Pilots and engineers of the Republic of Korea Air Force this week began evaluations of the EADS Eurofighter Typhoon, one of several candidates to fill the ROKAF's requirement for new fighters. The Typhoon has been short-listed for the requirement. The ROKAF plans to acquire a first batch of 40 new jets in coming years.
The incoming administration can launch U.S. space policy on a new and better path, the head of Orbital Sciences said Thursday, only if the administration sets up a national aerospace council and makes major changes in how it does business. In fact, unless the government changes its attitude and policies regarding the commercial space imaging sector, the industry may not exist in two to three years, David W. Thompson Chairman and CEO of Orbital Sciences Corporation said at the Washington Space Business Roundtable.
Four days of planning paid off yesterday when two astronauts restrung two cables on Space Station Alpha's new 240-foot-long solar wing in just one hour and 10 minutes. Mission planners set aside three hours for the repairs above Space Shuttle Endeavour after doing simulations on the ground. "It is fully repaired. Great work!" said Mission Control. Space Shuttle astronauts Joe Tanner and Carlos Noriega got the first loose tension cable back on its pulley and reel in a matter of minutes.
Textron Inc. said it has agreed to acquire Tempo Research Corp., a telecommunications test company based in Vista, Calif. Terms of the deal, slated to close in January, were not disclosed but projected 2000 sales of Tempo are $55 million, up from last year's sales of about $27 million. Tempo will become part of Greenlee Textron, a unit of Textron Industrial Products.
BAE Systems, working with Motorola and Raytheon, said it will carry out one of several concept studies of Project Falcon, the British armed forces' future tactical wide area communications system. The Communications&Defense Infrastructure business of BAE Systems' Avionics Group will investigate a range of technologies, assess potential solutions and make recommendations to the U.K. Ministry of Defense, the company said.
Contrasting reports concerning U.S. reaction to the creation of a European rapid reaction force (ERRF) have emerged from the closed meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels on Tuesday. Immediately after the meeting, U.K. Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon issued a statement claiming that his American counterpart, William Cohen, "had again made clear his fundamental support for the European Defense Initiative."
Australia's military is getting an immediate A$500 million (US$255.5 million) injection in 2001-02 and a boost of A$1 billion (US$511 million) the following year, signaling good news for several major procurement programs now in limbo.
Alcatel Space said it has won a $1.4 billion euro contract to build France's Syracuse III military communications system. The contract, signed Nov. 30 by DGA, the French procurement agency, calls for in-orbit delivery of a Syracuse IIIA military satellite and upgrades of the current ground segment, Alcatel said yesterday.
The General Accounting Office is questioning the cost effectiveness of the Brilliant Antiarmor Submunition/Army Tactical Missile System (BAT/ATACMS) program, six months before the Pentagon is due to decide whether to begin full-rate production of the ground-launched anti-tank weapon.
The Dept. of Defense yesterday signed a two-year, $3 million-per-month service contract with Iridium Satellite LLC, a group of venture capitalists buying the bankrupt Motorola-backed communications satellite system, to provide secure mobile telephone communications in remote locations throughout the world.
The EROS A1 imaging satellite was launched Tuesday by a Start-1 launcher from Russia's Svobodni Cosmodrome in Siberia, according to ImageSat International N.V. of Tel Aviv. The launch took place at 12:30 GMT (21:30 in Siberia), and the satellite separated as planned from the rocket 15 minutes after launch ignition. Communication was established with the company's ground station in Kiruna, Sweden, after separation. The satellite went into a sun-synchronous orbit at 480 km. The satellite will be commissioned for commercial use in coming weeks.
COBHAM PLC plans to spend $91.8 million to buy the Power&Control business unit of BAE Systems Electronics Limited. The deal, slated to close by the end of the month, significantly adds to Cobham's flight refueling business and will position the company to pursue bigger "packages of work." The BAE unit is located in the U.K., but it includes a product support operation center in the U.S.
Lockheed Martin is working under a $25.5 million U.S. Navy contract option to change the test missile kit for the Trident II D5 fleet ballistic missile. The option, the first of three in a 1999 contract, calls for work to begin immediately and extend through May 31, 2004, Lockheed Martin said.
U.S. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and the Ukrainian Defense Minister Olexander Kuzmuk signed an annual Plan of Cooperation aimed at boosting defense and military contacts between the two countries. The new arrangement, which builds on an agreement signed in 1993, lays out new military and defense activities between the two nations. Joint efforts in 2001 focus on interoperability, professionalization, civil-military affairs, defense structuring and resourcing, and military technical cooperation.
Europe*Star, a joint venture of Loral Space&Communications and Alcatel Space, will provide two European telecommunications companies with satellite transponder capacity for broadband Internet services. Communications and Banking Equipment S.A. of Luxembourg (CBL) has leased two transponders on the Europe*Star 1 satellite to launch its StarSpeeder service, which will deliver broadband Internet and IP streaming services to business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets in Europe and the Middle East, Europe*Star said.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORP. has received a $7.7 million U.S. Air Force contract to provide 24 AN/APN-241 navigation and weather radars for Lockheed Martin C-130H aircraft. Engineering and manufacturing work associated with the program will take place at the company's Baltimore area facilities. Deliveries are slated for completion by June 30, 2002.
Litton Industries Inc. posted lower first quarter profits but still managed to turn in earnings per share of $0.97, benefiting from recent moves to refocus on core competencies and beating Wall Street analysts' estimates for the first fiscal quarter of 2001.
For fiscal 1999, French aerospace sales rose 2.6% over the prior year to $21.5 billion - with 76% of consolidated sales coming from exports - driven by strength in commercial aircraft, helicopters, engines and equipment. Orders for the year stood at $23.4 billion. Airbus Industrie snagged over 55% of world airliner sales, or about 52% of the total contract value. The company currently has 1,445 aircraft on its order book, worth more than four years of production.
Lear Siegler Logistics International Inc., Annapolis, Md., has been awarded a $1.2 billion contract to provide for the Dept. of Defense's Parts and Repair Ordering System (PROS) II program through December 2003, the Pentagon said Tuesday. PROS provides logistical supply and maintenance support to a variety of foreign military sales customers to meet requirements of their weapons systems when organic DOD support is not available or timely, the Pentagon said.
Northrop Grumman is locked and loaded - ready to handle the growing emphasis on cyber-warfare to protect U.S. forces in 21st century conflicts, Chairman and CEO Kent Kresa said yesterday. "There has been a real strategic transformation of the company - from an aircraft company to a systems integration, a defense electronics and an information technology company, three very strong elements in their own right when you think about the future," Kresa told Wall Street analysts at the company's annual meeting in New York yesterday.
Ford Motor Co. and The U.K. Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) announced formation of a U.S.-based joint venture, Holographic Imaging LLC, aimed at accelerating the vehicle design process. Using technology in development at DERA, the venture will create a three-dimensional, interactive imaging workstation prototype. Engineers can rely on the multidimensional visual imaging instead of hard models to complete the design process.
Five European nations agreed yesterday to cooperate on amphibious operations. France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom Tuesday agreed on a Declaration of Intent for a European amphibious initiative. U.K. defense minister Geoff Hoon said that U.K. amphibious forces had worked with allies for many years, particularly with the Dutch, with whom the U.K. has been operating since 1973. "This initiative will enhance that co-operation, and improve our contribution to both NATO and Europe," he said.
ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS was picked by Lockheed Martin Space Systems-Astronautics Operations of Littleton, Colo., to produce composite structures for its Atlas V family of space launch vehicles. The structures include Centaur interstage adapters, heat shields and boattails.
Honeywell International Inc. will host a Jan. 10 shareholder meeting to vote on its proposed merger with General Electric Co. Pending stockholder and regulatory approval, the companies plan to move quickly to complete the transaction. Honeywell has agreed to pay a $1.35 billion termination fee if the board changes its recommendation, or if the company's shareholders vote down the merger when there is another valid public offer, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
American jobs are lost when foreign countries insist on technology transfers and other conditions for buying major defense and commercial systems from the U.S., a labor union representative told the congressionally mandated National Commission on the Use of Offsets in Defense Trade at its first meeting Monday.
