By promising to simultaneously boost defense spending and cut taxes, Congress has tied its hands too tightly to make any dramatic changes in the Pentagon's fiscal 1996 budget request, Defense Dept. Comptroller John Hamre predicted yesterday. To deliver on its promises, Congress would have to cut $49 billion from domestic spending this year-roughly $1 out of every $5, Hamre said at an Electronic Industries Association conference in Washington. "I seriously doubt that they will cut $50 billion from domestic accounts," he remarked.
NASA has signed cooperative agreements with Lockheed, Rockwell and McDonell Douglas for 15-month concept definition and design studies that could lead to construction of one or more X-33 Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) flying prototypes. The space agency said yesterday each of the companies will receive about $7 million during Phase I of the RLV effort, when they will develop X-33 business investment strategies, vehicle design and operations plans. The companies will be expected to match the government investment during the 15-month period.
Crews at the Baikonur Cosmodrome have finished integrating payloads into the Spektr laboratory module destined for a May launch to the Mir space station, and NASA managers have decided as a result that they will not need to reverse the upcoming Space Shuttle launch schedule to accommodate any further delay in Spektr's often-delayed launch.
Defense Secretary William Perry will use a week-long trip to former Soviet republics, beginning today, to promote non-defense spending and pitch investment of private U.S. capital, a senior defense official told reporters at the Pentagon. Perry will be accompanied on his trip to Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan by executives from a dozen American companies and by representatives of Oversees Private Investment Corp., which has assisted joint ventures between U.S. companies and firms in the FSU. The group will to try to bolster U.S.
Texas Instruments Defense Systems & Electronics Group said yesterday that the U.S. Air Force has completed operational tests of the 4,700-pound, 19-foot-long GBU-28A/B Paveway laser guided bomb. The tests are part of a product improvement program contract awarded to Texas Instruments in 1993 to improve the performance of the GBU-28 "bunker buster," first deployed in the 1991 Gulf War. With support from Lockheed Corp. and TI, the weapon was designed, developed and built in only 27 days.
The U.S. Air Force's National Air Intelligence Center plans to award a five-year contract to support exploitation of measurement and signal intelligence (MASINT) data.
Taking aim at the Pentagon's prioritization of readiness over modernization, a former Defense Dept. research and engineering chief called for defense leaders to "significantly" reduce the force structure to free money for the development of new technologies and procurement of new weapon systems. Donald Hicks, now chairman of Hicks and Associates, used the example of a soldier with a machine gun battling a dozen adversaries with clubs to make his point that state-of-the-art technologies are force multipliers.
The U.S. Air Force will need 120 replacement Lockheed F-16s and 18 to 20 McDonnell Douglas F-15Es to meet its plans to maintain 20 fighter wing equivalents in the coming decade, a senior service official said yesterday. The planes will be needed to plug a "very serious" attrition problem that will emerge between 2000 and 2010, Brig. Gen. David J. McCloud, director of operational requirements for the Air Force, said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on airland forces.
The Pentagon's avionics needs greatly exceed current budget allocations, a situation that will force industry and government to find new ways to cut costs, according to a new study by the Electronic Industries Association. The study, described Tuesday at an EIA conference in Washington, predicted that avionics dollars would remain steady between about $6 billion and $8 billion for procurement, and around $8 billion to $10 billion for research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E). Richard Peal, who headed EIA's commercial avionics study, and Charles W.
A commission has been convened to investigate why the new Start launcher failed to orbit a triple international payload after what at first seemed to be a successful launch on March 28 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. During ascent of the solid-fueled booster the Strategic Rocket Forces' tracking station serving Plesetsk detected normal ignition of the fifth stage. However, the Rocket Forces facilities do not permit monitoring of the final orbital insertion and payload separation phase.
UNISYS CORP. said it has received a $1.1 million contract to provide live- fire training equipment and installation services to the Royal Saudi Infantry Corps School at Khamis Mushayt in Saudi Arabia. The McLean, Va., corporation also said it has received $4.4 million in funding for the second year of a five-year contract from the U.S. Army for similar equipment and services.
An Ariane 44LP successfully placed two satellites in orbit Tuesday evening, marking a successful return-to-flight for Europe's Arianespace consortium. The rocket lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 6:14 p.m. EST carrying the 3,916-pound, Hughes-built Brasilsat B2 telecommunications satellite and 3,960-pound, Aerospatiale-built Hot Bird 1 European direct broadcast satellite. The flight, the first since Arianespace experienced a third-stage failure in December (DAILY, Dec.
Top defense officials yesterday reviewed 15 candidates for fiscal 1996 Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations, including one industry-proposed idea to build a helicopter with low life-cycle costs. Under the so-called Low LCC Helicopter program, the Navy would run an open competition to lease sealift helicopters and crews at fixed per-year costs, according to Larry Lynn, who will soon leave his post as Defense Dept. advanced technology chief to become the director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency. "We are supporting the Navy on that," Lynn said.
The U.S. Air Force's Air Combat Command has released Mission Area Plans (MAPS), documents that identify its modernization needs and acquisition and R&D priorities for the next 25 years. In a March 30 Commerce Business Daily notice, ACC said the classified documents are available to qualified parties. "The U.S. Air Force uses the MAP products as major guides for changing tactics, training, and procedures and investing scarce dollars to modernize its forces," ACC said.
Although deployment of a national missile defense (NMD) system would cost between $29 billion and $48 billion, depending on the number of sites involved, there are a number of cheaper options, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). In a six-page letter sent to Rep. James Exon (D-Neb.) last Thursday, the CBO said Congress could adopt an entirely different approach to the Pentagon's January 1993 NMD plan, which was trimmed down by the Clinton Administration. Republicans in Congress have been pushing legislation that would require the Defense Dept.
UNISYS CORP. said its Government Systems Group has received a $39.24 million contract from E-Systems to support the Royal Australian Air Force's upgrade of the P-3C aircraft. Unisys, as a subcontractor to E-Systems, said it will provide the DMS 2000 Data Management System for 18 RAAF P-3C aircraft and for the Integrated Test and Training Facility in Australia. Unisys said the DMS 2000 will be managed by its Electronic Systems business unit in Eagan, Minn., and that production will take place in Pueblo, Colo., and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
NASA managers believe it would take "a year or two, minimum" to transfer Space Shuttle operations to a prime contractor, plus a shift in the reusable space plane's mission if the contractor is to operate the Shuttle as a private commercial venture. Administrator Daniel S. Goldin told the House Appropriations VA, HUD and independent agencies subcommittee yesterday that the decision on whether to place Shuttle operations under a single prime contractor will be made along with other NASA restructuring decisions, currently set for mid- May.
The Pentagon is evaluating increasing the buy for the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) beyond present plans for 19 systems and one test article, Pentagon procurement executive Paul G. Kaminski testified yesterday. Kaminski, under secretary of defense for acquisition and technology, told the House National Security research and development subcommittee that an evaluation is ongoing into the need for a bigger Joint STARS force that would take "on the order of" six months to complete.
Investigation of the technology risks of transitioning communications, navigation and identification modules of the F-22 fighter to current aircraft, including the F-15 and F-16, is the aim of a U.S. Air Force research effort.
U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman sounded a strong warning to the military and its customers yesterday, warning that tomorrow's combat power depends on how well defense leaders cope with today's political and budget realities. "If we're going to survive, we've got to understand [the Cold War] was an aberration and move forward with fresh ideas," Fogleman advised at a Defense Dept. conference on government reinvention in Arlington, Va.
President Clinton told the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in a letter Monday that the U.S. "remains committed to provide Global Positioning System signals to the international civil aviation community and to other peaceful users of radio navigation and positioning systems." A statement by Dept. of Transportation Secretary Federico Pena revealed, however, that an agreement with the Defense Dept.
HARRIS CORP., Melbourne, Fla., has received a $3.5 million (U.S.) contract from the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Dept. for an air-to-ground high frequency radio system for the new Check Lap Kok Airport. Under the contract, Harris' RF Communications Div., Rochester, N.Y., will design and integrate system, which will provide primary air-to-ground HF communications and meteorological information broadcasts for controllers and pilots. Harris said it will also supervise the installation and provide technical and other support.
E-SYSTEMS' Montek Div., Salt Lake City, Utah, has received a $740,000 contract from the U.S. Army to develop and demonstrate prototypes of a Drop Zone Assembly Aid (DZAA), intended to allow troops to locate air- dropped loads and assemble air-dropped personnel at desired locations. E- Systems said the DZAA uses the Global Positioning System to tell troops the direction and the distance to an assembly point. Previous systems could only point the direction to the assembly point. Included is a wrist-mounted locator unit, and a beacon for the load or the assembly point.
For the second time in a row, the Navy failed to intercept a theater ballistic missile target with a kinetic kill vehicle, the Pentagon said yesterday. Rockwell's Lightweight Exoatmospheric Projectile (LEAP) flew on a Hughes Standard Missile launched from a Navy cruiser off the coast of North Carolina. The target was launched from NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia. The interceptor missile performed normally through boost, second-stage separation, nose cone ejection and third stage separation.
SAIC, Dayton, Ohio, has won a $24 million contract from the U.S. Air Force's National Air Intelligence Center. SAIC said the contract, for support of Project Have Star, is a rebid of existing work by SAIC's Operations Analysis and System Engineering Operation. The company said it will continue to provide intelligence analysis on future weapon systems, subsystems and technologies affecting the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense program, the Air Defense Initiative program, the Air Base Systems program and other new U.S. Initiatives as they develop.
