Vitro Corp., a unit of Tracor Inc., has won a one-year, $9.1 million contract from the U.S. Navy to continue its support of submarine-launched ballistic missiles in the Royal Navy. Under the contract awarded by the U.S. Navy Strategic Systems Programs, Vitro will provide weapons systems integration and configuration control services for the U.K.'s Trident II and Polaris fleet ballistic missile program. The contract will cover work on new boats and boats already in the fleet.
BLOCK I UPGRADE of the Space Shuttle Main engine is scheduled to fly aboard the Shuttle Discovery on STS-70, scheduled for a June 8 launch (DAILY, May 2, page 172). The upgrade includes the Phase II-plus powerhead, single coil heat exchanger and the new high pressure oxidizer turbopump, all intended to increase durability, reliability and safety margins, NASA said yesterday.
Congress is likely to approve a multi-year authorization for the International Space Station program this year, endorsing President Clinton's strong support for the project, Rep. Robert Walker (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Science Committee, said yesterday in Arlington, Va. "This is the year for Congress...to clearly submit its commitment to the project" and respond to the high priority Clinton set for Station by excluding it from NASA budget reductions, Walker told the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Lockheed Martin Corp. has renamed its operating units to reflect the merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta that created it. A listing of the new unit names and their antecedents follows: Aeronautics Sector -- Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, formerly Lockheed Advanced Development Co., Palmdale, Calif. Advanced aircraft including the SR-71, U-2 and F-117.
NASA yesterday ordered Thiokol Corp. to shut down its operations at Yellow Creek, Miss., where about 90 workers at the huge plant built to produce the scuttled Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM) have been fabricating and refurbishing solid rocket motor nozzles.
WILLIAM PAUL, senior VP of government affairs of United Technologies Corp., has been elected an executive VP of the corporation and will be a member of its management executive committee, UTC said yesterday. He will continue to be responsible for the corporation's government affairs function in its Washington office, and he will have the additional title of chairman of United Technologies International Operations.
In its first asset-based financing to help a U.S. company sell a used aircraft, the Export-Import Bank will guarantee a $5.9 million Chase Manhattan Bank loan in the $6.78 million purchase by TACA of El Salvador of a 737-200A from ACG Acquisition Corp. TACA leased the aircraft previously from ACG Acquisition, and Eximbank noted that lessors "play an important role in introducing [foreign] airlines to U.S.-manufactured aircraft."
Israel is going to buy Loral Vought's Multiple Launch Rocket System and Hughes' Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire command-link guided (TOW) anti-tank missile under a foreign military sales contract worth approximately $416 million, the Defense Dept. told Congress yesterday.
Army Chief of Staff-designate Gen. Dennis J. Reimer told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that the decision to delay introduction of the RAH-66 Comanche scout/attack helicopter "prolongs the risk" in Army aviation's number one area of deficiency-armed reconnaissance.
A number of restrictions on U.S. aerospace companies doing business oversees defy political reality and should be changed, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown said yesterday. Brown said passage of new export rules was essential to stop aerospace companies being hindered from competing in the global market place by "outmoded" regulations. He criticized Congress for having "sandbagged" the Administration's moves to reform export regulations last year, and expressed the hope that new regulations would be passed in 1995.
A defense spending plan that would see the Pentagon budget at $275 billion by the year 2002 was proposed in a report released yesterday by the Concord Coalition as part of its proposal for eliminating the federal budget deficit by that year. The coalition, a citizens group chaired by former Sens. Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.) and Warren Rudman (R-N.H.), said its preferred plan would cut defense spending by decreasing environmental cleanup costs, consolidating service depots and decreasing the civilian work force.
Orbimage, the Orbital Sciences Corp. subsidiary devoted to remote sensing ventures, plans to launch a low-cost precursor to its planned Eyeglass imaging satellite in 1997. Designated "Orbview," the new satellite design is intended to provide one- and two-meter resolution panchromatic imagery and eight-meter resolution multispectral imagery, Orbimage announced yesterday. The first of the lightweight satellites is scheduled to be launched on a Pegasus XL air-launched booster in 1997, the Orbital subsidiary said.
The Navy's award of a contract for two Kaiser-class oilers to "a technically and financial marginal contractor" that precipitated a $450 million contracting disaster demonstrates the need for contract officers willing to take the heat for not awarding contracts to low bidders who "cannot meet reasonable financial and technical criteria," the deputy DOD inspector general testified yesterday.
Martin Harwit, beleaguered director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air&Space Museum, resigned yesterday as what he termed the "controversy and divisiveness" over the museum's now-scrubbed display of the B-29 that atomic bombed Hiroshima continued. "There is no choice but to resign," Harwit said in his letter of resignation, which had been sought by 81 members of the House of Representatives. "The museum's welfare and future are too important."
GPS not the only system on the block While the U.S. military may try to restrict use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in times of crisis, it won't have as much say in the operation of a similar system that is currently being orbited. Russia is planning to launch nine satellites this year-in bunches of three- for its Glonass global positioning system (GPS) and hopes to have the 24- satellite constellation fully operational by the end of the year.
Raytheon Company, Missile System Division, Bedford, Massachusetts, is being awarded a $9,054,959 modification to a cost plus award fee contract for FY95 PATRIOT engineering services. Work will be performed in Bedford, Massachusetts (78.81%), Burlington, Massachusetts (6.18%), Huntsville, Alabama (6.11%), Andover, Massachusetts (5.86%), Orlando, Florida (1.53%), El Paso, Texas (0.93%), and Wayland, Massachusetts (0.58%), and is expected to be completed by January 30, 1996. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
U.S. intelligence officials are concerned about growing cooperation between Iran and North Korea on a broad range of ballistic missile issues, but they widely agree that no new nations will develop a capability to hit the U.S. with long-range missiles for at least a decade, according to documents released yesterday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
NASA will try to launch three of its four Space Shuttles in the six weeks beginning June 8, sneaking a satellite deployment flight in ahead of the first Shuttle/Mir docking mission to give the Mir crew time to reconfigure their space station to receive the Shuttle Atlantis.
Bell Helicopter Textron, Fort Worth, Texas, was awarded on April 26, 1995, a $10,760,332 modification to a firm fixed price contract for Lot IV retrofit of 38 Kiowa Warrior helicopters. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be completed by May 30, 1995. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on September 30, 1994. The contracting activity is the U.S. Army Aviation and Troop Command, St. Louis, Missouri (DAAJ09- 95-C-0071).
The Pentagon is on the verge of soliciting bids for a multimillion- dollar test program to develop subsystem technologies for the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program, JAST Director Maj. Gen. George Muellner said yesterday. The Joint Integrated Subsystem Technology (JIST) effort will concentrate primarily on two areas: packaging technologies to integrate subsystems such as the auxiliary power unit and environmental control system, and the riskier task of replacing hydraulics with electric systems, also called the "more electric aircraft" effort
MARTIN MARIETTA Electronics&Missiles Group, a unit of Lockheed Martin Corp., Orlando, Fla., received a $5.7 million modification to an earlier contract from U.S. Army Missile Command to exercise Option 3 for an additional 171 HELLFIRE II missiles with insensitive munitions, the Dept. of Defense said on April 28.
Northrop Grumman Corporation, Bethpage, New York, is being awarded a $14,500,000 firm-fixed-price order for the procurement of long-lead spares to support the E-2C aircraft for the government of France, under the Foreign Military Sales Program (FMS). Work will be performed in Bethpage, New York, and is expected to be completed by April 1998. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Air Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00019-94-C-0020).
UNITED DEFENSE LP, Santa Clara, Calif., on April 26 received a $22.9 million award from U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command for Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV7A1) equipment for the government of Brazil under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.
United Technologies Corporation, West Palm Beach, Florida, is being awarded a $17,823,036 Cost Plus Fixed Fee contract for development of the Advanced Turbine Engine Gas Generator in support of the Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technology Program. Contract is expected to be completed October 1999. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Two proposals were received.
The Clinton Administration's fiscal 1996 defense authorization bill would repeal the present law limiting private industry to no more than 40% of depot-level repair and maintenance work and drop the requirement that non-recurring research and development charges be included in a foreign military sales program.
