Government spending will continue to dominate the U.S. space launch industry for at least another 10 years, yet the space launch policy put forward by the Clinton Administration does not provide the guidance necessary to ensure cost-effective space transportation in a time of dwindling budgets, the congressional Office of Technology Assessment stated Tuesday.
McDonnell Douglas introduced a military version of the eight- place, twin-engine MD Explorer no-tail-rotor helicopter in a bid to build new markets for aircraft, now mostly flown by police departments. The company said it's ready to take orders, and could deliver the helicopter-suited for light utility, armed scout and maritime assets-as early as 1997.
An international effort to control orbital debris is the best cure on the horizon for the growing problem, according to a panel of the National Research Council that reviewed orbital debris for NASA. The NRC Committee on Space Debris said in a report released Tuesday that debris is already a bigger threat to orbiting space systems than natural objects, with literally trillions of manmade objects less than 1mm across in orbit, along with tens of millions of objects between 1mm and 1cm in size and perhaps 10,000 objects larger than 10cm in diameter.
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS AND SHORTS GROUP of Bombardier are teaming to bid for two U.K. Ministry of Defense projects-SR(A) 1238, the Advanced Anti-Armor Weapon, and SR(A) 1236, the Conventionally Armed Standoff Weapon. TI and Shorts said at the Paris Air Show that they will offer Griffin-38 and Griffin-36, respectively-variants of the U.S. Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW).
Four Asian airlines-All Nippon, Cathay Pacific, Korean Air and Thai Airways International-gave Boeing enough orders to launch the stretched version of the 777, the 777-300, with orders for 31 planes worth more than $3 billion, Boeing Commercial Airplane Group chief Ron Woodard said yesterday.
Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems has signed an agreement with the Yakovlev Design Bureau in Russia to cooperate on short take- off/vertical lift technology applicable to the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program, Lockheed said yesterday. Lockheed Martin plans to contract with the Russian design bureau for services "associated with Yakovlev's extensive STOVL experience," the Fort Worth, Texas, unit said in a statement from the Paris Air Show. Yakovlev has produced the Yak-36, Yak-38 and supersonic Yak-141.
LORAL AERONUTRONIC, Santa Margarita, Calif., has received an addition to a previous contract from McDonnell Douglas for NITE Hawk pods for the F/A-18 aircraft of Canada, Kuwait and Malaysia. The contract brings the fiscal year 1995 buy of the systems to 47 valued at $99 million. The pod gives pilots an autonomous capability for precision targeting and delivery of laser guided munitions.
Space Systems/Loral said yesterday it has won a contract from Hong Kong-based APT Satellite Co. Ltd. to build a replacement for a satellite destroyed during a launch earlier this year. The Apstar-2R satellite will replace Apstar 2, a communications satellite built by Hughes that was lost in an explosion during a Jan. 25 launch on a Chinese Long March rocket (DAILY, Feb. 2, page 165).
The U.S. Navy and Air Force, satisfied with their pick to develop and build the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System, don't plan to let protests from losing bidders stop their work, according to a Navy official involved in the program. "We feel very confident with our source selection," Cdr. Lance Anderson, deputy of the JPATS Ground-Based Training System (GBTS) program at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, said yesterday. "We feel very comfortable with how we've handled source selection."
LONG SUFFERING DOUGLAS AIRCRAFT finalized orders for five MD80 series jetliners, with Korean Airlines placing orders for three intermediate range twins and Taiwan domestic carrier U Land ordering two MD-892s for delivery in November and December of this year. Korean gets its aircraft next January, February and March.
ARIANE 42P rocket lofted the third satellite in Hughes' DirecTV system into geostationary transfer orbit on Friday evening. The launch of DBS-3 from Kourou, French Guiana, took place at 8:24 p.m. EDT. Satellite controllers at Hughes acquired the first signals from the satellite two hours later and found all systems functioning properly.
The U.S. information warfare community is operating without clear guidance in the absence of a national IW policy, and with Defense Dept. documents that are out of date and under revision, according to a DOD official. Navy Capt. William Gravell, chief of the Joint Staff's information warfare division, said the IW guidelines that do exist are "inadequate or improper in focus."
Boeing finalized a joint venture agreement with its Russian partners establishing its Sea Launch group to compete with Europe's Arianespace and other heavy-lift launchers for lucrative commercial satellite launch business. Allen Ashby, business development VP for Boeing Commercial Space Co., said that under the deal worked out with RSC Energia, NPO Yuzhnoye and Kvaerner, first launch capability should be available by February, 1998.
LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP. will supply the Core Integrated Processor for the C-17 airlifter. Under a contract from McDonnell Douglas valued at about $35 million, Lockheed Martin Control Systems of Johnson City, N.Y., will design, develop and produce the processor, which is the central computer for the C-17's avionics systems.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN said the French Ministry of Defense has signed a letter of offer and agreement for the first two of four E-2C early warning command and control planes. The procurement is put at $562 million and will include support to be used aboard the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and a land base.
Russia's Mil helicopter group, its Rostvertol production plant and France's Sextant Avionique and Thomson-CSF have finalized a joint venture to modernize Mi-24 and export Mi-35 Hind heavy attack helicopters in service worldwide with new Mi-28 rotor systems and avionics. Mil is showing off the resulting Mi-35M (Modifitsirovannyi) at Le Bourget, displaying a ground demonstrator fitted with the Mi-28's five- bladed composite main rotor and X-type tail rotor, but with only a few of Sextant's and Thomson's new avionics.
While increasing reliance on information systems is given the credit for creating a demand for information warfare policy and doctrine, technology shouldn't be relied upon for revolutionary change, Wesley Jordan, vice president of advanced systems for BBN Systems and Technologies, said yesterday. Only tactics will bring about revolutionary change because technology is too slow of a slow driver, Jordan argued at an information warfare conference in Arlington, Va., sponsored by the Technical Marketing Society of America.
ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL has received a $55.3 million contract from the U.S. Air Force for Lot 6 production of the AGM-130 standoff missile system. The contract was awarded June 6 by the USAF's Aeronautical Systems Center.
Bell Helicopter Textron and Britain's GEC-Marconi have offered to fit their updated AH-1W Bell Cobra candidate for the U.K.'s attack helicopter requirement with an advanced composite four-blade rotor, regardless of whether the U.S. goes ahead with a similar upgrade.
The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is looking to increase funding to protect for its security systems, a senior DISA official said in Arlington, Va. The Pentagon agency is already increasing the number of initiatives it is undertaking to defend information systems, but is seeking a funding increase in fiscal year 1997 to establish a "more robust program," said Robert L. Ayers, DISA's director of Information Warfare.
FRENCH ROCKET specialist SEP and U.S. enginemaker Pratt&Whitney agreed yesterday to collaborate on new rocket and space propulsion systems. Initially, the two will work together to identify market needs, mostly in the U.S.
International Space Station design, launch and operations will cost the U.S. some $93.9 billion through 2012, the General Accounting Office estimated in a report released yesterday. In "Space Station: Estimated Total U.S. Funding Requirements" (GAO/NSIAD-95-163), the GAO said its estimate may go down if NASA achieves planned efficiencies in Station and Space Shuttle operations, but it also found "the Space Station's current launch and assembly program is ambitious, and the Shuttle program may have difficulty supporting it."
CFM INTERNATIONAL inked new orders at the Paris Air Show for at least 24 new-design CFM56-7 medium turbofans to power Boeing next-generation 737s ordered by three separate European carriers. Air Europa ordered eight 737- 800 twins, while Lauda Air and Eurobelgian Airlines each ordered two 737- 800s. Deliveries start in 1998.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) is hoping to officially kick off his review of the U.S. intelligence community with a public hearing later this month. The hearing, tentatively scheduled for the last week of June, will deal with broad issues to "establish a strategic outlook on what it is intelligence should collect," a Hill source said.
Boeing is expected today to announce several airline customers for the yet-to-be-launched stretch version of the 777, clearing the way for management to ask Boeing's board for a launch go-ahead. Pratt&Whitney reported one of those customers yesterday-Korean Air plans to take four firm and four option stretched aircraft, designated 777- 300, powered by 98,000 lbst. PW4098 turbofans in an engine deal worth some $850 million. P&W said Korean Air will get its airplanes between the first quarter of 1997 and 2001.
