Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Stratford, Conn., has won a $48.8 million contract modification exercising an option for seven more UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters. The U.S. Army's Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., awarded the contract.
CAE's Global Flight Training Services group won certification for a new A320 flight simulator and has started training pilots with Canada 3000 and Skyservice, the company said. "This certification reinforces CAE's strategy to move into North America pilot training business," said Andre Gareau, VP of Global Flight Training Services.
NASA AND LOCKHEED MARTIN Space Systems have completed negotiations for production of 35 Super Lightweight External Tanks for the Space Shuttle program under a six-year contract worth about $1.15 billion, according to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
Northrop Grumman Corp. said it has completed the acquisition of Sterling Software (U.S.) Inc., known as the Federal Systems Group, for $150 million in cash. The company provides information technology services primarily to the U.S. government's defense and intelligence agencies.
Vought Aircraft Industries Inc. announced appointment of its executive staff. Vought Aircraft, based in Dallas, began operations July 24. It was created when Northrop Grumman Corp. sold its commercial aerostructures business to The Carlyle Group, the Washington, D.C., private equity firm.
With the first U.S.-Russian crew to inhabit the International Space Station well on its way to today's historic homecoming, NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin said yesterday the two space superpowers still faced the difficult task of "melding" their strengths and discarding their weaknesses for long-term joint operations in orbit.
Boeing Co. yesterday announced formation of three new business units: Connexion by Boeing, aimed at providing Internet and entertainment services to mobile platforms; Air Traffic Management, charged with developing new ways to enhance air traffic control and airport operations; and Boeing Capital Corp., the financial services arm. Heading the units, Boeing said, will be:
The Senate yesterday passed a bill that would expand a tax break for U.S. defense exporters, but House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was resisting bringing up the measure for a vote in his chamber. The Senate bill would revise the laws on Foreign Sales Corporations to bring them in line with a World Trade Organization ruling. It also would give defense exporters the same tax benefit that other U.S. companies have long received for using FSCs, which are a type of subsidiary.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) urged President Clinton yesterday to veto the fiscal 2001 intelligence authorization bill, saying a provision aimed at curbing leaks of classified information poses a "threat ... to our democracy." The provision criminalizes the disclosure of information that is "properly classified" or that a person "knows or has reason to believe has been properly classified by appropriate authorities." Violators could face penalties including prison terms of up to three years.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN'S Logicon unit will investigate Wireless Information Network Cyber Defense under a one-year, $250,000 contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Lab, Rome, N.Y.
Lockheed Martin's X-35A conventional takeoff and landing Joint Strike Fighter demonstrator is continuing envelope expansion activities following its first flight Oct. 24, a company spokesman said yesterday. Since then, he said, the aircraft has flown twice, and is expected to fly again this week.
Test firing of the first remanufactured production Minuteman III stage 1 solid rocket motor was conducted this month at the Thiokol Propulsion test range at Promontory, Utah, TRW Inc. said. It was the first production motor delivered under the Low Rate Initial Production phase of the Air Force's Propulsion Replacement Program (PRP), which is managed by TRW. The test, it said, allows the Air Force to begin accepting production stage 1 motors to replace the aging motors in the Minuteman III missile force.
Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter avionics suite has demonstrated all-weather precision targeting for fixed and mobile targets with the plane's avionics test bed fusing data from on-board and off-board sensors.
The Republic of Korea Air Force awarded a contract to a joint venture team of ITT Industries' Avionics Div. and Northrop Grumman's Electronic Sensors and Systems for additional ALQ-165 Airborne Self Protection Jammer (ASPJ) systems.
Invitations to tender for supply and initial support of the British army's $2.4 billion Bowman battlefield radio program, issued on Wednesday, went out four weeks earlier than originally planned. Weaknesses of existing communications systems employed by U.K. ground forces in the Kosovo operations were strongly criticized in the recent Commons Defense Committee report on that campaign. It condemned delays in introducing the Bowman integrated voice and data communications systems as completely unacceptable.
President Clinton has signed into law the fiscal 2001 VA-HUD appropriations bill, which provides $14.3 billion for NASA, the White House announced Monday. The NASA funding is $250 million above President Clinton's request and $683 million over fiscal 2000. The new law fully funds the $290 million request for the Space Launch Initiative and the $420 million request for the Mission to Mars. It provides $2.114 billion for the International Space Station, $211 million below fiscal 2000.
The House approved a Senate-passed bill earlier this week that will revive the Export Administration Act (EAA) for almost a year after a six-year hiatus. The bill, which now goes to President Clinton for his expected signature, will increase the maximum fine for willful violations by individuals from $50,000 to $250,000. For companies, the fine for willful violations will rise from a $50,000 maximum up to $1 million or five times the value of the exports, whichever greater.
President Clinton late Monday signed the $309.9 billion fiscal 2001 defense authorization bill into law, saying he is "encouraged" it funds such weapons programs as the Joint Strike Fighter, the Air Force F-22 Raptor and the Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. "These programs are critical to ensuring our nation's military superiority into the 21st century," Clinton said in a statement.
Three men from two former enemies lifted off from this rusting launch facility aboard a Soyuz rocket yesterday, bound for a four-month stay on the International Space Station that might mark the beginning of permanent human habitation off the planet.
The U.S. Army has awarded a $78.5 million development contract to Team Apache Systems (TAS), a limited liability company comprised of Boeing and Lockheed Martin and several subcontractors, to upgrade the AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter with a new sensor system. The system, called Arrowhead, is a targeting and navigation system that will significantly improve the helicopter's night vision and targeting capabilities, according to Boeing, maker of the Apache.
Teams led by ITT Industries and Raytheon will compete for FAA's Next Generation Air/Ground Communication System (NEXCOM), the companies said at the Air Traffic Control Association's annual meeting in Atlantic City last week. NEXCOM will replace analogue VHF radios with more than 36,000 multi-mode digital radios providing voice and data communications for air traffic control.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin report they have each resolved hardware hiccups in their respective conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) Joint Strike Fighter demonstrator aircraft and are continuing to make progress in their test programs. On Oct. 24, the day of the first flight of Lockheed Martin's X-35A, Boeing's X-32A diverted to one of the dry lakebed runways at Edwards AFB, Calif., after a company test pilot noted a possible problem with the braking system (DAILY, Oct. 25).
Raytheon Co. posted income from continuing operations of $133 million, or $0.39 per diluted share, reversing last year's third quarter loss and hitting Wall Street consensus estimate. And management said it "feels good" about Raytheon staying on course till the end of the year.
Loral Chairman and CEO Bernard Schwartz, stressing Monday that Globalstar is ready to stand on its own (DAILY, Oct. 31), said one market with potential for the satellite communications company, which Loral backs, is military/government.
Astronaut Bill Shepherd and his cosmonaut crewmates Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev face two days in a cramped Soyuz capsule as they make their way to the International Space Station, and 17 weeks after that activating and troubleshooting equipment already aboard and to be delivered later.
