SOLAR FIX: PanAmSat may try to use the heat of the sun to repair the xenon ion engine on its Galaxy VIII-i spacecraft, but only after it gets a backup satellite in place to take over customer service. The company plans to send Galaxy III-C into the same orbital location as the faltering platform following its planned launch in the second quarter of 2001.
FALLING RATES: House Armed Services procurement subcommittee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) says the readiness of Air Force's front-line fighters has been degraded in the last eight years. Citing Air Force numbers, Hunter says the percentage of F-15Es that are mission capable has fallen from 86% in 1992 to 78% today. During the same period, the F-15's mission capable rate dropped from 81% to 73%, while the F-16's rate fell from 82% to 75%.
COST CUTTING: Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) says he plans to push legislation next year to close excess military bases, which Assistant Secretary of the Navy Robert Pirie says could free up about $1.5 billion a year for more pressing Navy needs, such as modernization. Armed Services ranking Democrat Carl Levin (Mich.) says he also supports more base closings.
CHINESE SATELLITES: China will build two more Earth-observing satellites for Brazil under a deal signed Sept. 20 and announced last week at the International Astronautical Federation meeting in Rio de Janeiro. As expected, the two China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellites (CBERS) will have higher resolution than the one launched in October 1999 and its twin in integration in Brazil (DAILY, June 1). The first two satellites have a reported resolution of 20 meters, while the follow-on pair will be able to resolve objects as small as five meters across.
Boeing closed on its $1.5 billion purchase of Jeppesen Sanderson Inc. yesterday after receiving the thumbs-up from U.S. and German government officials. "We've made it clear that we are going to offer global aerospace solutions, and growing our aviation services business is a major part of that," said John Hayhurst, VP of business development for Commercial Aviation Services, a unit of Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group.
Alliant Techsystems will supply the M300 Fighting Position Excavator (FPE) to the Royal Netherlands Army under a $1.3 million contract, marking the first international sale of the system. The FPE, used for digging foxholes, features an augur to dig two pilot holes and a soil-loosening explosive charge, which is placed in the holes. The blast, ATK said, fractures the soil, allowing it to be removed with a standard entrenching tool. The FPE's low visual and audible signature is suitable for general combat as well as covert operations, the company said.
European Space Agency engineers have discovered that there is not enough bandwidth in the link between its Huygens probe and NASA's Cassini spacecraft to handle the Doppler shift between the two as the ESA probe parachutes toward the surface of Titan, triggering an inquiry into why the shortfall wasn't discovered before NASA launched Cassini and Huygens to Saturn and how to get around it now.
Air France's plan to buy ten Boeing 777-300 airliners, confirmed by the carrier yesterday, boosts General Electric's firm order book for the GE90-115B engine to 98, valued at more than $1.5 billion, GE said. Air France also has options on ten more of the aircraft. Boeing is slated to deliver the first of the planes in October 2003.
Primex Aerospace Co., the Redmond, Wash.-based unit of Primex Technologies Inc., won a sole-source contract, worth up to $233.3 million over ten years, from the Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill AFB, Utah. "This Corporate Contract strengthens our relationship with the military and provides for rapid decentralized ordering and delivery of military equipment and services to support the [Dept. of Defense] for years to come," said Dale Linder, PAC's director of Aerospace Electronic Test Systems.
NASA's decision to make the X-33 reusable launch vehicle program compete with other bidders for proposed Space Launch Initiative (SLI) funding has raised concerns from a key member of Congress and the non-partisan National Space Society (NSS). Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), chairman of the NASA authorization oversight subcommittee in the House and a past critic of the X-33 program, termed the decision to make Lockheed Martin put the X-33 in the SLI competition after next March "a bit bizarre."
Hughes Space and Communications Co. promoted three people to its top management team just as Boeing prepared to take over the company. Boeing is slated to close today on the Hughes deal, which includes HSC, Spectrolab Inc. and Hughes Electron Dynamics. The acquired businesses will form the new Boeing Satellite Systems Inc.
NASA managers yesterday postponed launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery for 24 hours to give engineers more time to study why a 14-inch bolt failed to retract fully after the big external tank separated on the most recent Shuttle flight.
Tracer Corp. has signed on to handle Honeywell International Aviation Aftermarket Services' surplus parts inventory on a consignment basis. "Tracer is an outstanding partner choice for us - Tracer's aggressive use of new technologies in the sale, marketing and logistical support of our surplus program is key to our Partnership," said Honeywell's director of Aviation Aftermarket Services, Jim Blaskovich. "Outsourcing our surplus sales makes good sense for us."
A $2.9 billion Russian arms deal, signed during President Vladimir Putin's four-day visit to India on Wednesday (DAILY, Oct. 5), marked the culmination of several years of negotiations by the Delhi government for a variety of advanced weapons. The main feature of the package is the 44,000-ton aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, being acquired for an estimated $755 million, the cost of its refurbishment by Russia. According to Delhi press reports, some 24 navalized MiG-29Ks are also being bought by India, as launch customer, to operate from the Gorshkov.
Continental Electronics won two contracts, worth an estimated total of $13.6 million, to install five high-powered transmitters for the U.S. Air Force's Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Ga. The installation, Continental said, marks the first use of commercial high-frequency broadcast transmitters as a radar system.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) and Sen. Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.), who chairs the Banking Committee's international trade panel, are polling their Senate colleagues to see if they would support a quick "unanimous consent" approval of legislation "extending" the long-expired Export Administration Act (EAA) of 1979 for one year, Gramm spokeswoman Christi Harlan told The DAILY yesterday (Oct. 4).
TRIUMPH GROUP INC. has broadened its role in the 660 APU program with Honeywell International. Under an expanded licensing arrangement, Triumph now has exclusive rights to distribute new parts for Honeywell 660 APUs for Boeing 747-100, -200 and -300 series airplanes. The Wayne, Pa., company has also been licensed as the exclusive designated 700 series APU Factory Service Center to overhaul, repair and service the Honeywell 700 APU product line for A300, MD-11 and DC-10 aircraft.
Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation Robert Einhorn testified in Congress yesterday that he doubts that the Clinton Administration can certify that all subsidiaries of the Russian space agency aren't engaging in missile cooperation with Iran. Einhorn told a joint hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittees on European affairs and Near Eastern and South Asian affairs that the Administration hopes to give Congress a report by Dec. 1 on foreign entities that have transferred missile goods and technology to Iran.
The U.S. Air Force yesterday completed testing of the Enhanced GBU-15 glide bomb, with an F-15E dropping two of the bombs in one sortie at Eglin AFB, Fla., scoring five out of five hits for Phase II of the program. The EGBU-15 is a GBU-15 fitted with Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System (GPS/INS) guidance to give it all-weather capability.
An Advanced Targeting Pod (ATP) for use by tactical aircraft is the subject of a request for proposals planned for release by the U.S. Air Force's Aeronautical Systems Center on about Oct. 24. Responses, according to a Commerce Business Daily notice, will be due Dec. 31.
DRS Technologies Inc. won a $3.4 million contract to supply its commercial off-the-shelf AN/AQH-13 Acoustic Data Recorders for the U.S. Navy's P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft. The recorder is intended to be a plug-compatible replacement for two systems on the Orion fleet. It records 32 channels of acoustic information from sonobuoys, as well as annotation data to support anti-submarine warfare missions.
Boeing Co., Berkeley, Mo., is being awarded a $11,645,000 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract to provide for 472 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits. JDAM is a strap-on kit with Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System capability. This effort supports foreign military sales to Israel. Expected contract completion date is December 2001. Negotiation completion date was Sept. 26, 2000. Air Armament Center, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., is the contracting activity.
Veridian Engineering Inc., Alexandria, Va., has won an $11 million contract to modify F-14A/B and F-14B upgraded aircraft. The contract runs through September 2005.
Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector won a $3.5 million follow-on contract for U.S. Air Force B-52H AN/ALQ-155 countermeasures system upgrades. The contract, awarded by the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, will "fund critical long-lead materials and sustain the program through the preliminary design review," the company said.
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin has restructured the agency's Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications to better integrate the various disciplines it addresses as the International Space Station opens up new possibilities for research. Under the reorganization the office, renamed the Office of Biological and Physical Research (BPR), will continue past microgravity research efforts but with a new focus on biology for spacecraft crew health.
