LORAL FEDERAL SYSTEMS, Owego, N.Y., received an $8.8 million U.S. Army contract for the Communications High Accuracy Location System- Exploitable (CHALS-X), a passive emitter location system used to obtain precise locations of communication emitters. The contract was awarded April 14 by the Army's Communications-Electronics Command C3I Acquisition Center, Warrenton, Va. The original contract was awarded on Sept. 16, 1994.
U.S. AIR FORCE'S Aeronautical Systems Center says it is contemplating a Next Generation Aerial Target (NGAT) program under which a replacement for the tri-service QF-4 target would be developed. "The NGAT will need to be operational starting in 2003 with a planned minimum operational period of ten years," ASC said in an April 19 Commerce Business Daily notice.
Sweden will host demonstrations later this year of the U.S. AH-64A Apache and Russian Mi-28 attack helicopters, and Stockholm will choose one of the two in 1996, Brig. Gen. Lars-Olaf Strandberg said yesterday. Strandberg, Sweden's military attache, told The DAILY in Washington that his country is looking for a total buy of 20 to 25 helicopters.
McDonnell Douglas' jetliner workers, already on notice that they stand to lose their jobs within weeks, could get a reprieve if the long-awaited Saudia fleet-replacement order comes through before the end of June, MDC's top finance executive told reporters yesterday. "There's a lot of talk about something materializing before the end of the second quarter," Executive VP and Chief Financial Officer Herb Lanese said. "If it does, we'll be able to rebound on the upside and build up those production schedules."
TRACOR AEROSPACE, Austin, Tex., on April 14 received a $3.2 million contract from U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command for a joint Army-Marine Corps program to design and develop a prototype demonstration/validation Explosive Standoff Minefield Breacher (ESMB). The device is intended to neutralize mines and submunitions from a safe distance.
The area of communications and networking technology is expected to receive the most proposals from industry in the U.S. Army's Advanced Concepts and Technology (ACT) II program for the second year in a row. Col. William Hubbard, head of the Army's Battle Labs, told reporters at the Pentagon Monday that communications and networking technology prompted the most ACT proposals in fiscal year 1994. He expects a repeat in FY '95.
Lucas Aerospace said it has been chosen as the new sole source supplier of external rescue hoists for the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command. The company said it has delivered seven of a projected 12 hoists for installation on MH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters that AFSOC regards as their most mission capable. Three of the hoists, built by Lucas Aerospace Cargo Systems of Brea, Calif., have been installed on MH-60Gs at Incirlik in Turkey and are being used in Operation Provide Comfort, according to the company.
A 1,350-pound gain in the F-22's weight estimate between the preliminary and critical design reviews is made up of a 500-pound allowance for uncertainty and an 850-pound weight budget increase to help designers meet the next-generation fighter's performance specifications, a top Air Force acquisition official said yesterday.
The General Accounting Office yesterday repeated warnings that the Lockheed-Boeing F-22 fighter program has too much concurrency, but the U.S. Air Force thinks GAO is focusing too much on the number of low-rate aircraft being bought instead of the efficiencies gained from that approach.
U.S. ARMY'S Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., plans to issue solicitations on about May 2 for R&D to upgrade the conventional 155mm projectile inventory. ARDEC said in an April 17 Commerce Business Daily notice that it wants "effective direct fire, competent, 155mm projectiles that utilize a projectile fuze well inserted modular device." The modification "should be capable of successful operation in virtually all types of battlefield environments-weather, dust smoke, etc.," ARDEC said.
THE U.S. ARMY said the eighth person killed in Monday's crash of an Air Force C-21 executive jet in Alabama was Sgt. Pedro Sanchez Mercado of Corpus Christi, Tex. Also killed were Clark Fiester, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, and Maj. Gen. Glenn Profitt II of the Air Education and Training Command (DAILY, April 19, page 97). Mercado was assigned to the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington, Va.
A new National Critical Technologies Report is generally optimistic about the U.S. position in aerospace technologies, but sees continued challenges across a broad front from Japan and Europe.
HARRIS CORP. will provide secure tactical radios for U.S. Special Operations Forces under an $85 million contract. Under the five-year contract from U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill AFB, Fla., Harris RF Communications Div., Rochester, N.Y., will provide up to several thousand AN/PRC-138 manpack and vehicular-mounted radios with built-in communications security encryption devices.
UNITED DEFENSE LP, Ground Systems Div., York, Pa., received an additional $48.5 million under a U.S. Army contract on April 13 for 54 M109A5 Self Propelled Howitzers. The original contract, from Army Armament and Chemical Acquisition and Logistics Activity, Rock Island, Ill., was awarded in November 1993.
DORNIER GmbH, Friedrichshafen, Germany, has entered into an agreement with Comsat RSI under which Comsat will market and manufacture Dornier's proprietary Mobile Antenna and Sensor Tower (Mast) in the U.S., Canada, "and other certain markets." The Comsat unit said the mast's "superior" pointing accuracy, rapid deployment capabilities, height and heavy payload capabilities make will appeal to a variety of commercial, government and military requirements.
Worldwide spacecraft launches in the first quarter of 1995 Worldwide spacecraft launches in the first quarter of 1995 are listed in the following table. A total of 19 space launches with 34 spacecraft were attempted, of which two launch vehicles with four spacecraft failed to orbit. There is also a controversy over whether the German-Japanese Express recoverable spacecraft ever achieved orbit.
U.S. Air Force and Pentagon officials declined yesterday to speculate on the cause of the crash of a C-21 executive jet in Alabama Monday that killed all eight people aboard, including Clark Fiester, assistant secretary of the AF for acquisition, and Maj. Gen. Glenn Profitt II, director of plans and operations at the Air Education and Training Command at Randolph AFB, Tex.
QUALCOMM, INC., a provider of two-way mobile satellite services to the trucking industry, has signed an agreement with Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Orbcomm affiliate to resell Orbcomm services with its own trailer tracking and cargo monitoring services. Orbcomm will result two-way message communications worldwide via a network of 26 low-Earth orbit satellites. The first two satellites were orbited April 3, with another 24 set for launch by early 1997.
TRIMBLE NAVIGATION, Sunnyvale, Calif., has won a $1.3 million contract to provide Global Positioning System (GPS) Integrity Monitoring Stations for the U.S. Coast Guard's Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS), which will provide free navigation information for coastal areas, harbors and waterways in the continental U.S., most of Alaska and Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
The U.S. Air Force's Phillips Laboratory plans to issue a solicitation for the first phase of its "Mightysat" effort on about May 1. The lab said in an April 18 Commerce Business Daily notice that proposals will be due 30 days after issuance. The request for proposals will go to CTA of McLean, Va., the lab said, but other qualified parties are also invited to express their interest in the effort, which involves refurbishment of a CTA micro-satellite bus, integration support for a set of experimental payloads, launch, and on- orbit operations support.
CANADIAN SPACE AGENCY has accepted a data processing system for its Radarsat remote sensing satellite from MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, Vancouver, B.C. The system will process all 26 of Radarsat's beams and beam combinations for the space agency and Radarsat International, which has been licensed to commercially distribute Radarsat data worldwide. Radarsat is scheduled for launch this fall on a Delta II rocket being provided by NASA in exchange for data from the satellite. The spacecraft's bus was built by Ball Aerospace under a subcontract from Spar Aerospace.
European Fighter Aircraft (EFA) prototypes of Britain, Germany and Italy are ready for flight tests with new flight control system software and upgraded avionics, a British Aerospace spokesman said yesterday. "All three of them will be flying in about another three weeks," he said. The British DA.2 will fly first, he said, probably in the next two weeks. The EFAs, which have been laid up since last year for flight control system (FCS) upgrades, had been expected to fly earlier this year.
ANTENNAS FOR COMMUNICATIONS (AFC), Ocala, Fla., has received a contract to provide Fox Broadcasting Co. with satellite earth station equipment for the network's U.S. affiliates. AFC will manufacture and install advanced satellite antenna systems that can look at multiple satellites simultaneously. The project is expected to be completed by the spring of 1996.
HUGHES NETWORK SYSTEMS has announced the commercial availability of its DirecPC high-speed digital communications service. DirecPC employs small-dish technology and satellite transmission for the high-speed delivery of digital objects-such as software, video, Internet documents and news programming-directly to the desktop. Hughes said DirecPC will reduce the typical wait for modem delivery of a large internet file from an hour to 90 seconds.
MISSION RESEARCH CORP., Santa Barbara, Calif., on April 12 received a $100,000 increment as part of a $5,525,402 cost plus fixed fee contract to develop nuclear weapons effects for tactical battlefield engagement modeling. The Defense Nuclear Agency, which awarded the contract, said 50 bids were solicited on Nov. 22, 1994, and one received.
