Fitch Inc., the international ratings agency, affirmed its debt rating for Raytheon Corp. July 3 despite recent reports of higher cost estimates to complete construction projects abandoned by the Washington Group International. Fitch analysts said the ratings outlook for the company remained stable.
The European Commission's veto of the GE-Honeywell merger will undoubtedly cause aerospace companies to think through all of their options before pursuing mergers and acquisitions, key aerospace analysts said July 3. Paul Nisbet, aerospace analysts with JSA Research, Inc., of Newport, R.I., said U.S. aerospace companies "certainly got an eyeful about how the Europeans think." "They're out to protect the competitors rather than the consumers, which is not the approach we take, unless it is a monopoly. And this certainly wasn't that," he said.
CMC ELECTRONICS of Montreal has been selected as cockpit avionics systems integrator for Boeing B747 aircraft by Saudi Arabian Airlines, Corsair and Hong Kong Dragon Airlines. CMC will supply its CMA-900 Flight Management System for the B747 fleets, according to the company. The CMA-900 uses the Global Positioning System to provide navigation and oceanic and remote area operations capability.
LORAL CYBERSTAR of Rockville, Md., has been awarded a multi-year contract to provide very small aperture terminal (VSAT) services to Global Crossing, in support of that company's contract to develop a virtual private network (VPN) for British embassies worldwide. CyberStar's two-way VSAT network will deliver secure voice, data and Internet services.
AMERICOM ASIA-PACIFIC LLC has announced a new occasional use service using a GE-1A satellite over Asia. The service allows broadcasters, programmers and news gatherers the opportunity to book occasional satellite transponder space segments online via STARS Online, a web-enabled interface, or over the telephone. GE-1A is a Ku-band satellite located at 108.2 East longitude, which provides service via three beams to China, South Asia, including India, northeast Asia and the Philippines. The satellite features 28 active 36 MHz Ku-band transponders.
Three members of the House and Senate armed services committees have introduced legislation that would repeal a ban on cutting the U.S. arsenal below the START I Treaty level of 6,000 strategic nuclear weapons.
Some supporters of U.S. efforts to build a missile defense program believe the Bush Administration may not be going far enough or fast enough to deploy the necessary technology. Speaking at last week's conference here on "Defending the Northeast, the Nation and America's Allies," former Ambassador Henry Cooper expressed concern that the Administration is not incorporating research done under the old Strategic Defense Initiative.
TANKER&TRANSPORT SERVICE CO. LTD., representing a consortium made up of BAE Systems, the Boeing Co., Serco Group and Spectrum Capital, submitted a response to the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence's invitation to negotiate for the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) program. Through the FSTA, the Royal Air Force will acquire air-to-air refueling services through a private-financing initiative from a contractor company. The Tanker&Transport Service Co. will acquire, modify and use a Boeing 767 aircraft to provide the services if selected.
INTEGRAL SYSTEMS, INC., of Lanham, Md., has been awarded a contract from Alcatel Space Industries to provide the primary and backup control software for the METOP satellites of the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) Polar System (EPS). The satellites are part of the joint program between EUMETSAT and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to provide weather data using polar satellites.
The Lockheed Martin team's X-35B Joint Strike Fighter is entering its final phase of testing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., after making a quick but significant hop July 3 from Palmdale, Calif. - its first conventional flight, a company spokesman said. "The plan at Edwards is to open up the whole STOVL envelope," Lockheed Martin spokesman John Kent said. "They'll be transitioning from wingborne to jetborne flight, then into hover and vertical landings. We'll be doing short takeoffs. We plan to take the plane supersonic."
Harris Corp., of Melbourne, Fla., will continue engineering support of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's Small Tactical Terminals under a new contract, the company announced July 3. The $2.3 million contract will allow the company to continue supporting the 143 STTs it delivered in the late 1990s under a separate contract. The STTs are deployed throughout the world to provide real-time weather information to U.S. Air Force and Army operations.
PANAMSAT has become the platform for the international distribution of nearly all major Korean broadcasters, the company announced. The company's PAS-2, PAS-8, PAS-9 and Galaxy XI satellites, as well as a Napa Valley, Calif., teleport facility, form the backbone of a distribution network broadcasting Korean programming throughout Asia and the Americas, according to the company.
A House spending panel has tentatively decided to add $400 million to the Bush Administration's fiscal 2002 budget request for NASA to revive plans for a crew return vehicle (CRV) on the International Space Station, a congressional source told The DAILY July 3.
STRATOS GLOBAL CORP. has developed dealerships in Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Russia, Thailand and Taiwan to market the recently relaunched Iridium mobile satellite service, the company announced. It is also completing agreements with local agents in Japan, India, Indonesia, Brunei and Papua New Guinea. The Stratos dealers have longstanding relationships with users of mobile satellite services, particularly in the shipping, fishing, government and mining sectors, according to the company.
The Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded Integrated Sensors Inc. a $99,000 contract to study radar that could locate ground targets hidden under trees and bushes and other thick foliage. The Utica, N.Y.-based company will investigate radars capable of seeing through foliage. It will look at synthetic aperture radar, which can image fixed targets, and ground moving target indication radar, which helps detect moving targets or vehicles.
An independent federal agency said this week that the U.S. civil aerostructures industry is losing "some of its competitive edge" as a result of consolidation in the large civil aircraft industry (LCA), Aerospace Daily affiliate Aviation Daily reported.
Maj. Jeff Karnes, a U.S. Marine Corps test pilot, made two vertical landings in the Boeing team's X-32B Joint Strike Fighter concept demonstrator July 3 at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. Company test pilots have landed vertically in the X-32B, but Karnes is the first government pilot to do so. On June 29, Maj. Art "Turbo" Tomassetti became the first Marine to land vertically in the rival Lockheed Martin team's JSF candidate, the X-35B. Replacement for its aging fleet
Scientists at the Human Effectiveness Directorate of the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) are exploring interfaces that will allow unmanned aerial vehicle "managers" to control up to four - and possibly more - UAVs simultaneously. The task of supervising multiple UAVs, without actually piloting them, will involve a mixture of traditional piloting skills and new skills, according to Maj. Mark Draper, program manager for AFRL's SIRUS (Synthetic Interface Research for UAV Systems) facility.
The Italian military is expected to announce a decision as soon as this week on whether it will buy several tanker/transport aircraft from the Boeing Co. or contract rival European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. (EADS). Boeing spokesman Rick Fuller said the company expects the announcement to come "any day. We thought we might receive word before the Paris Air Show."
Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) plans to offer an amendment to the fiscal 2001 supplemental spending bill to give the Army National Guard $204 million to buy 20 UH-60L Black Hawks, an aide told The DAILY July 2. Guard units deemed to have "the most severe shortages of modern utility helicopters" would get the Sikorsky helicopters, according to the amendment.
The X-35B, the Lockheed Martin-led team's STOVL entry in the high-stakes Joint Strike Fighter competition, is wrapping up flight testing of its unique lift-fan system at Palmdale, Calif., and will fly to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., within "a day or two," a company spokesman said July 2.
The Boeing-led Joint Strike Fighter team, by conducting three X-32B short takeoffs July 1, has completed all flight-test requirements set by the U.S. Department of Defense and is beginning flight tests designed to demonstrate contractor-set requirements, Boeing said July 2.
The Aging Aircraft Integrated Product Team (AAIPT) at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., is developing a number of new weapons in the fight against aircraft corrosion - a problem that costs the Navy more than a billion dollars a year. These technologies include corrosion removal brushes that don't allow the user to damage the underlying surface, as well as networks of embedded sensors that could enable non-invasive inspections.
Lockheed Martin Corp., Marietta, Ga., is being awarded a $120,559,000 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract to provide for extension through Nov. 15, 2001, of advancement procurement supporting low rate initial production of 13 F-22 aircraft and associated equipment (Lot II). At this time, the total amount of funds have been obligated. This effort will be performed by The Boeing Co., Seattle, Wash. (52%), Lockheed Martin, Fort Worth, Texas (35%), and other locations. This work is expected to be completed November 2001. Solicitation began April 2000.
Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force is expected to announce this month which competitor - the Boeing Co. or Bell Helicopter Textron - will be selected to replace its aging fleet of Bell/Fuji AH-1S anti-tank assault helicopters. A group of specialists from Japan visited the United States in late May and early June seeking replacement candidates, and has narrowed it down to Boeing's AH-64D Apache Longbow and Bell's AH-1Z.
