NASA plans to seek alternate routes to space after last week's loss of the second Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus XL air-launch booster, which threatens to leave a big gap in high-resolution stratospheric ozone monitoring data and strand a number of NASA space science missions on Earth, at least temporarily.
Marginal power levels on Russia's Mir space station may force broadcast of its historic docking with the Space Shuttle Atlantis in black and white television, at least in part. One array on the aging Russian station won't articulate, and a new one won't deploy, but controllers have decided not to try to fix it before the docking mission (DAILY, June 19, page 439). As a result, Mir may not have enough juice to power its color television cameras, the Russians say.
The Senate Armed Services Committee starts marking up its version of the fiscal 1996 defense authorization today and is supposed to finish on Thursday. The personnel subcommittee marks up today at 4 p.m. Tomorrow, it's readiness at 9 a.m., air/land at 2 p.m., seapower at 4 p.m., and strategic forces at 6 p.m. Wednesday morning, it's the acquisition and technology subcommittee at 9 a m. followed by full committee consideration of the subcommittee decisions starting Wednesday at 1 p.m. and continuing all day Thursday.
The Joint Direct Attack Munition and a forward looking infrared system are the big players in the U.S. Navy's impending decision on how to equip its F-14 fighters for the role of precision strike. The cost and operational effectiveness analysis (COEA) of the F-14 strike role is on the desk of Rear Adm. Brent Bennitt, the Navy's air warfare director, Capt. Richard D. Evert said in an interview.
U.S. planners will have to face the fact that theater ballistic missiles and cruise missiles will be available in much greater numbers than they are now, Rear Adm. George Huchting, program manager for the Navy's Aegis program said during a recent missile defense conference in Washington. Over thirty countries will have TBM capability by 2000, Huchting said. "We anticipate there will be 40,000 cruise missiles in various people's hands," he says.
The U.S. Army could substantially reduce the infrastructure for the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system by adopting the U.S. Navy's Cooperative Engagement Capability system, industry sources say. CEC fuses data from a variety of sensors using high transmission communication rates to provide an extended battlefield picture for targeting. Using CEC communication links for THAAD, the Army could cut five High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles out of its nine-HMMWV infrastructure, they say.
Space Systems/Loral investigators were still working Friday to determine the extent of damage to a Japanese communications satellite in an accident during its flight to Arianespace's launch site in French Guiana, with a slip in the satellite's launch date a distinct possibility.
While the two cosmonauts Atlantis will deliver to Mir plan a spacewalk to work on the two malfunctioning solar arrays, a longer term solution to low power on the station must await Atlantis' planned second visit in October. Stowed in its cargo bay will be the Mir Cooperative Solar Array, which was built in Russia with solar cells produced in the U.S. for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space Corp. The international array was delivered to Kennedy Space Center earlier this month.
The Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program office dropped two industry initiatives from a draft Broad Area Announcement in response to a recommendation by the House National Security Committee to decrease program funding in FY '96. Training and mission planning requirements were eliminated from the draft BAA following HNSC's move to reduce "funding for supportability and training," a June 22 Commerce Business Daily notice said. Total funding allocated to this area was around $20 million in FY '96, according to a JAST office spokesman.
Hughes' investigation into the January explosion of a Chinese Long March launcher and the Hughes-built Apstar 2 satellite is like the Energizer bunny: it keeps going, and going, and going. That's because Hughes and China still can't agree whether the rocket or the satellite is to blame. Hughes is walking a tightrope because it doesn't want to anger China, a potentially huge customer for its satellites. The company declines to comment on its investigation other than to say it's still underway.
Science Committee Chairman Robert Walker (R-Pa.) is irritated at the "honey numbers" on overall Space Station costs put forward by the General Accounting Office in a report requested by Station foes on Capitol Hill.
While Raytheon rejoiced over its big JPATS win (DAILY, June 23, page 467), there was largely silence from its defeated competitors. A Cessna Aircraft spokesman said the company would have no formal statement, nor would it immediately address the question of a protest. There was no doubt, however, that officials there were stunned and deeply disappointed.
ARIANESPACE has signed four new launch contracts worth $1.5 billion. The contracts are for the launch of Malaysia's Measat 2 domestic telecommunications satellite in the fall of 1996; Thailand's Thaicom 3 telecommunications satellite in late 1996; Europe's Helios 1B satellite at the end of 1996, and Indonesia's Indostar 1 direct broadcast satellite in late 1996 or early 1997. Arianespace has signed seven new launch contracts this year, bringing its order book to 40 satellite launches.
DIRECT BROADCAST SATELLITE CORP. of Washington has given the go- ahead to Lockheed Martin Astro Space to proceed with a 1990 contract to build two direct broadcast satellites for its planned U.S. DBS service, which is scheduled for startup in the fall of 1997. The identical Astro Space A2100 satellites will each have 32 active 120-watt Ku-band amplifiers that can be reconfigured to 16 230-watt channels to provide additional power for television broadcasting.
It seems to be conventional wisdom these days that the U.S. is in the midst of a transition from the industrial age to the information age. But does this mean that instead of counting warheads, Washington is on the verge of keeping a running total of potential enemies' MIPS and megabytes of RAM? No one knows for sure. What is certain is that, for the first time in years, the Pentagon is excited about something: information warfare. It's the latest thing. It has unlimited possibilities and a relatively small budget. What could be better?
ECHOSTAR COMMUNICATIONS CORP., a direct-to-home satellite broadcasting whose first satellite is slated for launch this fall, has announced the sale of four mission shares of Class A Common Stock at $17 per share in a public offering. The stock will be listed on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol "DISH."
Raytheon Aircraft Co. has won the roughly $7 billion Joint Primary Aircraft Training System contest, ending a heated, year-long debate over the future of U.S. Air Force and Navy pilot training. The fact that the winning aircraft-the Beech Mk. II, based on the Swiss Pilatus PC-9-is a turboprop had no bearing with the source selection officials, acting USAF acquisition chief Darleen Druyun told reporters during a Pentagon briefing yesterday. "Prop versus jet was not something we really had any focused discussion on," she said.
LUCAS AEROSPACE Cargo Systems, Jamestown, N.D., will supply aluminum components for the blocker doors and aft engine strut fairing structural assemblies for the 737-700 airliner under two new contracts from Boeing Canada Technology Ltd. of Winnipeg. Combined value of the contracts is more than $12 million through 1999.
Defense Secretary William J. Perry has told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the House add-on of $553 million in long-lead funding for the B-2 stealth bomber "represents a troubling trend." He said in a June 20 reclama letter, a copy of which was obtained by The DAILY yesterday, that "incremental funding of procurement programs" like the B-2 "allows supporters to buy into a program that cannot be afforded within projected future [defense] budgets." The House voted by a narrow margin to add the money (DAILY, June 15, page 419).
ORBITAL SCIENCES CORP. announced completion of a financing package that includes the private placement of $32 million of its common stock with European investors and $20 million in fixed-rate, unsecured debt financing with a six-year term. The company said it plans to use the $52 million to pay down short-term debt, principally that incurred to finance last year's purchase of Fairchild Space and Defense. The money will also be invested in Orbital projects such as the X-34 small reusable launcher and the Orbimage remote sensing satellite venture.
Crews at Kennedy Space Center were able to repair a leaky helium tank on the Space Shuttle Atlantis yesterday, clearing the way for a launch this afternoon on the first Shuttle/Mir docking mission, but weather at the Florida launch site threatened to force a postponement. Forecasters estimated an 80% chance the weather will not be suitable for launch when the seven-minute rendezvous window opens at 5:08 p.m. EDT today, dropping to 70% for the windows tomorrow and Sunday.
ORBITAL IMAGING CORP., has signed a deal giving the Philippine Satellite Corp. a license to distribute imagery from the OrbView and SeaStar satellite systems. The deal gives the Philippines company exclusive distribution rights within 2,400 kilometers of Manila. Orbital Imaging, a subsidiary of Orbital Sciences Corp., also plans to build a ground receive and image processing facility in Manila.
PANAMSAT has added the Television Corp. of Singapore to its roster of customers on the PAS-2 Pacific Ocean region satellite. TCS will use PAS- 2's highpower C-band to transmit a new family-oriented Mandarin-language channel throughout southeast Asia.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS said the first F-15S fighter for the Royal Saudi Air Force made its first flight June 19 at St. Louis with company test pilots Gary Jennings and Charlie Van Gordon at the controls. The plane will now be painted with Royal Saudi Air Force markings. A formal rollout ceremony at McDonnell Douglas is planned for Sept. 12. Assembly of the plane, the first of 72 for Saudi Arabia, began in October 1993.
The second flight of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Pegasus XL upgrade ended yesterday like the first, with an Air Force range safety officer sending a command destruct signal after an inflight malfunction. A spokesman for Vandenberg AFB, Calif., where the OSC L-1011 launch platform started its flight, said the winged, air-launched booster was destroyed at about 4 p.m. EDT. At the time the Pegasus XL was about 170 miles down range at an altitude of about 90 miles.
