ADM. WILLIAM STUDEMAN, deputy director of central intelligence, has been nominated for retirement at his current grade. Studeman is scheduled to retire next month after 32 years of active service.
The House quit Friday for a month-long recess without taking up the fiscal 1996 defense appropriations bill, which means that an amendment seeking to knock out the $493 million B-2 bomber add-on can't come up until representatives return to work on Sept. 6. The Senate remains in session this week before leaving on its August recess, and may take up the Senate Appropriations Committee-approved defense money bill before it departs.
While the four U.S. prime helicopter makers-Bell, Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Sikorsky-supplied about 60% of the dollar value of total international rotorcraft production in 1994, they are expected to lose market share-dropping to 40%-over the next decade to European, Russian and Japanese builders, DOD projects. However, the domestic firms will keep a stable dollar value, between $3.2 billion and $3.4 billion in 1995 dollars over the 10-year period.
Loral, which lost its protest on the AIM-9X demonstration award, will have a second chance to play in the short-range missile's development by bidding in next year's engineering and manufacturing development contest, Capt. Thomas MacKenzie, the U.S. Navy's air-to-air weapons program manager, told The DAILY this week.
MacKenzie doesn't see a need for a brand new short- range missile, saying users are satisfied with the AIM-9's performance. AIM-9X "is the next evolutionary step," he says. "I think we're on the right path."
Helicopter production will rise from $5.98 billion this year to $8.98 billion in 2004, the Pentagon predicts in its long-awaited study of the helicopter industrial base (DAILY, Aug. 4, page 177). Of this, military rotorcraft production will fall from a 1987 high of $9.4 billion to about $4.6 billion in 1996-97, then stabilize at $6 billion in 2001, the study says.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORP. will integrate Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) into the E-2C aircraft under a sole source contract planned by U.S. Naval Air Systems Command. "In addition to the physical integration, flying qualities and performance (FQ&P) testing will be performed," NavAir said in an Aug. 1 Commerce Business Daily notice.
LORAL DEFENSE SYSTEMS, St. Paul, Minn., received $40 million under a previously awarded contract for an additional 500,000 manhours of product improvement, technical and technical advisory services for the AN/UYQ-70 Advanced Combat Display System (ADS). Naval Sea Systems Command awarded the contract July 28.
HUGHES AIRCRAFT CO., Fullerton, Calif., is in line for a sole source award from U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command to develop SURTASS Low Frequency Active (LFA) advanced capabilities. The work will include "adaptive beamforming, advanced passive automation and twinline interfacing," and incorporation of the capabilities into the TAGOS-23 system architecture, SPAWAR said in an Aug. 1 Commerce Business Daily notice.
The signing of a memorandum of understanding between France, Germany, Italy and the U.S. on the Medium Extended Air Defense System has slipped from the October timeframe probably to the beginning of next year, a U.S. Army official says. The agreement will probably be hammered out sooner, he said, but the signature process is likely to cause some delay. Secretary of Defense William Perry or his Deputy John White are likely to sign the MOU for the U.S.
Carolyn Huntoon, a longtime NASA life sciences researcher who last year became the first woman to head an agency field center when she took over as director of Johnson Space Center, Tex., will yield her post to direct planning for the first of the "science institutes" NASA is creating to stretch its research dollars.
The U.S. Defense Dept. expects to sign a memorandum of understanding with the U.K. Ministry of Defence "fairly soon" that will help the two governments avoid duplicating each other's Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missile tests and outline the necessary details for data exchange on the ASRAAM, according to Capt. Thomas MacKenzie, the U.S. Navy's air-to-air weapons program manager.
The U.S. Navy is gearing up for a mid-September preliminary design review of both hardware and software for the Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response (SLAM-ER), which sailed through its integrated baseline review late last month. Reporting "no serious disconnects" during IBR, program manager Capt. Rob Freedman says the program's schedule and cost plans are on track and all technical requirements are covered by SLAM-ER's 238 work packages.
House Science Committee Chairman Robert Walker (R-Pa.) has fired off a letter to President Clinton demanding that he rein in John Gibbons, the president's usually low-key science advisor.
LITTON INDUSTRIES said the ninth ship in a series of Aegis guided missile destroyers being built by its Ingalls Shipbuilding unit will be christened Aug. 5 during ceremonies in Pascagoula, Miss. It said the new destroyer is one of 14 vessels of the Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) class contracted to date for production at Ingalls. Litton said the ship will be named Milius (DDG- 69) to honor Navy pilot Capt. Paul L. Milius (1928-1968), who was presumed killed in action during the Vietnam war.
The U.S. Air Force on Friday made the first downselect in its Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) satellite program, choosing teams led by Hughes and Lockheed Martin for pre-manufacturing contracts and eliminating a bid from a team led by Northrop Grumman.
The Joint Requirements Oversight Council has sent back the Mission Needs Statement for the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, saying the services need to build a stronger justification for the weapon, Pentagon and industry sources said Friday. The JROC reviewed the MNS Thursday, but didn't accept or reject it, a Defense Dept. official said. The council sent the draft document back for more work, with JROC Chairman Adm. William Owens the most vocal about his concerns, sources said.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) says it's "an outrage" that BMDO Director Gen. Malcolm O'Neill hasn't yet received an upgraded assessment of the threat of a missile attack on the U.S. that he requested from the intelligence community. The National Security Committee member says a September hearing on the command and control of Russia's nuclear arsenal will also look at "the posture of our intelligence community in bringing to members of Congress and to the American public the threat that exists."
U.S. Army officials were delighted that the Senate restored the budget request for the Corps SAM/MEADS program in action on the fiscal 1996 Pentagon budget last Wednesday, but didn't think the Senate was on the right track in asking for a study to see if missile defense systems based on Patriot and THAAD could replace it.
NASA and Thiokol engineers will continue to studying how best to check Space Shuttle solid rocket booster field joints for voids that have let hot gases reach primary o-rings on the past two Shuttle missions, leaving the upcoming launch schedule still in doubt. Bryan D. O'Connor, deputy associate administrator (Space Shuttle) told The DAILY late Friday that engineers still had not developed an adequate way to check the nozzle joints for voids, having discovered that both x- rays and hand-held ultrasonic devices will not work in all locations.
The Senate, working Friday toward completion of the $264.7 billion fiscal 1996 national security authorization, rejected an attempt to remove the budget firewalls that prevent shifting defense funds into domestic programs.
U.S. Army Gen. George Joulwan, head of the U.S. European Command, has not requested any Joint STARS aircraft for use over Bosnia, partly because "if you use it for a month, the [JSTARS development] program gets slipped a month, and there's a cost associated with that," says Marine Corps Gen. John Sheehan, commander in chief of U.S. Atlantic Command.
Gen. John M. Shalikashvili attempts to rebut criticism from Senate Republicans that U.S. negotiators are willing to give up too much in negotiations with Russia over demarcation between theater missile defenses, which are not covered by the ABM Treaty, and strategic missile defenses, which are. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff tells Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) in a letter that the chiefs plan to use space-based cueing in theater missile defense.
LOCKHEED MARTIN Aero&Naval Systems said it will produce a modified Mk. 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS) shipboard missile launcher for the Turkish Navy. The company and its teammate, United Defense L.P., design, develop, produce and support the Mk. 41. It can support a mixed load of weapons, including the NATO Seasparrow missile, the Evolved Seasparrow in a quad pack, Standard missiles, and the Vertical Launched Antisubmarine Rocket (ASROC).
The U.S. Navy and Air Force are keeping their eye out for new technologies that could go into the AIM-9 family of short-range missiles, says Capt. Thomas MacKenzie, the Navy's air-to-air weapons program manager. Upgrade candidates include rocket motor and warhead technologies, mostly because the low-risk AIM-9X will use the AIM-9M warhead and rocket motor for cost and schedule reasons. If the missile ever uses different energetic components, the Navy also will have to consider insensitive munition technologies, MacKenzie says.
