NASA's cancellation of the Pluto-Kuiper Express due to budget overruns means the troubled program will be shut down just before the space agency was to receive industry proposals on how to do the mission cheaply. NASA had issued a formal announcement of opportunity (AO) on a Pluto mission on Jan. 19, but this week told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that "it's canceled," according to NASA science spokesman Don Savage.
(Editor's note: Following is a continuation of the text of responses by then Deputy Secretary of Defense-nominee Paul Wolfowitz to written questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee). Wolfowitz was confirmed by the Senate Wednesday. Q. What policies and procedures do you believe need to be changed in the export license control process that would reflect the right balance between national security and commercial interests?
Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., announced Wednesday it won a $5 million contract for the Quick Reaction Launch Vehicle-2 program from the U.S Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. The QRLV-2 is the first task order executed under the Air Force's Sounding Rockets Program-2 indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract, which allows Orbital and three other companies to compete for up to $96 million in task order launch services. The other companies are Coleman Aerospace, Lockheed Martin and Space Vector Corp. (DAILY, Jan. 10).
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) plans to recommend that the Bush Administration propose high-level talks with Russia on missile defense cooperation, the congressman told The DAILY yesterday. Before having lunch with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday, Weldon said he would suggest a series of talks between senior U.S. Defense and State Dept. officials and their Russian counterparts. Both countries have already agreed to technical expert-level discussions, but Weldon wants higher-level talks to move the process along.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will sign a decree starting a large-scale restructuring of the domestic aircraft industry, according to sources. A draft version of the decree has already passed the major Russian departments in charge of technology and state property oversight.
The Air Force's Space-Based Infrared System-low satellite program, or SBIRS-low, intended to detect missile launches and track their flight for the National Missile Defense program, will likely go over budget and over schedule, the General Accounting Office said in a report issued Wednesday. "The Air Force's current SBIRS-low acquisition schedule is at a high risk of not delivering the system on time or at cost or with expected performance," the report says.
The Bush Administration yesterday endorsed Chile's bid to buy F-16s from the U.S., but the deal could still run into resistance from members of Congress. After meeting with Chilean Foreign Minister Maria Soledad Alvear Valenzuela in Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell said to reporters that he "told the minister that we are supportive of the sale."
The Acquisition Reform Working Group, made up of representatives of 10 industry and professional groups, sent its 2001 proposals to Capitol Hill last week and briefed reporters on them Wednesday. "We believe that, if enacted, these proposals will continue to push the acquisition system into the 21st century, sustain our national technology and industrial base, and improve government access to commercial technologies," the group wrote in a letter sent to lawmakers.
SEATTLE QUAKE: Boeing employees suffered no injuries in the earthquake that rocked the Seattle area yesterday but they were sent home early to be with their families, a company spokesman in Virginia told The Daily. Some computers fell off desks in the quake, but there was no immediate word on whether facilities had been damaged, said spokesman Rick Fuller. He added the company was assessing damage.
Three system integrators are participating in a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) concept study aimed at developing breakthrough technologies for sustained, long-range supersonic flight with substantially diminished sonic booms.
A $4 billion cost overrun on the International Space Station Alpha will force NASA to declare U.S. work on the Station to be complete even before major elements - including a habitation module - are done, according to the Bush Administration fiscal 2002 budget outline released yesterday.
United said Tuesday it is buying seven A319s and eight A320s from Airbus for delivery in the first quarter of 2003. The 15 aircraft will replace Boeing 727-200s that are to be retired by yearend 2003, consistent with the carrier's plan for slow domestic capacity growth.
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) introduced a bill Tuesday to close unneeded military bases and free up money for pressing needs, such as modernization. "Every year that we delay another base closure round, we waste about $1.5 billion in annual savings that we can never recoup," said Levin, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The bill would hold two base-closing rounds, in 2003 and 2005.
(Editor's note: Following is the text of responses by Deputy Secretary of Defense-nominee Paul Wolfowitz to written questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee.) Q. In a recent presentation, the Air Force Chief of Staff stated that if all of our current aviation modernization programs execute as planned, in fifteen years the average age of aircraft in the inventory will be 30 years. Specifically there has been much speculation that the current tactical aviation modernization plan is not affordable. Is this a viable program?
Britain's first unit to operate four Boeing C-17 heavy-lift military transports being leased by the British government will be up and running by the fall of this year, according to Thomas Bell, Boeing Aerospace President, U.K. Operations.
The six Gulf Arab states have launched a new regional command and control system produced by Raytheon, using a high-speed fiber optics communication network system provided by Ericsson. The total value of the contracts exceeded $160 million.
FAA will hold its annual aviation forecast March 13-14 at the Washington Convention Center with this year's theme "Global Growth Opportunities for the New Millennium." Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and FAA Administrator Jane Garvey will present opening remarks and Delta Chairman Leo Mullin will be the luncheon speaker the first day.
The U.S. plans to start sending UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopters to Colombia in July for that country's anti-drug effort, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Rand Beers told the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control yesterday. The Colombian army will get a total of 14 Black Hawks, while the Colombian national police will get two. All of the aircraft should arrive in Colombia by December, officials said.
The U.S. needs to do a better job convincing its European allies that Iran, Iraq and other nations pose a threat by developing and acquiring missile technology and nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) said yesterday at a European Institute forum on Capitol Hill.
Boeing last week delivered the last production MD-11. The aircraft went to Lufthansa Cargo, which has taken delivery of the last six MD-11s including four last year and two this year. The event ended 30 years of trijet production in Long Beach with a total of 646 aircraft built, including 446 DC-10s and 200 MD-11s.
President George W. Bush yesterday proposed a 4.8 percent increase in defense spending for fiscal 2002 and said that a previously announced $2.6 billion "down payment" for research and development (DAILY, Feb. 14) would go toward such programs as missile defense and "leap-ahead" technologies for new weapons and intelligence systems.
Lockheed Martin Corp. has won a $9 million U.S. Navy contract that solidifies its opportunity to compete with Raytheon Co. to produce laser guidance kits for bombs. The kits increase the accuracy of gravity bombs, reducing collateral damage and risk to aircrews. Lockheed Martin won the Naval Air Systems Command contract on Tuesday. It calls for production and qualification of 500 GBU-16 Paveway II laser guided bomb kits.
Joseph I. Murli has been appointed vice president, manufacturing of Kamatics Corporation, a subsidiary of Kaman Corporation and John K. Stockman has been appointed vice president, finance.
Michael Brown has been named vice president and chief information officer. FLIGHT VISIONS, Sugar Grove, Ill. James E. Stelter has been appointed chief financial officer. Stephen Walter Schiewe has been appointed vice president of manufacturing.
The U.S. Air Force's Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system, developed by Northrop Grumman Corp., has been named the winner of the Robert J. Collier Trophy, the National Aeronautic Association has announced. The award honors Global Hawk as the top aeronautical achievement of 2000.
