Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), a member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, plans to try to add money to the fiscal 2002 defense budget for U.S. Navy procurement of the Raytheon T-6A Texas II trainer aircraft, a spokesman told The DAILY July 20.
Northrop Grumman Corp. has extended its tender offer for all outstanding common stock shares of Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), marking the third time the company has extended its offer. The last extension, which began July 5, ended July 19. The latest extension runs to midnight on August 2. Nearly 2.3 million shares of Newport News stock had been tendered to Northrop as of 5 p.m. July 19, including about 742,541 shares with guaranteed delivery notices.
REVIVING ROTORCRAFT: NASA's rotorcraft program would get $15 million and a new lease on life under a fiscal 2002 spending bill recently approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee. The House version of the bill appears to accept the Bush Administration's request, which zeroes out funding for the program (DAILY, April 10), so the issue will have to be worked out in a House-Senate conference committee.
Boeing said yesterday it has cleared a "major hurdle" in the development of its air traffic management system with the licensing of a new mobile satellite service by the Federal Communications Commission.
Engineering and technical support for the Army's AH-64 Apache helicopter is underfunded, meaning some projects that could affect its flight safety have been limited or delayed, according to a new report from the General Accounting Office. "In fiscal years 2000 and 2001, the Apache's identified sustainment systems technical support requirements have not been fully met," the report says.
The U.S. Army is requesting its first funding for kits to make the avionics of its fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft compatible with evolving air traffic control systems around the world. Newly released materials prepared for Congress to justify the Army's amended fiscal 2002 budget show that the service is asking $54.6 million to install Global Air Traffic Management (GATM) kits in some 250 of its aircraft.
NASA's X-43A mishap review panel still hasn't found a cause for the program's June 2 launch failure, which forced the agency to destroy the hypersonic test vehicle after its Orbital Sciences Corp.-built Pegasus booster veered out of control.
The Federal Aviation Administration plans to order inspection and modification of certain lap joints on 1,600 older 727 and 737 aircraft in the U.S. fleet, Aerospace Daily affiliate Aviation Daily reported. FAA said the cost of compliance would range from $54,000 to $264,000 per aircraft. At the higher estimate, the cost to operators would be $422.4 million.
(Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from the transcript of a briefing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave reporters in the Pentagon on July 18.) Q: Secretary Rumsfeld, as I understand it, earlier this week you told the service chiefs and others in a meeting, quote, "We have a big problem," unquote, on the QDR, and that you then asked them to go back and re-look the terms of reference and come up with new answers on force structure. Is that correct?
A House-Senate conference committee reached agreement July 19 on a fiscal 2001 supplemental appropriations bill that cuts previously enacted V-22 procurement funding by $513 million but adds $80 million for research and development to fix deficiencies in the Bell-Boeing aircraft.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted July 19 to cut the Bush Administration's fiscal 2002 request for the International Space Station by $150 million, saying it has "lost confidence" in the program's ability to manage its budget in light of cost overruns. The space station would get about $1.7 billion in FY '02, reflecting not only the cut but a transfer of the station research budget to another account.
While expressing guarded support for missile defense, several Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee challenged Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz on key points of the Bush Administration's accelerated test plans and their possible impact on the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. Ranking Minority Member Ike Skelton (D-Missouri) opened the July 19 hearing by saying that the Administration's proposed $3 billion increase in missile defense funding would pay the salary of the entire enlisted Marine Corps for a year.
The European Space Agency has outlined a lengthy process to try to fully recover its Artemis telecommunications and technology demonstrator satellite, which was left in a too-low orbit when an Ariane 5 booster malfunctioned (DAILY, July 16). An ESA/Alenia Spazio-Telespazio team plans to use the satellite's chemical boosters to bump its orbit to 31,000 km. (19,300 miles) from its current 17,487 km. (about 11,000 mile) orbit.
Much of the Air Force's strategy for the future will be based on the weapons systems and platforms it already has - but those systems must be modified to play more than one role and support the missions of the other services, Secretary of the Air Force James Roche said July 19. Roche said instead of modifying the platforms themselves, the Air Force may try to modify the weapons carried by those platforms.
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, Dallas, held a second successful test of the Line-of-Sight Antitank (LOSAT) missile at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., the company announced July 19. The missile was remotely launched by a contractor gunner located in the Auxiliary Test Center from a stationary LOSAT fire unit located on the LOSAT launch pad at the Small Missile Range.
International Space Station crewmembers have set up a hatch between the new Joint Airlock's equipment lock and crew lock, getting the gateway ready for its July 20 debut as the station's gateway to outer space.
TECHNICAL SATELLITE REPAIR, INC., of Harrisburg, Pa., has begun serving satellite system manufacturers and service centers in the United States, and promises 48-hour turnaround for repairing and refurbishing satellite receiver systems. "As the satellite market gets to know us over the months ahead, we expect a period of rapid growth and expansion in the processing of establishing Technical Satellite Repair as the market leader and premier resource for the industry and consumers," said company president Charles Romano.
HARRIS CORP. of Melbourne, Fla., will provide its RH3000 radiation-hardened processor modules for several next-generation satellites manufactured by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., under three contracts totaling $5.4 million. The RH3000 processors will provide on-board data processing for CloudSat and other new satellites.
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DONALD RUMSFELD said July 18 that the Air Force's proposal to cut the B-1B bomber fleet from 93 to 60, and use the savings to modernize the remaining aircraft, is "a very sensible, logical, cost-effective approach" despite meeting opposition from some members of Congress. "I have every reason to believe it will succeed."
BAE Systems Aviation Services has signed a base maintenance agreement with TNT airways of Liege, Belgium, and Pan Air, based in Madrid, to handle heavy maintenance checks to support the five BAE Systems Airbus A300B4 passenger-to-freighter conversions currently in service. The three-year contract is worth $18 million, the company, part of BAE System's Aircraft Services Group of Filton, Bristol, United Kingdom, announced July 17.
The deployment test flight for the Cosmos 1 solar sail project test craft has been bumped a day, from July 18 to July 19, according to the Planetary Society. Pre-launch preparations have uncovered no technical problems, but Viacheslav Danyelkin, the deputy director of Russia's Makeev Rocket Design Bureau, decided on the delay to allow more time to place the Volna booster rocket on the Delta III-class submarine that will launch the test craft.
The House Appropriations Committee approved a $15 billion fiscal 2002 budget for NASA late July 17 after rejecting an amendment by Rep. Carrie Meek (D-Fla.) that would have shifted $150 million from human space flight activities to housing programs. The human space flight account pays for the International Space Station and the space shuttle.
LANDSEA SYSTEMS of Virginia Beach, Va., has signed an agreement with Thales Airborne Systems for rights to distribute the Thales Inmarsat Aero-I Satellite Communication System. Under this agreement, LandSea will exclusively market and support the JetSat Aero-I to government and military agencies in the United States. "The JetSat allows for voice, fax and data (email) transmissions as well as meeting Global Air Traffic Management under the CNS/ATM communication requirement," said Ken Ravenna, vice president of LandSea's Aeronautical Division.
Showing no signs of slowing, Boeing's net earnings jumped 35 percent in the second quarter and airliner deliveries for 2001 improved slightly even as a severe financial slump ravages airlines worldwide, AviationNow.com reported. Year-to-date, Boeing has more than doubled last year's net earnings through June 30 to $2.07 billion, the company announced July 18, thanks to strong sales of airliners and a rising demand for military aircraft.
Some members of the House Armed Services Committee said July 18 that the Army's proposed funding for the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile defense program may be taking away much-needed funding for weapons re-capitalization, training and facilities upgrades, while others said the PAC-3 itself is underfunded. Gen. Eric Shinseki, Army Chief of Staff, and Thomas White, Secretary of the Army, testified before the committee that the Army does not have enough funding to meet its current mission requirements.
