled liftoff, after the second of the Shuttle's three fuel cells overheated. NASA crews yesterday began the complicated process of changing out the faulty cell, which is located beneath the Shuttle's payload bay liner.
SABENA HAS ORDERED 23 Avro RJ85s in the single largest order ever placed with Avro International Aerospace, the British Aerospace Regional Jet subsidiary. Media reports from Europe priced the deal at more than $500 million, although neither party would confirm that figure or a report that Sabena might take 15 options and thus push the total value to more than $1 billion. The sale brings firm orders for the Avro RJs to a total of 85 aircraft, with 37 delivered
Russian Space Forces launched three spacecraft belonging to three nations-Russia, Ukraine and Chile-in two launches over the night of Aug. 30-31, with a fluke of scheduling making the Chilean platform the 3,000th satellite orbited by the Russian space program and its Soviet predecessor.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency plans to boost biological warfare defense funding, hoping to shore up a "serious deficiency" in the Defense Dept., ARPA Director Larry Lynn said. How soon ARPA will add money to its BWD effort "depends on how fast we can get smart," Lynn told The DAILY during an interview Wednesday in his Arlington, Va., office.
U.S. NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND plans to release a request for proposals to retrofit existing AIM-9M missile guidance and control sections to AIM-9M- 8/9 missiles. It said in a Sept. 1 Commerce Business Daily notice that with options, the effort would involve 12,000 retrofit kits.
LORAL DEFENSE SYSTEMS-EAST, Great Neck, N.Y., said it has signed an agreement with the China National Huayun Technology Development Corp. in Beijing to establish a joint venture company that will develop and produce a Doppler weather radar system. The system, to be similar to the U.S. National Weather Service's NEXRAD network being produced by Loral, will initially be for use by the China Meteorological Administration.
The U.S. Army's Communications and Electronics Command has developed and demonstrated in simulation radio models that more accurately represent field performance of the Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS), according to a CECOM spokesman. The effect of influences such as terrain elevation and weather on digital and voice transmissions are replicated by the Distributed Interactive Simulations SINCGARS Radio Models (SRMs), according to the spokesman.
A longtime engineer at Kennedy Space Center has written President Clinton warning that proposed cost-cutting measures in the Space Shuttle program threaten to endanger astronaut lives by eliminating safety "checks and balances."
The launch of the first Ukrainian satellite from Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome was delayed one day after a technical problem. A Russian Space Forces launch crew scrubbed the launch because of an unspecified technical malfunction, and rescheduled it for today. The three- stage Tsiklon booster, built by Yuzhnyi Mechanical Plant of Dniepropetrovsk, Ukraine, is to carry the first satellite under the Ukrainian flag to orbit.
A U.S./French oceanography satellite launched in August 1992 will continue to track a rise in worldwide sea level as it passes from its primary mission into extended mission operations, NASA said Tuesday. The TOPEX/Poseidon satellite, which uses a radar altimeter to measure sea-surface height to an accuracy of less than two inches, mapped a global rise in sea level averaging 0.12 inches a year over the first two of its three years in orbit, NASA said.
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, Dallas, yesterday received a $236.4 million contract from the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command for engineering and manufacturing development of the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) Unitary Weapon System. The Dept. of Defense said the contract contains options which, if exercised, will bring the total value of the contract to $318.2 million.
Cessna Aircraft Co. has announced a business agreement with India's Taneja Aerospace and Aviation Ltd. that is aimed at marketing Cessna aircraft to large Indian corporations, Agence France Presse reported yesterday from New Delhi.
Eyewitness reports suggest the fatal crash Tuesday of a U.S. Air Force Lockheed U-2R reconnaissance plane (DAILY, Aug. 30, page 323), may have been caused by failure of one landing gear outrigger to jettison after takeoff. Witnesses claim to have seen the pilot, 35-year-old Capt. David Hawkins, turn back immediately after taking off from RAF Fairford, in Gloucestershire, at about 7:30 in the morning. Hawkins' plane cartwheeled off the runway after one wing contacted the ground as he attempted an emergency landing.
LOCKHEED MARTIN Control Systems, Johnson City, N.Y., will design, develop and produce a digital autopilot for the U.S. Navy's S-3 aircraft. Under a contract from Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems of Marietta, Ga., with a potential value of $20 million, the company will provide 78 digital flight data computers for the plane. Lockheed Martin said the autopilot will provide increased reliability and maintainability. Development is slated to begin in October, and production will start in 1997.
Political action committees for Northrop Grumman and the major B-2 subcontractors-Boeing, General Electric, Hughes Electronics and Loral- contributed $44,500 to the campaigns of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) during the first six months of this year, a time in the election cycle when contributions are usually slow, an examination of Federal Election Commission records reveals.
Westinghouse Electric Corp. is developing a new type of cesium atomic clock it believes can significantly improve military and commercial communications and location systems. The patented device is much smaller, requires less power and is less costly than atomic clocks currently available commercially, Westinghouse said. It is being developed at the company's Science and Technology Center in Pittsburgh.
ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS is working under a $4.5 million contract from the U.S. Army's Armament Research and Development Command on the Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition (SLAM) and the Demolition Attack Munition (DAM). SLAM is a hand-emplaced weapon for use by Special Operations Forces against armored vehicles.
NATO launched air strikes against Serb positions in Bosnia-Herzegovina yesterday that focused on air defenses and command, control and communications links. In the action, a response to an attack Monday by Serb forces on Sarajevo that killed 37, a French Mirage 2000 fighter was shot down.
