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.
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."
RAF C-17s DEPLOY-Two of the British Royal Air Force's four recently delivered Boeing C-17 heavy-lift transports, although not scheduled for full service entry until later this year, made their first operational flights on Saturday. They were tasked with carrying RAF helicopters, military equipment and personnel from their Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire, to Skopje, in Macedonia, in support of NATO's Operation Bessemer weapons collection mission. More than 200 British parachute troops were aboard the C-17s.
[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.
The sale of 80 new F-16 Block 60 fighter aircraft to the United Arab Emirates helped the U.S. significantly widen its share as a supplier in international arms transfer agreements last year, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service. The $6.4 billion F-16 deal is one of the largest combat aircraft sales the U.S. has ever made.
August 15, 2001 Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson, Ariz., is being awarded a $37,627,569 ceiling-priced modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-99-C-1014) to restructure the Joint Standoff Weapon, full rate production, Lot 2 delivery schedule. Work will be performed in Tucson, Ariz., and is expected to be completed in August 2003. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has given armed services budgeters fiscal guidance on preparing program objective memoranda for their Five Year Defense Plan. The FY 2003 defense budget, which is due this fall, will be the first to reflect significantly the results of the controversial strategic reviews Rumsfeld ordered. Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, acknowledged that the Defense Policy Guidance is less detailed than previous guidances and that it is budget-driven.
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. During the meeting, held at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. Aug. 20, NASA Comptroller Malcolm Peterson told the committee that NASA has been focused exclusively on staying within yearly cost limitations, at the expense of the total program cost.
AEROSPIKE LEGACY: Although the linear aerospike engine will most likely not propel NASA's next-generation reusable launch vehicle (RLV), it will still make its presence felt, according to Lyles. "There could be some materials technology that was on the aerospike that could show up in the next generation engine," he says.
NO SINGLE CAUSE: A board investigating the June 2 X-43A mission failure has yet to nail down the problem that caused the research craft's Pegasus-derived booster to veer out of control shortly after release from a B-52 carrier aircraft. Robert W. Hughes of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Ala., the chairman of the board, says the likelihood of finding a single root cause is still possible, but is becoming less probable. Hughes says the launch mishap may have had several contributing causes.
Honeywell has delivered its first Fault Tolerant Inertial Navigation Unit for Lockheed Martin's Atlas V launch vehicle, the primary avionics component for the booster, the company announced. The development and test unit was shipped to Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, Colo.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he is "increasingly comfortable" with his alternative to the two major-theater-war (MTW) force sizing construct as the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) progresses, although he doesn't know yet if it will result in force structure cuts. At a Pentagon briefing Aug. 17, Rumsfeld said his alternative will reduce force requirements to bring them in line with current capability.
Fitch Inc., has joined other ratings companies in affirming its existing credit ratings for Raytheon Co. after the company announced Aug. 15 that contractual obligations for two large construction projects fell within the expected range. Fitch analysts have assigned a medium grade rating (BBB-) to Raytheon's senior debt and bank credit facility. The rating outlook for the company remains stable.
SMALL DIAMETER BOMB FUZE: One of the challenges of the Air Force's Small Diameter Bomb program is coming up with a fuze that's not only small enough to do the job, but that can also be programmed from the cockpit to do the most possible damage to targets that are assigned enroute. The Joint Programmable Fuze and the Hard Target Smart Fuze are both capable of the latter, but are too big for the SDB. Because they are all-electronic, however, they can be miniaturized and adapted to SDB, one Air Force official says.
NO SSTO YET: NASA's next-generation reusable launch vehicle (RLV) will almost certainly not be a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicle, according to Garry Lyles, manager of the Space Launch Initiative's Propulsion Project Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "I think we're more likely to see multiple stages in second-gen," says Lyles. "It's not that we're not looking at single stage in the second-gen, but most of our architecture options appear to be [two] stage vehicles right now." However, Lyles says NASA has not given up on single stage.
ADVANCED EHF: The government apparently will cover the cost increase in the Advanced EHF satellite program. The cost has grown about $1 billion, and the schedule has slipped about a year, because capabilities have been added to meet changing requirements (DAILY, Aug. 16).
Prototype rocket engines being developed under NASA's Space Launch Initiative (SLI) will incorporate a number of new technologies to help achieve SLI's goal of reducing launch costs, as well as nearly 30 years of lessons learned from development of the space shuttle's main engines. The prototype SLI engines are Pratt&Whitney/Aerojet's COBRA (Co-optimized Booster for Reusable Applications) and Boeing Rocketdyne's RS-83.
Northrop Grumman Corp. has once again extended its cash and stock tender offer to purchase all outstanding common share of Newport News Shipbuilding, Inc. The new offer runs to midnight Aug. 30. As of 5 p.m. Aug. 16, nearly 1.6 million shares of Newport News stock had been tendered to Northrop Grumman, including 181,611 shares with notices of guaranteed delivery. Northrop Grumman is competing with General Dynamics Corp. to acquire shares of Newport News.
SHIELD ESTIMATE: How much will it cost to field a missile shield? The Council for a Livable World Education Fund, which is no fan of the Bush Administration's plan to step up work on missile defense, estimates the price tag for national and theater systems will be up to $273 billion if the White House has its way. That figure includes the 1996 Congressional Budget Office estimate that building, deploying and operating a layered system would cost $184 billion from 1996 to 2030.
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. It is the first piece of hardware that incorporates third-generation targeting system technology, Lockheed Martin said. The Hawkeye TSS is a suite of electro-optical and infrared sensors packaged in a stabilized turret to provide day or night surveillance and targeting for the AH-1Z Cobra.
