Unmoved by last week's DOD findings that building bombers doesn't require a unique industry, Northrop Grumman notes that Congress will be the arbiter on that topic. The major question facing lawmakers, a company spokesman says, is whether the U.S. can afford to keep its "unique" long-range bomber advantage if the B-2 program is shut down. Northrop doesn't dispute that the aerospace industrial base can provide bombers, "but how much would it cost and how long would it take?" the company official asked. If Congress wants the U.S.
The House Appropriations national security subcommittee late Thursday finished marking up a $244 billion fiscal 1996 Pentagon appropriations bill that closely followed the House defense authorization, except that it added $200 million to the U.S. Air Force's request for the F-22 advanced tactical fighter program.
Language in the House VA/HUD fiscal 1996 appropriations bill calling for NASA to close its Goddard, Marshall and Langley centers isn't the only part of the bill kicking up a storm. The panel's decision to terminate the Cassini Saturn orbiter and indefinitely delay the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) and Gravity Probe B has rankled supporters of space science. That should be evident when the House Science panel's space subcommittee marks ups its FY '96 NASA authorization bill, scheduled for Wednesday.
Launch of the Asiasat 2 commercial communications satellite is expected no earlier than late September. The satellite was built by Lockheed Martin Astro Space for Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. (Asiasat).
The House Appropriations national security subcommittee markup of the fiscal 1996 defense appropriations bill boosted the $48 million request for the Tier III Minus unmanned aerial vehicle by $35 million, congressional sources said Friday. They also said the panel approved the requested $117 million in research and development funding for the Tier II Plus UAV. The House National Security Committee had increased the amount by $60 million.
Mir 19 cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Nikolai Budarin donned spacesuits Friday to go outside and free two fouled solar arrays, restoring full power on their aging orbital station. A spokesman in Houston for the Shuttle/Mir portion of the International Space Station program said Russian space officials told their NASA counterparts Friday that the six-hour extravehicular activity (EVA) achieved all of its goals and paved the way for repositioning the Krystal module after its critical role in the first Shuttle/Mir docking mission.
The $244 billion fiscal 1996 defense appropriations bill marked up by the House Appropriations national security subcommittee last week may be before the full Appropriations Committee on Friday, if the House is in session that day. In the Senate, the Armed Services Committee's FY '96 defense authorization is scheduled to be on the Senate floor beginning July 31, the last week of legislative activity before the planned August recess.
Lockheed Martin has baselined the NK-33 engine, developed in the 1960s for Russia's N-1 moon rocket program, into its July 3 bid for the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) effort, sources say. But that doesn't mean the company definitely plans to use the engine, which is being marketed by Aerojet. Lockheed Martin is also looking at derivative of Russia's RD-170 engine or an upgrade of the Rocketdyne MA-5A engine currently used on the Atlas booster.
Israel Aircraft Industries is working on two unmanned aerial vehicles derived from its new long-endurance Heron drone, unveiled just a month ago at the Paris Air Show, IAI officials told The DAILY. The E-Hunter and the Heron II will round out IAI's stable of medium- and high-altitude air vehicles, which also includes the short-range Hunter Joint Tactical UAV system.
Prospective workers at Russia's privately held RSC Energia have been protected from the military draft under a decree signed last month. President Boris Yeltsin granted "state service" exemptions to students preparing to work at the Russian space giant, even though 49% of stock in the company is now privately held. Students preparing for work at the state-owned Khrunichev rocket factory, by comparison, received no exemption, a slight seen in Moscow as evidence of the lobbying prowess of Energia.
The Defense Dept. Friday said it incorrectly reported the amount of a U.S. Air Force contract to McDonnell Douglas for C-17 work. It said the amount wasn't $1 billion (DAILY, July 14, page 59), but $12.6 million.
-- STERLING SOFTWARE INC., Dallas, has signed a $40 million, ten-year contract with the U.S. Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center to design, develop and support a major weather depiction and forecast system and an associated central database system for Air Force Global Weather Central at Offutt AFB, Neb. Work under the Cloud Depiction and Forecast System II contract will be carried out by Sterling's Information Technology Div.
Hughes Aircraft Co. has won a $51 million engineering and manufacturing development contract to design, develop and test the U.S. Army's Land Warrior System for the soldier. With partners Motorola and Honeywell, Hughes beat out Litton Industries for the contract. Motorola is the prime contractor for the next- generation 21st Century Land Warrior program. Under Land Warrior, Hughes will integrate existing technology for quick fielding.
The Inmarsat-P mobile satellite project is expected to announce next week that it has tapped Hughes Aircraft Co. to build the 12 satellites for its medium-Earth orbit constellation. Inmarsat-P said earlier this week that is has signed a deal worth more than $1.3 billion with an American company that is "one of the world's leading satellite manufacturers."
The U.S. Patent Office is nearing release of revised versions of two patents TRW has applied for to cover its Odyssey satellite system, sources said yesterday. The office is hoping to release patents next week that will contain "more restrictive" language that was negotiated between the office and TRW, a source said. TRW had no comment yesterday.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS yesterday received $1 billion U.S. Air Force contract for initial follow-on flight testing and affordability program support for the C-17 airlifter.
Astronauts deployed a new Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-G) yesterday, about six hours after the Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off with an upgraded Space Shuttle Main Engine riding in its No. 1 engine slot. NASA said both the launch and the satellite deployment went well, setting TDRS-G up for a boost to its final geosynchronous orbit atop an Inertial Upper Stage (IUS). Once operational as TDRS-7, the satellite will be positioned over the Pacific Ocean at 171 degrees West longitude as a "schedulable spare" used to support Shuttle missions.
U.K. MINISTRY OF DEFENCE has officially selected conventionally armed Tomahawk cruise missiles for its submarine fleet, a Pentagon spokesman said yesterday. The Royal Navy's subs will carry up to 200 Block 3 Tomahawks, each with a 750-pound high-explosive warhead.
The Senate Armed Services Committee has called for establishment of a Senate select committee to review "the continuing value and validity" of the ABM Treaty, and during its one-year review wants all efforts to modify or clarify the Treaty to cease.
-- BOEING DEFENSE&SPACE GROUP has begun fabrication of composite wing-skin panels for the first F-22 fighter. Boeing said it is using a contour tape-laying machine to apply layers of composite resin-impregnated tape to form the supper wing-skin panel of the left wing. "This is an important milestone in the manufacturing phase of the F-22," said Frank Statkus, Boeing F-22 vice president and program manager. "It's exciting to see our designs taking shape as hardware."
GKN's Westland will build McDonnell Douglas AH-64D Apache attack helicopters for Britain's army air corps, new Defense Secretary Michael Portillo confirmed yesterday, announcing a program to build 24 fewer helicopters than planned but for 500 million pounds more than originally proposed.
-- AAR CORP., Elk Grove, Ill., said it has received contracts valued at more than $9 million, including options, for overhaul of engine and airframe components for the U.S. Air Force as well as rapid deployment support products for the U.S. Army.
