Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Fla., was awarded a $20.7 million contract by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, of Dallas, for production of Improved Fire Control Systems (IFCS) electronics that support 66 Army Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) M270A1 launchers. The current award is a follow-on to a series of IFCS contracts that began in 1993.
Twin Rocketdyne XRS-2200 linear aerospike rocket engines fired in tandem for the first time Tuesday in a short "burp test" designed to test ignition. A spokesman for Stennis Space Center in Mississippi said the 1.12-second combustion wave ignition test came at 10 p.m. EST, and produced "no observed anomalies." The XRS-2200 has been fired individually, but Tuesday's test marked the first time two of the engines have been hot-fired in the configuration designed for the NASA/Lockheed Martin X-33 reusable launch vehicle prototype.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has appointed a new director general for the Khrunichev State Space Research and Industrial Center after relieving longtime director Anatoli Kiselev from his duties. Kiselev, 62, headed the Khrunichev Machine-Building Plant and then Khrunichev Center for 25 years. He had written an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking to be allowed to leave the position due to health reasons, and offering Medvedev as his successor.
Commercial space transportation generated some $61.3 billion in U.S. economic activity during 1999, including $16.4 billion in earnings by some 497,000 workers employed as a direct or indirect result of private-sector space activity, according to the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off for Space Station Alpha yesterday carrying the long-awaited U.S.-built "Destiny" Laboratory Module that will give crews aboard the orbiting outpost a place to conduct the microgravity experiments that are its raison d'etre. Launch from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., came at 6:13 p.m. EST, and the Shuttle reached orbit eight and a half minutes later.
Standard and Poor's revised its CreditWatch listing on the ratings of Pacific Aerospace&Electronics on Tuesday to developing from negative after the company announced it received a commitment letter to obtain $15 million in financing, which it would use to make a $3.6 million interest payment due Feb. 1 and repay existing bank lines.
President George W. Bush is not seeking an immediate defense supplemental spending bill for the military, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday. "The president has said he will seek no immediate supplemental. He has not ruled one out for later in the year," Fleischer said at the White House briefing, but he added it won't come until Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has finished his military review.
The U.K. Ministry of Defense announced contracts worth 6 million pounds (U.S. $8.76 million) on Tuesday for a year-long competitive assessment of two rivaloff-the-shelf lightweight "fire and forget" anti-tank missile systems. Assessment phase contracts have been placed for the Javelin ATM, produced as a joint venture by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, and the Gill/Spike system, developed by Israel's Rafael, and supported by MATRA BAE Dynamics.
If Canada chooses not to participate in a U.S. national missile defense (NMD) system, the country will re-examine and limit its involvement with the North American Aerospace Defense command (NORAD) at a time when ballistic missile threats are growing, NORAD's second in command said yesterday.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday the Pentagon will have to scrap some of its proposed weapon systems due to budget constraints. "There's no way that anybody can see how you're going to fund everything," McCain told reporters. McCain said it's his understanding that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's force structure review will "take a look at everything and make some pretty tough decisions." The review will include scrutiny of the F-22, the V-22 and ships, the senator said.
Messier-Dowty, a French landing gear manufacturer, is opening a plant in China this year to produce landing gear for regional jets and business aircraft, spokesman Francois Roudier said yesterday. "After Singapore, we'll open a new plant in China," Roudier said in a Washington interview. "We hope it will be built by the end of this year." The company began operations at its new production plant in Singapore last year, in a joint venture with Singapore Aerospace Manufacturing.
INTEGRAL SYSTEMS INC. will provide a multi-mission control center for the Republic of China's national Space Program Office (NSPO) to control the ROCSAT-2 satellite and the ROCSAT-3 satellite constellation. Under its contract with NSPO the Lanham, Md.-based satellite ground system provider will partner with Taiwanese subcontractors to provide all of the software needed for ROCSAT commanding, telemetry processing, orbit analysis, scheduling and tracking station automation, based on Integral's RPOCII product line.
Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee, hopes to move over to the position of ranking Democrat on the research and development panel, a spokesman told The DAILY Monday.
Europe's most ambitious and expensive Earth-observation satellite - Envisat - is getting its final tests at the European Space Agency (ESA) technical center here in preparation for launch this summer on an Ariane 5 rocket. "Envisat is a major challenge for Europe because it's the first time anyone has attempted to build a satellite of this proportion involving 10 instruments of all areas of Earth observation," said Jacques Louet, program manager at ESA.
California-based satellite manufacturers caught in the crunch between stiff European competition and stiffer U.S. export controls lost $1.2 billion in business in 2000, at a cost of more than 1,000 jobs, the Satellite Industry Association (SIA) reported yesterday. A seven-month study of worldwide satellite sales trends by SIA and Futron Corp. for the California Trade and Commerce Agency (CTCA) highlighted the March 1999 switch in export control authority from the U.S. Commerce Dept. to the Dept. of State as contributing to the lost market share.
NASA is planning to launch a major component to the International Space Station Alpha at 6:11 p.m. EST today, when the Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to lift off from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., carrying the long-awaited Destiny laboratory module. The 28-foot-long, 14-foot-wide, 16-ton Boeing-built lab is intended to be the centerpiece of scientific research on the Station as well as serving as the command and control center and contributing to life support. The launch window is between 6:06 p.m. and 6:16 p.m.
Sen. Robert Smith (R-N.H.) plans to stop blocking the nomination of Major Gen. Joseph Cosumano to be the commander of the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command after receiving assurances from the Army that it will fully support the kinetic energy anti-satellite program (KE-ASAT) and return key staff to the program.
LOCKHEED MARTIN's Consolidated Space Operations Contract (CSOC) has entered an agreement with Raytheon Polar Services Company to provide Internet Protocol data services to the National Science Foundation's polar programs. Under the four-year $885,000 contract CSOC personnel will install and operate routers connected to two full-time full-duplex T1 circuits.
Arianespace flight directors have cleared an Ariane 4 rocket for launch from Kourou, French Guiana, on Wednesday with two military satellites for Britain and Italy. The hour-long launch window opens at 5:28 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Flight 139 will carry the Skynet 4F satellite for Britain's Ministry of Defence and the Sicral satellite for Italy's Defense Ministry (shown in photo). Skynet 4F will be used for strategic and tactical communications services. It carries eight transponders -- four SHF, two UHF and two in the S-band.
Pacific Aerospace&Electronics Inc. announced Monday it has received a commitment letter from an institutional lender to provide $15 million in financing, which the company plans to use to refinance its credit lines in the U.S. and U.K., to pay a $3.6 million interest payment on its outstanding senior subordinated notes that was due on Feb. 1 and to provide working capital.
Newly installed House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) pledged Tuesday to scrutinize a proposed federal safety rule that a Boeing Co. representative said could hurt the competitiveness of the U.S. commercial space launch industry. Speaking at the Federal Aviation Administration's fourth annual Commercial Space Transportation Forecast Conference in Arlington, Va., Boehlert said he wants to make sure the FAA-proposed rule doesn't unnecessarily reduce the industry's competitiveness.
TRW INC. has developed a microwave power amplifier chip that has achieved an output power density of 360 milliwatts per square millimeter at a frequency of 23 billion cycles per second, which the company said is a record for integrated circuits operating at more than 20 GHz. TRW developed the dual-use indium phosphide amplifier, with an output of 400 milliwatts, under contract to the Air Force Research Laboratory's Sensors Directorate at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
THOMPSON VALVES FC has received an order from SNECMA Moteur to supply cryogenic electrovalves for the third stage engines of the Ariane 5 space launch vehicle. The order for 10 flight sets will be Thompson Valves' first Ariane 5 job, although the electrovalves have been used on more than 100 Ariane launches in the engine fuel control and attitude and control systems on the third stage.
CORRECTION: An article in The DAILY of Feb. 6 incorrectly designated the engine for the planned NASA/Lockheed Martin X-33 reusable launch vehicle testbed. The Rocketdyne engine is designated the XRS-2200.
Engingeered Support Systems, Inc. of Missouri received a $66 million Air Force contract for the production of its Tunner 60-K Cargo Loader/Transporters, the company announced yesterday. The Tunner, designed and manufactured by the company's Systems&Electronics subsidiary, is a mobile vehicle with a load capacity of 60,000 pounds, which is designed to quickly load and unload cargo from military transport aircraft in support of global airlift operations.
