WASHINGTON STATE election officials yesterday ordered a ballot recount to determine whether Sen. Slade Gorton (R), a key supporter of Seattle-based Boeing, stays in office. Gorton trailed former Rep. Maria Cantwell (D) by 1,953 votes in the original count, which was completed last week. The recount is expected to be finished by Friday.
Raytheon Systems Company, Goleta, Calif., was awarded on Nov. 20, 2000, a $152,872,700 cost-plus-award-fee contract to provide for Phase II algorithm and design development, investigation and analysis, and construction of three flight production units in support of the Visible/Infrared Imagery and Radiometric Suite sensor for the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environment Satellite System (NPOESS). Expected contract completion date is March 31, 2015. Solicitation issue date was June 2, 2000. Negotiation completion date was Sept. 13, 2000.
Russia's Duma has adopted a non-binding resolution calling on the government to continue supporting operations aboard the Mir orbital station, reflecting public opinion as measured in a recent scientific poll. During an evening session on Nov. 24 the Duma adopted a resolution "on the necessity of the Mir orbital research complex preservation." The resolution was prepared by a number of the Duma's deputies, including Cosmonauts Vitaly Sevastianov, Svetlana Savitskaya and Elena Kondakova, and was introduced by the ultra-Nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovskiy.
Lockheed Martin Corp. Lockheed Martin Information Systems, Orlando, Fla., is being awarded a $15,779,804 modification to previously awarded firm fixed price contract N00019-00-C-0480 to exercise an option for the procurement of 48 first article operational test program sets for use with the AN/USM-636(V) Consolidated Automated Support System in support of the EA-6B aircraft (44 radar communications testers and four new electronic warfare test sets). Work will be performed in Orlando, Fl. (65%), and Americus, Ga. (35%), and is expected to be completed by January 2004.
NASA has picked six astronomy teams to conduct research with the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) scheduled for launch in July 2002 to probe the origins of galaxies, stars and planets. Overall the six proposals, selected from 28 submitted, will consume more than 3,000 hours of observation time - about half of the time available on SIRTF during its first year of operation. Projects selected, with their team leaders, were:
STARDUST, a NASA spacecraft designed to collect samples from the tail of the comet P/Wild 2 and return them to Earth in 2006, survived bombardment by high-energy protons from the powerful solar flare earlier this month, the space agency said. The spacecraft went into a safe mode when the flare hit it on the afternoon of Nov. 9, when it was about 130 million miles from the sun, and controllers at the Jet Propulsion Lab decided to leave it that way until Saturday to prevent damage from the charged particles.
Withdrawal from long-term service of the Royal Australian Air Force's few remaining Aermacchi MB.326H advanced jet-trainers is gathering steam, following formal acceptance on Nov. 22 of the first of 33 Hawk 127 Lead-In Fighters (LIF) on order. Speaking at a ceremony marking the Hawk 127's introduction into service at RAAF Base Williamtown near Newcastle, in New South Wales, Air Force Chief Air Marshal Errol McCormack said the aircraft represented a new era for the RAAF, and a quantum leap in its fast-jet training program.
AAI Corp. has been awarded a $7.5 million contract from the government of Romania for a Shadow 600 unmanned aerial vehicle system, including multiple air vehicles, a ground control station, a ground data terminal and other support equipment. The new contract follows AAI's successful completion of a similar contract for the Romanian Air Force in 1999 and continues the company's drive to expand its competitive position in the international UAV marketplace.
Boeing Company, Albuquerque, N.M., is being awarded a $32,432,767 (estimated) option to a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to provide for Starfire Optical Range Experimental and Technical Support services to counteract the effects of meteor atmospheric turbulence. Expected contract completion date is Nov. 30, 2005. Solicitation issue date was June 26, 2000. Negotiation completion date was Sept. 9, 2000. Detachment 8, Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., is the contracting activity. Garry Ford, (505) 853-3309, is the POC.
The appointment of Jeffrey R. Immelt, 44, to succeed John F. Welch , 64, as chairman and CEO of General Electric could lead to several high-level personnel changes, including a promotion for a GE Aircraft Engines executive. Immelt, who had been president and CEO of GE Medical Systems, was chosen over two other GE CEOs, W. James McNerney Jr. of GE Aircraft Engines, and Robert L. Nardelli of GE Power Systems.
Due to an editing error, an article in the Nov. 22 issue of The DAILY, was misleading concerning the first flight of Boeing's X-32B short takeoff vertical landing (STOVL) Joint Strike Fighter. The X-32B has not yet flown and is expected to begin flight test next March. First flight of the company's X-32A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft was Sept. 18.
Pennsylvania State University Applied Research Laboratory, University Park, Pa., is being awarded a $9,300,000 cost-plus-firm-fee R&D contract to develop and demonstrate an integrated system of: (1) shipboard and torpedo sensor signal processing for improved probability of target detection and classification; (2) shipboard tactical situational awareness processing and displays; and (3) improved torpedo guidance and control, featuring ship-torpedo connectivity to significantly increase the probability of a kill in a shallow water engagement.
Raytheon Co. won a $14 million contract for the Programmable Integrated Ordnance Suite Phase II (PIOS II), a program jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and the U.K. Ministry of Defense. "PIOS is a concept designed with eyes to look at the target, then deliver a more intelligently placed punch using an aimable warhead," explained Terry Adams, the MOD's Procurement Agency project manager. "This is exciting technology with applications across a wide spectrum of missiles and is not being developed for a specific system."
PanAmSat's Galaxy VII telecommunications satellite failed in orbit last week, but the private satellite operator had already replaced it in orbit and expected no impact on revenues.
EUROPE'S ARIANESPACE launched Anik F1 for Telesat Canada Tuesday night, putting the Boeing 702 spacecraft billed as "the most powerful communications satellite built to date" into its transfer orbit for eventual service to the Americas, Hawaii and the Caribbean. Liftoff of the Ariane 44L, with four liquid-fuel boosters, came at 6:56 p.m. EST Tuesday. The satellite carries 48 Ku-band transponders and 38 C-band transponders, and will be positioned at 45 degrees East longitude, over the Pacific Ocean.
Continued concern was being expressed in U.K. defense circles last week about the potential of a European Rapid Reaction Force (EURRF) to weaken trans-Atlantic alliances. Britain's Gulf War Supreme General Sir Peter de la Billiere, for instance, said that U.K. participation in seemed to have been driven by political objectives rather than military imperatives. He echoed earlier statements by Conservative and Labor Defense Secretaries Lords Carrington and Healey, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and former Labor Foreign Secretary David Owen.
Lockheed Martin took its X-35A Joint Strike Fighter supersonic on Nov. 21, achieving Mach 1.05 during the aircraft's 25th flight test and 25th flight test hour, and marking a milestone for the company before the plane is pulled out of service and converted to the X-35B. With company JSF chief test pilot Tom Morgenfeld at the controls, the plane took off from Edwards AFB, Calif., at 4:30 p.m. local time, climbed to 25,000 feet and broke the sound barrier.
U.K. industry was taken to task by Defense Procurement Minister Baroness Symons for its contribution to continuing delays and cost overruns in British military equipment programs, listed by the National Audit Office in its Major Projects Report 2000. Issued on Nov. 21, the NAO report analyzed costs and performance of the top 20 U.K. defense equipment projects between March 31 1999-2000.
Japan's government may buy four more reconnaissance satellites to supplement the four scheduled for launch in fiscal 2002, with higher resolution than the one-meter spacecraft on order to monitor military developments in North Korea.
Boeing's launch of Earth-observing satellites for NASA and Argentina's space agency aboard the same Delta II rocket last week marked the company's entry into competition with Orbital Sciences Corp. and others for the small scientific satellite market.
The State Dept.'s move to lift economic sanctions against China (DAILY, Nov. 22) could signal long-term benefits for U.S. satellite manufacturers, if politics don't get in the way, but overall, observers say, the decision isn't a big deal. For one thing, the China market won't be a key driver for U.S. satellite industry growth in the short-term even if State resumes processing export licenses.
JSF PRICE HIKE: The cost of the JSF family of airplanes has now gone up, according to the government program office's leading official. "I was given the charter to build this airplane to a $28 million metric," explains USMC Maj. Gen. Michael Hough, JSF program director. "A family of airplanes had to be built between $28 million and $38 million, and the basic airplane - same motor, avionics, 78% commonality - had to built to a CTOL airframe for $28 million." The upper-end of the spectrum was $38 million for the more complicated STOVL version.
TURKEY WATCH: Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking Democrat Joseph Biden (Del.) is threatening to block arms sales to Turkey if Ankara doesn't play a constructive role in United Nations-sponsored Cyprus peace talks. Biden has already placed a temporary hold on an export license for the sale of eight Sikorsky S-80E-1 heavy-lift helicopters to Turkey. He says he lifted the hold after receiving State Dept. assurances that progress is being made in the peace talks.
House International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.) wants to redo a U.S. aid package for Colombia's drug war by shifting helicopters from the army to the national police and by adding three Buffalo supply planes to replace DC-3s, according to congressional sources.
RESEARCHERS will receive more than $15 million from NASA over the next four years for fundamental research in physics, both in space and on the earth, the space agency said. NASA's new Office of Biological and Physical Research picked 36 ground-based proposals, which will use drop-tubes, parabolic flights and sounding rockets, and five projects aimed at defining spaceflight experiments that will use Space Station Alpha or a Space Shuttle. Awardees are listed at ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-183a.txt
