Kennedy Space Center managers have decided to take an engineering support contract for the center's Safety, Reliability and Quality Assurance Directorate in-house to save money, KSC Director Jay Honeycutt announced Friday. More than 60 workers at Hernandez Engineering Inc. and Analex Space Systems Inc. will be affected by the decision, according to a KSC spokesman, who said the hazard-analysis and other safety work involved will be done by NASA engineers.
Congress should add fiscal 1996 funds for electronic warfare to the defense budget request, said Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.), contending that the Air Force and the Navy are "quietly scrapping" electronic warfare tactical aviation squadrons that played a decisive role in achieving air superiority in the Persian Gulf War.
B-2 BOMBERS of the 509th Bomb Wing flew eight sorties in the Red Flag exercise at Nellis AFB, Nev., dropping inert and live MK-84 munitions in an effort Air Force officials terms "extremely successful." Meanwhile, the Whiteman AFB, Mo.-based B-2 wing took delivery of its sixth operational bomber, with two more to be delivered this year.
Plans that were firm in September to form a military division of Airbus to build Europe's Future Large Airlifter are now, five months later, vague and ill-formed, Airbus chief Jean Pierson told reporters in Paris this week. "The situation is not clear at all," Pierson said. "We don't have a consensus." The Airbus partners-British Aerospace, Aerospatiale, CASA of Spain, and Germany's Daimler-and Italy's Alenia can't agree among themselves on what role Airbus should play in running the program, he said, in remarks later confirmed by The DAILY.
A statement of intent for the joint development and production of the international, multi-billion dollar Medium Extended Air-Defense System (MEADS) was signed Monday in Bonn, Germany, by John Deutch, deputy secretary of defense. The agreement calls for the U.S. to be responsible for 50% of program cost and work share. The European participants-France, Germany and Italy- will be responsible for the other half. France has 20%, Germany 20%, and Italy 10%.
Clinton Administration moves to formalize its defense export policy-in the works for more than a year but nonetheless hastily publicized late Friday-brought applause from aerospace industry executives yesterday, pleased with the first-ever strong official backing for export sales. "It's the most positive statement on defense trade that has been enunciated by any administration," said Joel Johnson, VP in charge of international issues at the Aerospace Industries Association. "It leans forward more in the saddle than anything under Reagan/Bush."
Air New Zealand grounded most of its hushkitted Boeing 737-200s because of repeated failures of overhauled Pratt&Whitney JT8D turbine blades, and the planes won't fly again until new blades arrive for the engine fleet, an ANZ spokesman confirmed Friday.
The U.S. Air Force is reviewing its mix of active, National Guard and reserve forces and probably will have to "rebalance" some of its missions to be better prepared for the post-Cold War environment, according to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman.
February 13, 1995 Lockheed Corporation, Lockheed Fort Worth Company, Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $6,929,421 (Estimated) face value increase to a firm-fixed- price contract for 17 Microwave Measurement Units applicable to the F-16 aircraft. Contract is expected to be completed July 1996. Contract funds of $6,929,421 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is the contracting activity (F42600-89-C-0832, PM0376).
Russia delivered two loads of international experiments to orbit last week, when a Progress cargo vehicle delivered 135 kilograms of U.S. gear to the Mir space station and Russian Space Forces launched a Photon microgravity studies spacecraft with French and European experiments aboard.
Arianespace is planning to resume launches on March 14 after implementing measures to fix a cryogenic third stage that failed during a Dec. 1 launch. The European consortium is hoping to resume its ambitious schedule of one launch every three weeks, a spokeswoman said yesterday. At that rate, the two-month slip in Arianespace's manifest caused by the December failure could be made up by the end of the year, she said.
Boeing wants its 777-200 widebody twin temporarily exempted from FAA rules protecting passengers in front-row economy-class seats from serious head injuries, while it works to solve seat design problems. FAA turned down a similar request in January 1993, and since then several seat configurations have been tried, but unsuccessfully.
A Pentagon procurement official yesterday pronounced the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (FASA) of 1994 a success in streamlining and simplifying Defense Dept. procurement but told a House committee changes that are coming so fast that the entire procurement system must be reengineered to respond.
Russian aerospace giant RC Energia spends $20,000 to insure cosmonaut Vladimir Titov's life for $2 million during his recent mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. Avicos, a Moscow company, banks the 1% premium after Discovery's safe return Feb. 11. A veteran Mir-dweller who once survived an on-pad Soyuz booster failure, Titov operated Discovery's robot arm during the eight-day STS-63 Mir rendezvous mission (DAILY, Feb. 14, page 234).
U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles plans to kick off a nine-year effort to develop an "evolved" expendable launch vehicle (EELV) for U.S. military and civilian payloads with a draft request for proposals to be issued March 1, according to a Feb. 21 Commerce Business Daily notice.
NASA astronauts will wear tiny battery-operated heaters in the fingertips of their gloves this summer when they carry out the next test of their ability to work in the cold temperatures Space Station construction crews are likely to encounter.
After briefing financial analysts last week, United Technologies chief George David says he won't rule out selling helicopter unit Sikorsky, so long as the price is right. But he quickly adds that there aren't any deals on the table, and haven't been since talks between UTC and McDonnell Douglas on merging their helicopter businesses fell apart last year. Says David, "this is background chatter in the aerospace industry. Everybody is talking about defense consolidation...I call it aerospace blah, blah, blah."
EGYPT has invited four contractor teams to bid on a new satellite communications program known as Nilesat, sources said Friday. The teams are led by Hughes, Martin Marietta Astro Space, Matra Marconi and Aerospatiale.
Although the House stripped the requirement for prompt development and deployment of a national missile defense from the National Security Revitalization Act, House National Security Chairman Floyd Spence (R-S.C.) said Friday that he still wants Defense Secretary William J. Perry a report on options to deploy an NMD.
China's purchase of Kilo-class diesel submarines from Russia shows that Beijing is modernizing its military across the board and pushing for power projection capability, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command testified. Adm. Richard C. Macke told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday that China's economy is growing at 9% per year, providing funds to modernize its forces.
The Dailey white paper is billed officially as a "pre-decision" document that will serve as one starting point for the NASA-wide "zero- based review" that was underway before the White House ordered the new cut on Jan. 12. Also playing into that review will be NASA's portion of the Federal Laboratory Review and the two Space Shuttle program streamlining studies. But participants in the zero-based review have been warned not to reject out of hand what Goldin has called the "profound" changes it recommends.
Ukraine will privatize its defense industry and allow some foreign investment, Valeriy Ludvitskiy, economic policy adviser to the Ukrainian president, said in Washington. Foreign investment in aircraft and armored vehicle production and a number of other areas provide opportunity for U.S.-Ukrainian joint ventures, Ludvitskiy said at a press conference last week.
The Comanche program office has written its last check of fiscal 1995-for $90 million-to Boeing-Sikorsky, sources say. The contractors have repeatedly warned that they will start laying off workers in late March or early April if the Office of the Secretary of Defense doesn't return $120 million that it's withholding from the FY '95 budget.
