The Boeing Co. won a $436 million (USD) contract from the government of Canada for the modernization of 80 Canadian Forces CF-18 strike fighters, the company announced April 23.
Japan's National Aerospace Laboratory signed a deal April 20 with Australia to test an unpowered scale model of a next-generation supersonic transport over South Australia's Woomera military range. NAL hopes to make four separate launches beginning next March under the program, in which a rocket will boost an 11-meter (36-foot) non-powered plane to an altitude of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) and then separate from the booster, Aerospace Daily affiliate AviationNow.com reported.
Northrop Grumman Corp., Bethpage, N.Y., is being awarded a $7,502,992 cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order against a previously awarded basic ordering agreement (N00019-97-G-0093) for engineering studies in support of the Littoral E-2C Aircraft (LEA). Work will be performed in Bethpage, N.Y., and is expected to be completed by April 2002. 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.
Despite double-digit sales increases in two of its three business sectors and a 10 percent sales increase over last year, declines in pension fund income lowered Northrop Grumman's first quarter earnings by 34 percent. The company on April 23 reported net earnings for first quarter 2001 of $101 million, or $1.39 per share, compared with $101 million, or $1.44 per share, for first quarter 2000. However, the earnings numbers excluded adjustments for pension fund income.
Shuttle mission STS-100 now underway marks the first visit of a European astronaut to the International Space Station, the European Space Agency said. Umberto Guidoni is overseeing the activation and deactivation of the logistics module Raffaello and will help operate the shuttle's robotic arm during spacewalks.
The Boeing Co., the world's largest aerospace company, posted stronger than expected first quarter earnings Friday, surpassing the estimates of most Wall Street analysts. The company reported net earnings of $762 million, or .89 cents per share, compared with $359 million, or 41 cents per share, last year at this time. Revenues rose 34 percent from $9.9 billion this time last year to $13.3 billion.
Two House panels plan to conduct a joint hearing April 24 to examine legislative proposals aimed at improving the federal government's coordination of homeland security efforts.
'SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY': The U.S. Air Force's first opportunity to operate a satellite system with the dynamic tasking capabilities of National Reconnaissance Office satellites will be with SBIRS-high, says Maj. Gen. Howard Mitchell, director of operations for AF Space Command. The missile early warning system, he says, will be able to perform many more tasks than the current Defense Support Program system and will thus help show the way to fulfilling a recommendation of the Space Commission - to transition NRO legacy collection satellites to AF Space Command.
A Florida commission has come up with dozens of recommendations for boosting the state's aerospace industry, and many of those suggestions are already being implemented or under consideration in the state legislature. The report, completed in January, calls for Florida to take advantage of NASA's plans to privatize or commercialize much of the International Space Station so NASA can focus on interplanetary and deep space exploration.
LAUNCH PLAN: Japan's National Space Development Agency has decided to launch the second J-1 launch vehicle in January or February of 2002. The rocket will carry the Optical Communication Experiment Satellite (OICETS). The agency plans to use the satellite, along with the ESA Artemis satellite, due to be launched this summer, to experiment with a series of inter-satellite optical communications.
A BAE Systems-Northrop Grumman team and Thales have each been awarded a contract this month to study future airborne early warning (AEW) options for the United Kingdom. The study, which is expected to last about nine months, will look at a variety of air vehicles to host an AEW sensor package, including helicopter, tiltrotor, or fixed wing platforms.
MEDIA CONVERGE: Satellite customers in Europe are witnessing the convergence of television and broadband Internet services, according to Pierre Bescond, president of Satel Conseil. "The separation between TV and PC is getting harder to define," says Bescond. He also predicts that interactive television in Europe will be a $30 billion industry by 2005. "Broadband and multimedia are no longer buzzwords. Their convergence is becoming a strong business reality." Ten million Europeans currently use digital satellite TV.
Japan's Self-Defense Agency plans to buy 43 new aircraft in its fiscal year 2001, which began in March, for its three services. As it has with all major weapons, aircraft procurement by the agency has continued to decrease through the latter half of the 1990s.
INTERSPUTNIK, an international intergovernmental organization established in 1971 to operate a global satellite-based telecommunications system, announced it has signed up two new customers. The Bulgarian Telecommunications Co., a domestic telecommunications operator, is broadcasting Bulgarian digital TV and radio programming throughout Europe via Intersputnik's Express-3A telecommunications satellite. The Bulgarian Telecommunications Co.
In an April 19 story about the upcoming test flight of the X-43A demonstrator, the top speed of the SR-71 Blackbird was erroneously listed as slightly above Mach 5. The actual speed of the aircraft is just above Mach 3. Aerospace Daily regrets the error.
BAD BIDS: The current competitive-bid award process in federal aerospace procurement is hurting the industry, according to California Engineering Foundation President Dr. Robert J. Kuntz. "It seems to me that there's got to be a better way," Kuntz says. "The federal government doesn't put out on cost basis to build a building.
UP CLOSE: The lift fan that will go into Lockheed Martin's X-35B short takeoff vertical landing (STOVL) concept demonstrator arrived in Palmdale, Calif. last week from the Pratt&Whitney West Palm Beach, Fla. facility. The fan will be installed in the X-32B next month, sources say, in preparation for first flight targeted for late June. Hover pit testing was wrapped up last month at Palmdale with a test fan. Plans are still up in the air as to whether Lockheed Martin will send its X-35B out to Patuxent River, Md., to join competitor Boeing's X-32B STOVL aircraft.
ANTI-WEAPON AWARDS: Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) and former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) will receive two awards the week of April 23 for their efforts to destroy nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in the former Soviet Union. Since 1991, the federally funded Nunn-Lugar program has destroyed more than 5,000 nuclear warheads, as well as weapons materials and delivery systems. Lugar and Nunn will receive the awards from the Eisenhower Institute, which is a think-tank, and from Global Green USA, an environmental group.
MODERN MIGS: The Russian MiG aircraft company has completed upgrades for its second MiG-29SMT Fulcrum multifunctional fighter, according to reports from the Military News Agency (MNA) in Russia. Improvements include a modernized cockpit and two new radars. The aircraft also has a larger wing area, much larger fuel tank, and higher engine thrust to allow for increased weapon stores. MNA also reports the aircraft now has laser-guided bombs, anti-ship missiles with active radar self-guided warheads, and anti-radar missiles.
ONE-PLANE CONCEPT: DOD acquisition appears to be tied to one of Norm Augustine's old laws, says Admiral Dennis C. Blair, PACOM Commander in Chief. The Pentagon practice, says Blair, is that the real growth and cost of major platforms runs from 5% to 7% per year. But the newer concept is "the capability doubles every 18 months and the price goes down," he explains. If things in the Pentagon continue, the military may find it has fulfilled Augustine's prophecy in his law number XVI: "In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft.
California financier Dennis Tito - the world's first space "tourist" - will be launched to the International Space Station with two Russian cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 28, Russian mission control said April 20. The Soyuz TM-32 rocket is scheduled to lift off at 11:37 a.m. Moscow time (3:37 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time) on Saturday, April 28, and is expected to dock at the space station at 1:10 p.m. Moscow time (5:10 a.m. EDT) on Monday, April 30.
FALSE EXPECTATIONS: Users of intelligence satellites are sometimes disappointed because the capabilities of the systems aren't what they expected, Mitchell says. "A perfect case," he says, is collection of signals intelligence. "Somebody says [to a user], 'We're going to cover your theater.' Great. They assume the theater is covered from one hertz to terahertz. Well, that isn't the case.
A nascent digital design technology is allowing aerospace engineers to perform "inside-out" design, making aerospace vehicles fit their occupants rather than the other way around. Digital human modeling is the use of a representation of a human in association with 3-D computer-aided design (CAD) data for simulating all the actions required to operate, assemble, or maintain a vehicle or product.
LOCKHEED MARTIN has established a new business unit within its Space Systems Company to build on its capabilities in navigation. The new Navigation Systems business unit will direct the company's efforts in the space-based navigation systems marketplace, the company announced. The new unit will pursue opportunities to develop the third generation Global Positioning System (GPS III) and Global Multi-Mission Service Platform (GMSP).
Stellex Technologies, Inc., of Florham Park, N.J., has stopped its efforts to sell its subsidiary Stellex Aerostructures, which provides subsystems and components for the aerospace and defense industries. The sale was being conducted due to an order of the Delaware bankruptcy court, but now the company will propose a "stand-alone" reorganization that will leave the company owned by its creditors.
