WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS introduced an advanced mobile telephone designed to serve Australia. The Series 1000 Mobile Satellite Telephone will allow voice, data and facsimile communications throughout Australia and up to 200 miles offshore via that nation's Optus MobileSat service. Similar Series 1000 mobile satellite phones will also be sold for use with satellite systems in the U.S. and Canada.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory contracts ranging toward $50,000 each will go to 23 companies and universities NASA has selected to help evaluate technologies to be validated on its New Millennium demonstration satellites, the space agency announced.
A Japanese communications satellite built by Space Systems/Loral was damaged during flight to its launch site when the container that was carrying it apparently was not re-pressurized during the airplane's descent, sources said yesterday. The mishap occurred last Friday when the recently completed N-Star A satellite was being shipped from the U.S. to Arianespace's launch facility in Kourou, French Guiana, on an unpressurized Russian-built Antonov transport aircraft, the sources said.
House National Security Committee Chairman Floyd Spence (R-S.C.) said yesterday that he would try to work out committee disagreements with the House Intelligence Committee on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) programs before going to conference with the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Consortium for Materials Development in Space (CMDS) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville has decided to spend the first launch voucher issued by NASA with EER Systems for a suborbital microgravity research flight out of White Sands.
MAGNAVOX ELECTRONICS INC., Fort Wayne, Ind., will supply 43,376 AN/SSQ-110A sonobuoys under a $34.5 million contract from U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Div., Indianapolis. The contract was awarded June 12.
After a year of work, the Pentagon is about to publish a detailed guidebook for the military services on how to handle industrial base issues, according to DOD economic security chief Joshua Gotbaum. Each service has tried to develop some sort of framework on its own, often with little success. For instance, the Army asked 106 ammunition companies to answer a survey about their position in the market and how they are coping with the downsizing. At least half declined to respond.
LITTON INDUSTRIES' Ingalls Shipbuilding Div., Pascagoula, Miss., said it will continue engineering and technical services work on Spruance (DD-963) and Kidd (DDG-993) class destroyers under a five-year, $39.5 million contract from the U.S. Navy. Total potential value of the contract, first awarded in November 1992, is $188.9 million, Litton said.
GENERAL DYNAMICS CORP.'S Electric Boat Div., Groton, Conn., will continue design and development work supporting the New Attack Submarine (NSSN) program under an $88.4 million Naval Sea Systems Command contract awarded June 16.
TEXTRON DEFENSE SYSTEMS, Wilmington, Mass., received a $15.8 million contract June 20 from Naval Air Systems Command for two AN/SPN- 46(V) automatic carrier landing systems.
U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman has convened a four-person panel to help determine why the service has had so many aircraft accidents in recent months. Since Jan. 1, the AF has had 18 Class A accidents-incidents resulting in fatalities, aircraft destruction or repairs of at least $1 million-and 10 of these have occurred in the last two months.
SECOND AND THIRD HUNTER unmanned aerial vehicle systems were accepted by the Defense Dept. June 15 following completion of acceptance testing. The second Hunter system will be transferred to the U.S. Army's C Company, 304 Military Intelligence Battalion, Ft. Huachuca, Ariz. System three will be used by the Joint Tactical UAV office for environmental and electromagnetic testing at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., and Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz. It will then be given to the U.S. Navy as a step to fulfilling the shipboard requirement .
U.S. NAVAL Command and Control Ocean Systems Center, San Diego, awarded contracts for effort on shipboard HF surface wave radar to Raytheon Co., Wayland, Mass. ($6.6 million), and Lockheed Martin Sanders, Nashua, N.H. ($7.1 million). The contracts were awarded June 1.
WOODS HOLE Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Mass., will perform unmanned undersea vehicle engineering services under a $7.1 million contract awarded June 7 by the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Div., Newport, R.I.
APEX TECHNOLOGY INC., Arlington, Va., received a $9.7 million contract from the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme, Calif., for installation of combat system and command, control, communications, computer and intelligence (C4I) systems. The contract was awarded May 31.
SYNETICS CORP., Wakefield, Mass., on June 15 received a $22.6 million award from the Dahlgren Div. of the Naval Surface Warfare Center for Aegis Mk. 27 management support. Aegis Mk. 27 elements are discrete functional computer program areas, including SPY radar, weapon control and fire control.
AWA DEFENCE INDUSTRIES LTD., Aero Systems Div., Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, received an $11.9 million contract from U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command June 20 for NULKA all-up round testing, engineering development models and associated data. The Dept. of Defense said the NULKA is made up of an electronic warfare payload mounted on an Australian- developed rocket-powered, thrust-vector controlled vehicle designed to be a decoy to incoming missiles.
Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch said yesterday that he doesn't believe a U.S. intelligence failure was involved in the shootdown of a U.S. F-16 aircraft over Serbian-held territory in Bosnia on June 2.
British Aerospace yesterday backed out of a bidding war for U.K. shipbuilder VSEL, withdrawing its offer in the wake of a higher bid from Britain's General Electric Co. (GEC). BAe had already upped its offer for VSEL to around 17.45 pounds per share (DAILY, June 6, page 369). But GEC jumped in with a bid of 21.50 pounds per share, a price BAe ultimately decided not to match. VSEL shares fell 30 pence to 21.33 pounds after the news, while BAe shares rose 17, to 549, Reuter reported from London.
ANALYSIS&TECHNOLOGY INC., North Stonington, Conn., is working under a five-year, $25.4 million contract awarded May 25 by Naval Undersea Warfare Center Detachment, New London, Conn. The contract calls for effort on multi-platform sonar, combat and weapon system advance concept requirements.
The U.S. Air Force sees omnibus contracts as one way of speeding up acquisition and is now considering whether it can let these types of multi- year contracts, an official of the service's Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass., said Tuesday in Washington.
When the U.S. Air Force releases a draft operational requirements document later this summer for the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, it will specify only two key performance parameters: range and mission effectiveness. All other needs and thresholds in the AGM-137 Tri-Service Standoff Attack Missile follow-on program will be tradable for cost, Harry Schulte, AF program executive officer for conventional strike, told The DAILY Tuesday during an interview in his Pentagon office.
The U.S. Air Force's new Evolved Expandable Launch Vehicle (EELV) and Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) programs are leading the way in the Pentagon's efforts to streamline procurement and utilize off-the-shelf components, according to a senior space acquisition official.
Beginning Aug. 1 the town of Leninsk, located in Kazakhstan and servicing the Baikonur Cosmodrome, will come under control of the Russian Federation under a provision of the lease Russia has signed with its neighboring former Soviet republic to use the spaceport. On June 16 Russian Vice Premier Alexey Bol'shakov and Kazakh First Vice Premier Nugmatzhan Isingarin signed an agreement under which Leninsk and the adjacent area, including two Kazakh settlements, will shift to Russian jurisdiction for the duration of the 20-year cosmodrome lease.
FLIR SYSTEMS INC., Portland, Ore., will supply 22 Navigation Thermal Imaging System (NTIS) and 12 Electronic Circuit Board (ECB) autotracker assemblies to the Naval Surface Warfare Center's Crane Div. under an $8.5 million contract awarded June 20.
