Northrop Grumman has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with McDonnell Douglas to develop the F/A-18C2W aircraft that the companies would like to see as a follow-on to the EA-6B. "The Prowler's capabilities will satisfy the customers' needs for years, but we must begin now to look for the inevitable replacement," John Harrison, a Northrop Grumman corporate vice president and general manager for the Electronics&Systems Integration Div., said Monday in a company statement.
The government entity responsible for licensing all commercial launches is being moved from Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena's office to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Under a plan announced Monday by Pena, the Office of Commercial Space Transportation (OCST) will become the FAA's seventh 'line of business' and the first involving space launch.
The U.S. has no capability to protect itself against converted missiles that are becoming increasingly available on the world market, Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) warned last week. In an Aug. 1 address on the House floor, Weldon expressed concern over Russia's efforts to convert its SS-25 and SS-18 missiles into space launch vehicles that will be sold internationally.
Russia's substantial one-year increase in arms agreements with developing nations in 1994-from $1.2 billion in 1993 to $4.6 billion last year-reflects the success of its policy of actively seeking to export weapons as a key means of securing hard currency, the Congressional Research Service concluded. Western arms suppliers still maintain an advantage over Russia in the competition for new arms sales agreements, CRS said, because Russia "still has the image of a nation in the midst of tremendous internal transition."
The General Electric GE90-powered Boeing 777 being used to prove the aircraft/engine combination for very long overwater flights returned to flight testing last week, rejoining the certification program that resumed on July 20 after a nearly two-month grounding. Aircraft WA077, designated for Extended Twin Operations (ETOPS), flew twice on Aug. 3, flying two hours and 13 minutes on the first trip and four hours and 34 minutes on the second. The certification aircraft, WA076, resumed certification flying on July 20 (DAILY, July 25, page 117).
The decision of the U.S. Senate to allocate an additional $300 million for development of ballistic missile defenses has met with criticism in Russia's arms control establishment with warnings surfacing that the action could block ratification of the START-2 treaty. According to Anton Surikov, advisor of the Institute for Defense Studies, the U.S. move towards developing the new ballistic missile defense system pushes Russia towards reconsideration of her obligations in nuclear arms reduction.
The three parties in Japan's coalition government agreed last week to boost defense spending in fiscal 1996 by 2.9%, an increase over fiscal 1995's relatively flat budget but still small enough to threaten some major weapon systems. All along, the Liberal Democrats have insisted on a 4.1% hike, while Socialists advocated less than 0.85%. But on Aug. 4 the two parties, along with their Sakigake party partner, compromised to accept the smaller growth rate.
Iran's official news agency claimed yesterday that the country has developed an air refueling system for its fleet of Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 fighters, and plans to help get the system to other MiG-29 operators. Developed by Iranian technicians to operate automatically, the system would "turn the MiG-29 into a warplane able to carry out multi- purpose and offensive strategic missions," the IRNA news agency said. It will also "increase the duration of reconnaissance flights."
Twelve McDonnell Douglas C-17 airlifters logged 2,252.5 hours and hauled more than 11 million pounds of cargo, personnel and equipment during the 30-day Reliability, Maintainability and Availability Evaluation that wrapped up Saturday, according to Air Force officials.
Orbital Sciences Corp. has signed a letter of intent to acquire a Canadian company it says it the world's leading supplier of commercial space remote sensing ground stations. Orbital said it plans to exchange 3.6 million shares of its common stock for MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) of Vancouver, B.C., in a transaction structured as a tax-free merger. Orbital said it hopes to complete the acquisition by the end of the year.
LOCKHEED MARTIN MISSILES&SPACE rescheduled the first flight of its Lockheed Launch Vehicle (LLV-1) for Tuesday, Aug. 15, from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. Problems with the first-stage auto-destruct system and second stage thrust vector control actuators forced a delay last month (DAILY, July 27, page 136), but the company said the problems have been identified and the vehicle will be ready for flight by the new launch date.
U.S. Army Aviation and Troop Command has awarded Phoenix-based Simula Inc. a contract to develop airbags for the AH-64 Apache helicopter that would increase crewmembers' chances of survival in a crash. An Apache pilot and weapons officer would each get a Cockpit AirBag System (CABS), Don Townsend, Simula's president said in a telephone interview. ATCOM awarded an initial $1 million contract to get the project started. The total development cost will be around $4.5 million, Townsend said.
Germany's Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) and the Russian Institute of Radionavigation and Timing (RIRT), Saint Petersburg, have signed an agreement setting up long-term cooperation in satellite-based positioning projects. Cooperation between DASA and RIRT (formerly Leningrad Radiotechnical Institute) began in 1991. RIRT is the developer of systems for positioning and timing support, including equipment for the Glonass global positioning system.
The General Accounting Office warned Friday that "operationally important" B-2 deficiencies could emerge before flight testing is over. "The completion of flight tests and the modification efforts are scheduled concurrently, and deficiencies that are operationally important or costly to correct could be identified before the test program is completed," the GAO stated in "B-2 Bomber: Status of Cost, Development, and Production" (NSIAD-95-164).
Hughes' Radar and Communications Systems Div. has delivered the first Common Integrated Processor (CIP) for the F-22 fighter. The company said Friday that the system was delivered last Wednesday. "Our Common Integrated Processor (CIP) is a very advanced high-speed computer that serves as the brain that provides the computer processing for all of the F-22's avionics, sensors, and displays," Louis M. Bogdanovic, senior vice president at Hughes Aircraft, said in a company statement.
Ball Corp. has spun its Aerospace and Communication Group into a subsidiary and has renamed it Ball Aerospace&Technologies Corp. The actions took effect Sunday. Ball said the decision to make its Broomfield, Colo.-based aerospace business a subsidiary was done with the recognition that it is significantly different from the company's main line of business, packaging.
U.S. arms sales to developing nations last year declined to the lowest level in eight years, dropping sharply from 60.5% of all such agreements in 1993 to 24.1% in 1994, the Congressional Research Service reported yesterday. In its annual report on arms transfers, "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1987-1994," CRS said the U.S. ranked second to France, which led in agreements with developing nations with $11.4 billion or 44.9% of the total in 1994.
Rockwell International is settling a decade-old government claim on B- 1B bomber pricing for just under $24 million-less than half the amount the government disputed in the first place. "We are pleased that the matter is finally resolved" after "many years," said John R. Stocker, Rockwell's legal VP in a prepared statement.
McDonnell Douglas' Delta rocket came up one launch shy of 50 successful missions in a row when an apparent staging malfunction caused it to place a Korean communications satellite in the wrong orbit Saturday.
The Senate took some bold steps on a national missile defense and then retreated part of the way last week. By the narrowest of margins, it endorsed the Armed Services Committee's Missile Defense Act (MDA) of 1995 which states that it is the policy of the U.S. to deploy "a multiple-site" national ballistic missile defense system, and that the system will become operational by the end of 2003.
PanAmSat's third satellite was launched into orbit Thursday evening, paving the way for the Greenwich, Conn., company to become the first private firm to provide private satellite services around the globe. The PAS-4 satellite, built by Hughes, was launched from Kourou, French Guiana, at 6:58 p.m. EDT aboard an Ariane 42L rocket.
A federal judge in Miami sentenced former Teledyne salesman Edward Johnson to nearly three and a half years in prison yesterday for his role in helping a Teledyne unit illegally export metal zirconium for cluster bombs to Iraq. Teledyne has already paid $9.5 million in fines and some $2 million in Commerce Dept. penalties after pleading guilty in January to illegally exporting weapons-grade zirconium.
Russia has launched an international mission to study the interaction of solar wind and Earth's ionosphere, with a Czech subsatellite aboard to supplement data from the larger main spacecraft. Although the Russian Space Agency is responsible for the Interbol-1 mission, the launch was performed by a Russian Space Forces crew from the State Cosmodrome at Plesetsk.
Key senators yesterday continued to negotiate behind the scenes yesterday in an effort to avoid a presidential veto of the fiscal 1996 defense authorization bill, seeking a compromise on the Senate's call for deployment of a "multiple site" national missile defense system by 2003 and objectionable language it drafted on the ABM Treaty.
Litton has filed a protest with the General Accounting Office over the U.S. Army's Land Warrior Systems Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) contract awarded last month to Hughes Defense Systems.
