Lockheed Martin Corp. and The Boeing Co. will continue to dominate the international heavy-lift military transport market over the next decade, according to a report recently released by Forecast International, Inc. And even though seven European nations have repeatedly pledged support for the planned Airbus A400M transport, the aircraft's production is unlikely to come about, says Forecast International's Senior Aircraft Analyst, Bill Dane, the report's principal author.
The focus of missile defense is moving away from a requirement-based system and toward an evolutionary capability-based development, according to U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). Missile defense must be prepared for new threats that can circumvent the system, Kadish warned, and only a flexible development path will be able to match such threats.
The solar-powered, remotely piloted Pathfinder aircraft, a precursor to the sun-powered Helios flying wing that set an altitude record of 96,500 feet earlier this month, is slated to fly again next summer on an agricultural remote sensing mission over the Hawaiian islands.
TECSTAR INC., of City of Industry, Calif., announced its TEC 3I solar cell has been selected to power the latest Martian spacecraft and rovers being developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Tecstar and JPL will design, build and test a family of solar panels to power a spacecraft carrying the Mars Exploration Rovers and then power the rovers themselves on the surface itself for up to 100 meters per Martian day.
SPACEHAB, INC., of Washington, D.C., announced that its Johnson Engineering subsidiary sold its filter housing machining operations to Clear Lake Industries Holdings LLC, a company recently formed by a retired Spacehab senior vice president. "Organized to provide JE [Johnson Engineering] with rapid access to specialized machining capabilities, the operating unit has used its excess capacity to develop and market filter housings for the petrochemical and biotechnology industries," said Spacehab President and CEO Michael E. Kearney.
Brahmos, an anti-ship missile jointly developed by Russia and India, was displayed at the recent Moscow air show. After the cruise missile's first flight test at Orissa, India, on June 12, some details were disclosed. Reportedly, parts for the rocket were made in Russia and assembled in India. The company has manufacturing lines both in Russia and India.
MEMC ELECTRONIC MATERIALS, INC., of St. Peters, Mo., has provided several hundred silicon wafers for NASA's Genesis spacecraft, which was launched Aug. 8 on a mission to collect samples of the solar wind and bring them back to Earth. It will do this by unfurling collector arrays using MEMC wafers. The high-velocity ions given off by the sun will embed themselves into the wafers.
SPECTRUM ASTRO of Gilbert, Ariz., has shipped the Coriolis spacecraft to the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington for final testing and integration of the WindSat payload, which is a polar metric microwave radiometer experiment to passively measure ocean surface wind vector. The spacecraft will also carry a U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory Solar Mass Ejection Imager to monitor solar activity, with the goal of more accurately predicting geomagnetic disturbances to orbiting satellites.
At the first meeting of NASA's International Space Station (ISS) Management and Cost Evaluation (IMCE) team, committee chairman Tom Young expressed bewilderment over the management philosophy governing the early days of station development, which he said created a "100 percent" probability of cost overruns.
Numbers of Weapons Delivered by Major Suppliers to Developing Nations The Congressional Research Service said in a recent report, "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1993-2000," that the United States again is the world's top arms exporter, followed by Russia and France (DAILY, Aug. 21). The table below shows the numbers of weapons delivered by major suppliers to developing nations.
Over the past seven years, BAE Systems North America has quietly grown into one of the top 10 defense electronics, information technology, and systems engineering firms in the United States serving U.S military needs. The company has done so by adding value to its product line through the acquisition of several smaller businesses, managing its manufacturing processes more efficiently, and divesting non-core functions.
THE SPACE FOUNDATION, of Colorado Springs, Colo., which promotes the commercial, defense and civil use of space, announced that Kaga Electronics and Space Age, America, have signed on as corporate partners. "Both Space Age, America and Kaga Electronics are committed to promoting awareness of space technology among consumers and on an international basis, so we welcome the opportunity to work closely with these companies," said Elliot G. Pulham, Space Foundation president and CEO.
SPACE SYSTEMS/LORAL, a subsidiary of Loral Space&Communications, will design and build MBSAT for the Mobile Broadcasting Corp. of Japan. The satellite will deliver digital multimedia information services, such as CD-quality audio, MPEG-4 video and data to mobile users in Japan. On-orbit deliver of the spacecraft is scheduled for the fourth quarter 2003, with service expected to begin in early 2004. The satellite has a 12-year expected life.
Peter Rodman, the new assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, downplayed concerns Aug. 21 that the construction of a U.S. missile shield would spark a global arms buildup, saying that international reaction is "much more up in the air or uncertain or manageable" than some people assert. "What the Chinese do, what the Russians do, what the Indians do, I'm sure they don't know what they're going to do yet," since they are waiting to see what the U.S. does, Rodman said.
The U.S. Air Force announced Aug. 20 that the contract for the Advanced Targeting Pod competition has been awarded to Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Sniper XR system. The 7-year contract, potentially worth about $843 million, calls for production of up to 522 pods and associated equipment, spare parts and support for the Air Force and Air National Guard's F-16 aircraft. Aircraft to be fitted with Sniper XR under the ATP program include the Air Force's F-16CJ block 50 aircraft and the Air National Guard's F-16 block 30 aircraft.
Sandra L. Pack is President Bush's choice to be Assistant Secretary of the Army for Finan-cial Management, the White House said Aug. 20. She is the treasurer of the Bush-Cheney Compliance Committee and served as director of the treasury for Bush-Cheney 2000. Earlier, she was a treasury official on the presidential campaigns of Bob Dole and Phil Gramm.
Boeing Satellite Systems is transferring work on 12 global positioning system satellites from its Seal Beach, Calif., plant to its 1 million sq. ft. factory at El Segundo, Calif., which will be expanded by nearly a third to accommodate the additional work. The satellite company, which is part of the Boeing Co., announced the actions Aug. 20.
The U.S. must be prepared to face enemies with increasingly sophisticated long-range ballistic missiles, according to government analysts. North Korea, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and China are all making important advances in their long-range missile capabilities, said the analysts, speaking here Aug. 21 at the Fourth Annual Space and Missile Defense Conference.
A second prototype of India's indigenously built Light Combat Aircraft will be ready for air force use by 2007, defense ministry officials said. The prototype would be rolled out in early 2002. Five more would be built by the end of that year. The initial operational clearance would take about five years, with the final operational clearance about seven years from now. The aircraft will have to go through a slew of systems checks before it can be formally accepted by the Indian air force.
International action is needed to meet the greatest challenges affecting space exploration and applications, a report by 77 aerospace specialists from 17 nations has found. Among the issues requiring action, the report says, are space traffic control, detection of asteroids and other near-Earth objects, global navigation satellite system interoperability, promotion of public understanding of space achievements, and multilateral use of space-derived environmental data.
Sukhoi's Su-37 research and technology demonstrator jet aircraft, now redesignated the Su-47, could be the prototype of Russia's planned fifth-generation combat aircraft, according to the air force commander-in-chief, Gen. Anatoly Kornukov. Speaking at last week's biennial MAKS International Aerospace Salon, he said that building a new fighter would cost nearly $1.5 billion, which he described as "a real number."
The system the Navy uses to report deficiencies of spare parts for weapons systems and support equipment is inadequate, according to a report released last week by the General Accounting Office. The report says the Navy's Product Quality Deficiency Reporting Program "has been largely ineffective in gathering the data needed for analyses so that Navy managers can determine the full extent of spare parts quality deficiencies affecting maintenance activities.
[Editor's note: This story appears today because, due to a technical problem, it was omitted from some editions of The Daily published Aug.20.] Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control of Orlando, Fla., delivered its first Hawkeye eXtended Range (XR) Target Sight System to Bell Helicopter, according to the company. The Hawkeye TSS will be installed on an AH-1Z Cobra helicopter in early 2002.
