A low-orbit navigation satellite launched by Russia earlier this month is the first in a new batch of modified spacecraft capable of user tracking and data relay along with regular positioning service. The satellite, officially named Cosmos 2315, was launched by Russia's Space Forces from the Plesetsk site at 11:09 p.m. EDT July 4. A Cosmos-3M launcher inserted the satellite into a nominal orbit with an apogee of 1,027 kilometers, a perigee of 988 kilometers, an inclination of 82.91 degrees and a period of 104.99 minutes.
General Electric may finally get the chance to finish F-15/F110 qualification testing it began six years ago but abandoned when the U.S. Air Force stopped buying the McDonnell Douglas fighters. Thanks to House Appropriators who found the $5 million needed, GE plans to re-start qualification flight testing in December, kicking off a 25-flight test series. The F110 flew 21 qualification flights in the F-15 in 1989 as a potential rival to the F-15's Pratt&Whitney F100 engine.
IRIDIUM INC. has filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed offering aimed at raising $300 million. The offering of senior subordinated discount notes is expected to take place in September and will be underwritten by Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch.
The U.S. Air Force's newest unit, the 11th Reconnaissance Squadron, for unmanned aerial vehicles, will stand up on July 29 with a ceremony at Nellis AFB, Nev., Pentagon officials say. The AF has picked a lieutenant colonel to command the squadron, but is keeping his name quiet until the stand-up. Whether the squadron will be based at Nellis isn't yet final, although Air Combat Command has asked for a staff of 57 to be assigned there for the UAV unit. The AF is still doing site surveys at other installations.
LOCKHEED MARTIN'S ATLAS launcher was chosen to launch the Superbird-C communications satellite for Japan's Space Communications Corp. (SCC), a joint venture of 28 Mitsubishi companies. The launch on an Atlas IIAS is scheduled for mid-1997 from Cape Canaveral. The satellite, being built by Hughes, will support the commercial market and the Japanese government. It will join two other Superbird satellites already on orbit.
The House National Security Committee, which believes that the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program is being led by its least important requirement-the Marine Corps' need for a vertical lift aircraft- will give new USMC Commandant Gen. Charles Krulak "a chance to make his case," says Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), chairman of the HNSC R&D subcommittee. The House panel has been critical of JAST management, although Weldon says he "can't point to any one thing. There's just a general feeling that the program hasn't been managed well."
Hughes' commercial satellite business was already booming this year, but the Inmarsat-P deal, the largest single commercial satellite contract in the company's history, pushes its backlog to a record 29 satellites. Company execs say they're planning to hire 100-200 new employees as a result of the business boom.
ISRAEL'S Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. received its largest order ever for a two-way network, from GE Spacenet. The order involves a two-way very small aperture terminal (VSAT) hub station and 3,000 remote sites to be used for credit card authorization by a "major U.S. gas station chain," Gilat said.
The NATO mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina is about to receive some additional help in the area of suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD). The German Luftwaffe is set to deploy eight HARM missile-carrying Tornado ECRs to Piacenza, Italy, this week, an official at the German embassy in Washington says. German ground troops and equipment were deployed to the theater last week.
The lightweight heavy-fuel engine that DOD and contractors are actively seeking to fit the Joint Tactical Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle and its close range Maneuver variant isn't likely to come from one of the big names in engine manufacturing. One Maneuver UAV contractor who has surveyed the HFE market closely in search of an engine solution says "it's the perfect thing for a very sharp engineer with a small shop."
U.S. manufacturers of unmanned aerial vehicle aren't left to fend entirely for themselves in the international marketplace. Roaming the exhibit halls of the recent Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems (AUVS) convention in Washington was a representative from the U.S. embassy in Qatar, inviting contractors to attend a trade show in the region and offering the embassy's support in marketing American UAV products to Middle Eastern countries.
Hughes' $1.3 billion contract to build satellites for the Inmarsat-P medium-Earth orbit (MEO) mobile satellite system initially raised questions about the company's partial ownership of American Mobile Satellite Corp. (AMSC), which last year petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a license to build a MEO global satellite system that would have competed with Inmarsat-P. But an AMSC spokeswoman tells The DAILY that those plans are now on hold.
The House Appropriations Committee has zeroed funding for Corps SAM and Boost Phase Interceptor, probably dimming hopes for any fiscal 1996 support for these two theater missile defense programs, held in low regard by Congress. The committee said it was concerned about "the lack of focus" in both Corps SAM (also known as Medium Extended Air Defense System) and BPI, and that "neither program is workable or affordable as currently conceived."
The Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office has the unmanned aerial vehicle and the payload to comply with a fiscal 1995 congressional authorization to fly signals intelligence sensors on the Tier II Predator. What it lacks is the $20 million appropriation to integrate the two pieces of hardware. DARO Director AF Maj. Gen. Ken Israel has taken some money from his management reserve to start the program, but needs full funding this month to finish it this fiscal year.
Producers of the hit summer movie "Apollo 13" paid NASA $6,500 an hour for flights on the KC-135 "Vomit Comet" where weightlessness scenes were filmed, giving an idea of the commercial potential of a NASA asset targeted on Capitol Hill for privatization.
SYMPOSIUM titled "Technologies for Precision Air Strike Operations in Rapid-Reaction and Localized-Conflict Scenarios" will be held Oct. 16-19 in Seville, Spain, by the mission systems panel of NATO's AGARD unit.
INMARSAT-P mobile satellite communications spinoff was been granted membership in the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), an eight year old group comprised of licensed mobile network operators and national regulatory authorities throughout western Europe.
The first U.S. Air Force crew will fly a reactivated SR-71A on Tuesday, making an out-and-back flight from Edwards AFB, Calif. An AF crew has flown the two-seat SR-71B trainer twice, making the first B model flight on June 14. But, without congressional direction to the contrary, the Air Force will start tearing down the two reactivated Blackbirds in about two months.
LORAL FEDERAL SYSTEMS' new software to control the orbit and direct operations of the next generation of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites has passed a 22-day functional qualification test. Loral engineers and Air Force GPS operators verified that the ground control software met all but seven of the 2,492 requirements for the new GPS Block IIR satellites, the company said, adding that delivery was ahead of schedule.
Abiding by its pledge to emphasize readiness and quality of life over modernization, the Defense Dept. has asked Congress to reprogram roughly $1.1 billion in fiscal 1993-95 funds. If Congress approves the request, procurement-including nearly $152 million in Air Force aircraft and $46 million in AF missiles-will be the main bill-payer to personnel and operations and maintenance (O&M) accounts, according to DOD documents.
If the Air Force were trying to build the AGM-137 Tri- Service Standoff Attack Missile today, requirements would be significantly diminished, upgrades to existing systems would be acceptable, off-the-shelf technology would be encouraged, and there'd be more discussion between the service and industry, McCloud says. "I am going to tell you that I need to kill a target with a certain probability. You tell me how to do it. You come in with your ideas. It should not matter to me if it's a modification of an existing system or a completely new system," he explains.
The Defense Dept. isn't quite sure how much information warfare will cost. "How much money we're going to throw at it...remains to be seen," says Anthony Valletta, DOD's C3I acquisition chief. IW "is now being looked at to see what we can do within the resources that we have for the area to accomplish what we need to accomplish," he says in an interview. "We don't have all of the different answers yet. It all depends on how much we can afford."
USAF requirements director Brig. Gen. David McCloud is skeptical about whether UAVs will eventually be able to take over the Joint STARS mission, a question recently raised by AF Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman (DAILY, June 19, page 436). "JSTARS is a big radar. A huge radar," McCloud said, adding that he's not sure a drone could carry a radar that would get the standoff range and fidelity that Joint STARS needs. "That's a ways down the road. It depends on how the technology jumps," he says, adding that the AF will keep an open mind on the possibility.
NASA astronauts examined an orbital debris pit in a window of the Space Shuttle Discovery and wrestled with an experimental military video camera Wednesday, while aboard Russia's Mir space station a malfunctioning space suit kept cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev on a short tether during a spacewalk. Ultimately the Russian extravehicular activity succeeded as planned, and the cosmonauts safely returned to Mir to await the arrival tomorrow of the Progress M-28 cargo capsule, launched yesterday from Baikonur.
The Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office is in the middle of several upgrades to the U-2 high-flying spy plane that will, by the end of 1998, put the fleet in "the best shape it's been in in the last 20 years," DARO Director Maj. Gen. Ken Israel told The DAILY earlier this year.
