Harris Corp. has signed a $200 million contract with General Dynamics United Kingdom Ltd. to supply the high frequency subsystem for the United Kingdom's Bowman Tactical Radio Program, the company announced Jan. 17. The company was selected to supply the systems in July 2001. Harris will provide 10,000 HF radio systems to U.K. defense forces.
Senior officials with the Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. still have not reached an agreement on whether Boeing will participate in the development of the Joint Strike Fighter, Tom Burbage, executive vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter program, said Jan. 17. Speaking at a National Aviation Club luncheon, Burbage said no additional discussions have taken place since representatives of both companies met Nov. 9 (DAILY, Nov. 12).
SWALES AEROSPACE, which builds satellites and associated flight hardware, has leased office space in Houston to support its engineering services work with NASA's Johnson Space Center and to provide for expansion of that work. "With our new Houston presence, we plan on becoming an integral part of Houston's space business community," Swales Aerospace CEO Tom Wilson said.
SAN DIEGO - The Navy is re-examining how it handles deployments, personnel, maintenance and training as it seeks to meet the demands of the U.S. war on terrorism, a service official said. "As we proceed with the war on terrorism, it is clear there are lot of things the U. S. Navy has to think about that we have not thought about in the past," said Rear Adm. Joseph J. Krol, the assistant deputy chief of naval operations for plans, policy, and operations.
INTELSAT GLOBAL SALES & MARKETING LTD. has upgraded its digital multimedia service in French Polynesia. The company's satellite service now provides customers in French Polynesia with 23 direct-to-home channels and four radio channels, compared with 12 video channels and three radio channels that were previously available.
HONG KONG SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY GROUP (HKSTG) signed a contract for two commercial satellites from Israel Aircraft Industries at a ceremony in Beijing's Great Hall on Jan. 17. HKSTG will provide communications services, including direct-to-home television service, to the Asian market. It will also use the satellites to cover the 2008 Olympic games, which will be held in Beijing. The satellites include 20 Ku-band transponders and have a 12-year service life and will be supplied by IAI's MBT Division.
China has failed to convince the Bush Administration that the U.S. should ease restrictions on satellite exports to the Asian country, according to a State Department official. Beijing needs to take greater steps to prevent missile proliferation, including instituting comprehensive controls on missile-related exports, before the U.S. will consider waiving sanctions on satellite shipments to China, Vann H. Van Diepen, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation controls, said Jan. 17.
NASA and its industry partners hope that the third-generation reusable launch vehicle (RLV), scheduled to fly in 2025, could actually end up being two spacecraft in one. Boeing and Lockheed Martin's third-generation RLV designs are two-stage vehicles that rely on a turbine-based combination cycle (TBCC) engine for their first stage.
The newly enacted fiscal 2002 defense appropriations and authorization acts make a few gains in advancing military transformation, but more dramatic progress is needed to prepare the U.S. for the threats of the 21st century, according to House Armed Services Committee member William "Mac" Thornberry (R-Texas).
EXTRA AWACS: NATO's North Atlantic Council approved the deployment of two more Airborne Warning and Control Systems aircraft to join five AWACs already operating in support of U.S. homeland security. The move was based on a request by the United States, NATO said Jan. 16.
Raytheon Missile Systems is touting Black Sparrow's moderate price and reconfigurable system in marketing the air-launched ballistic missile target for U.S. missile defense programs.
A Lockheed Martin Titan IVB rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. at 7:30 p.m. EST Jan. 15, successfully delivering a Milstar 2 communications satellite into orbit. The $800 million, bus-sized satellite, which has a wingspan equal to a 747 jumbo jet when its solar arrays are deployed, joins three other Milstar satellites already in equatorial orbits, including a previous Milstar 2 launched last February (DAILY, Feb. 22, 2001). The new satellite should be fully checked out and operational within the next four months.
EXTENSION: GE Aircraft Engines has signed a four-year extension to its teaming agreement with the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command and the Corpus Christi Army Depot to supply helicopter engines and technical services. The extension covers calendar years 2002 through 2005 and is worth $78 million, according to the company. Under the agreement, GEAE supplies T700 helicopter engine parts and technical expertise to support the Corpus Christi depot's overhaul programs.
NASA's Revolutionary Turbine Accelerator (RTA) engine, which could power the agency's X-43B hypersonic demonstrator, will require the most advanced unclassified turbine engine ever built, according to Project Manager Paul Bartolotta. RTA is a turbine-based combination cycle (TBCC) engine that will use a turbine accelerator to get from zero to roughly Mach 4, at which point a dual-mode scramjet will take over for speeds up to Mach 7 and beyond.
A Lockheed Martin Titan IVB rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. at 7:30 p.m. EST Jan. 15, successfully delivering a Milstar 2 communications satellite into orbit. The $800 million, bus-sized satellite, which has a wingspan equal to a 747 jumbo jet when its solar arrays are deployed, joins three other Milstar satellites already in equatorial orbits, including a previous Milstar 2 launched last February (DAILY, Feb. 22, 2001). The new satellite should be fully checked out and operational within the next four months.
Avionics and communications manufacturer Rockwell Collins Inc. announced Jan. 16 that its net earnings for the first quarter of fiscal 2002 dropped 20 percent over earnings for the same period last year. In a conference call with investors and analysts, Rockwell Collins' Chief Financial Officer Larry Erickson said the company recorded sales of $563 million for the FY 2002 first quarter, compared with $587 million for the same period last year. The company plans to continue with previously announced job cuts, he said.
GE Aircraft Engines has signed a four-year extension to its teaming agreement with the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command and the Corpus Christi Army Depot to supply helicopter engines and technical services. The extension covers calendar years 2002 through 2005 and is worth $78 million, according to the company. Under the agreement, GEAE supplies T700 helicopter engine parts and technical expertise to support the Corpus Christi depot's overhaul programs.
Adm. John B. Nathman, the commander of Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, said he attributes Operation Enduring Freedom's successful air campaign in Afghanistan to improvements in cooperation between the military services, technological advances, and training in the decade since Desert Storm.
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control has started work on an electro-optical targeting system (EOTS) for the Joint Strike Fighter under a $171 million contract from BAE Systems, the company announced Jan. 16. The company has teamed with Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Electronic Systems sector to produce EOTS, a derivative of Lockheed Martin's Sniper XR Advanced Targeting Pod. Sniper XR is being produced for U.S. Air Force F-15s and F-16s, and the EOTS will use many of the same components, according to Lockheed Martin.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded contracts to two companies for its program to develop technologies for the use of water as an on-orbit propellant for satellites. Hamilton Sundstrand of Windsor Locks, Conn., and Proton Energy Systems of Rocky Hill, Conn., will receive a total of $4.9 million for the first 12 months of the program. DARPA has said water could be a replaceable fluid for satellites because of its potential as a simple, non-hazardous, energy-efficient propellant (DAILY, Feb. 28, 2001).
