An advanced technology program called Revolutionary Aerospace Engine Research (RASER) is the subject of a request for proposals planned for release by NASA's Glenn Research Center, Ohio. Glenn said in a Sept. 11 Commerce Business Daily notice that the effort will concentrate on the following areas: airbreathing engine technology, pulse detonation engine technology, auxiliary power systems, propulsion/airframe integration, rocket-based combined cycles, turbine-based combined cycles, design tools and cross-cutting technologies.
EA ENGINEERING, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INC., Baltimore, will join Foster Wheeler's team handling a $480 million U.S. Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence contract. The five-year contract won by Foster Wheeler last July covers Title I, Title II and A-E services for environmental engineering and planning services.
Raytheon Co., Tucson, Ariz., is being awarded a $74,850,320 fixed price contract for the production of 272 guidance sections for the AGM-88C High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM). Work will be performed in Tucson, Ariz., and is expected to be completed by July 2004. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity (N00019-00-C0362).
NASA has recorded the largest ozone hole on record over the Antarctic, using the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instrument aboard the TOMS Earth Probe to map low levels of the protective gas over about 11 million square miles on Sept. 3. The previous record for Antarctica, set on Sept. 19, 1998, was about 10.5 million square miles. The U.S. space agency said that while the size of the hole had stabilized, ozone levels inside the hole continued to decline. Ozone shelters the earth's surface from harmful ultraviolet radiation.
A U.S. Air Force official yesterday reiterated the service's opposition to creating a separate space force, saying the idea is "premature" as long as all the military's space activities are "surface related." Speaking at the Air Force Association national convention, Maj. Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force's director of legislative liaison, said he doesn't know what a separate space force would do "until we get beyond our own atmosphere."
Rep. Herbert Bateman (R-Va.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, died yesterday in his sleep during a visit to Loudon County, Va. He was 72. Bateman, who chaired the readiness subcommittee and sat on the research and development panel, announced in January that he wouldn't seek re-election this year partly because he suffered from cancer (DAILY, Jan. 6). House Armed Services Committee Chairman Floyd Spence (R-S.C.) issued a statement praising Bateman as a "valued leader" who sought to protect the military's capability.
TEXTRON SYSTEMS, Wilmington, Mass., has delivered two additional Mobile Microwave Landing Systems (MMLS) to the Italian Ministry of Defense. Italy, which has ordered five of the systems, received its first in July. The final two for the Italian Army are scheduled for delivery later this year.
William W. Quinn, who joined Martin Marietta after a career in military intelligence, died yesterday. He was 92. An Army intelligence officer who helped prepare the invasion of southern France in August 1944, Quinn went on to serve as chief of operations of the Central Intelligence Group, a CIA forerunner, and on the staff of Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. He retired from the military as a lieutenant general in 1966 and became vice president of Martin Marietta's Aerospace Group until his retirement from the company in 1972.
Raytheon Systems Company, McKinney, Texas, is being awarded a $6,045,540 modification to previously awarded contract N00019-95-C-0198 for non-recurring engineering support associated with the development of the Ultra High Resolution/ Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (UHR/ISAR) and the interface for the Limited Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Tactical Mission Software on-line control for the AN/APS 137C(V)5 Radar for P-3 aircraft. Work will be performed in McKinney, Texas (90%); and Kauai, Hawaii (10%), and is expected to be completed in March 2004.
Lockheed Martin executives said the Joint Strike Fighter program office may delay its down-select between their company and Boeing to allow for such factors as the advent of a new Administration and the opportunity to gather flight data from its short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) variant, now slated to make its first flight after the second quarter of next year.
Boeing Military Aircraft and Missile Systems Group, Seattle, Wash., is being awarded a $15,529,864 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract to provide for 322 pyrotechnic devices and 322 thermal batteries applicable to the AGM-86C/D conventional air-launched cruise missile. Expected contract completion date is Feb. 28, 2003. Solicitation issue date was March 14, 2000. Negotiation completion date was Aug. 29, 2000. Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Tinker AFB, Okla., is the contracting activity (F34601-99-C-0096-P00022).
AVIATION SALES CO. completed the previously announced sale of its Kratz-Wilde Machine Co. and Apex Manufacturing operations to the Barnes Group for $41 million in cash (DAILY, Aug. 7). Aviation Sales Co. Chairman and CEO Dale S. Baker said the divestitures were an "important step" in repairing the company's financial health and "rapidly" paying down debt. It is continuing to evaluate the sale of other assets, including Dixie Bearing business, he said.
DRS Technologies won a $2.8 million production contract from Northrop Grumman's Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector for the U.S. Air Force's E-8C aircraft in the Joint STARS program. "Our highly rated performance on the Joint STARS program, well regarded reputation for manufacturing quality and long-term association with Northrop Grumman are supported by our commitment to provide 'best value' production and test services for a diverse array of key military platforms," said Mark S. Newman, president, chairman and CEO.
Russia has expressed interest in a proposal from the United States to conduct a joint Theater Missile Defense exercise next year, according to the Pentagon. It would be the third such exercise. The U.S. hosted a command post exercise (CPX) at Colorado Springs, Colo., in 1996 and Moscow hosted one in 1998.
Boeing North American, Inc., Long Beach, Calif., is being awarded a $30,000,000 modification to a cost-plus-incentive-fee contract to provide for update of avionics software in support of the B-1B aircraft. Expected contract completion date is July 15, 2002. Solicitation issue date was April 27, 2000. Negotiation completion date was Aug. 23, 2000. Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Tinker AFB, Okla., is the contracting activity (F34601-99-C-0001).
Raytheon Aerospace Company, Madison, Miss., was awarded on Sept. 1, 2000, a $22,006,265 (estimated) modification to a firm-fixed-price contract to provide for production and installation of Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) and Terrain Awareness Warning System (TAWS) kits for 75 C-21A aircraft. Expected contract completion date is Feb. 28, 2002. Solicitation issue date was March 10, 2000. Negotiation completion date was Aug. 24, 2000. Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Tinker AFB, Okla., is the contracting activity (F34601-94-C-0950-P00176).
McDonnell Douglas Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Boeing Co., St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $16,062,836 modification to a previously awarded contract N00019-00C-0367 for the procurement of organization-level ground support equipment which will support five F/A-18E/F carrier and shore-based squadrons. Work will be performed in St. Louis, Mo. (60%), Los Angeles, Calif. (17.6%), Milford, NH. (5.5%), Tempe, Ariz. (5%), Elgin, Ill. (4.4%), Fort Walton Beach, Fl.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) introduced an amendment Thursday that would suspend normal trade relations with China after five years if that country doesn't meet its trade commitments. The proposal is one of a host of amendments that senators are offering while the Senate this week considers legislation to grant China permanent normal trade relations (PNTR).
With some tension lifted following President Clinton's decision not to move ahead with deployment of a national missile defense system, he and Russia's Prime Minister Putin hammered out the third document in an "iterative process" of U.S.-Russian strategic cooperation. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot said the document "puts more flesh on the bones" of papers signed in June by the two countries in Moscow and Okinawa, "which means kind of reinforcing the nuclear peace, if I can put it that way, and also cooperation on dealing with new threats."
The Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) will try to destroy simultaneously launched Katyusha rockets today in a test at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), N.M. The test will be one step up from last month's successful firing at two Katyusha rockets launched in succession (DAILY, Aug. 30).
One of the areas being focused on by the U.S. Air Force as it carries out Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2000 is new technologies to reduce the time it takes to attack critical targets, said Gen. John P. Jumper, commander of Air Combat Command. Time critical targeting, Jumper told reporters Thursday in a video teleconference from the JFEX 2000 Combined Air Operations Center at Hurlburt Field, Fla., has emerged as an area for concentration following Operation Desert Storm and Operation Allied Force.
The U.S. Marine Corps' first AH-1Z Super Cobra helicopter marked a milestone last Wednesday when it completed the first engine-powered ground turn of its rotors at Bell Helicopter's experimental flight test facility in Arlington, Tex. "This was a full-up aircraft," a spokesman for Bell Helicopter Textron said. "It is the first ground run of the first ship of the ... program." The company is the remanufacturing 180 AH-1Ws into AH-1Zs and 100 UH-1Ns into UH-1Ys.
DESTROYING SUBS: Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) says he is working with Energy Secretary Bill Richardson to develop support in Congress and the Clinton Administration for using the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program to step up the dismantlement of Russia's submarine fleet. The program, created by Lugar and former Sen. Sam Nunn, is authorized to destroy Russia's strategic submarines, which can carry long-range nuclear missiles. But it can't destroy Russian subs with shorter-range nuclear missiles, Lugar says.
The Defense Dept. needs to adopt a more aggressive testing program with "parallel paths and activities" to achieve an initial capability for a National Missile Defense system by the second half of the decade, a Pentagon official testified in Congress Friday.
PLUG AND PLAY: NASA-funded studies into the future of Space Solar Power (SSP) have found a number of potential commercial applications for the idea of collecting energy from the sun and moving it around with microwaves or lasers. John Mankins, who oversees such work at NASA headquarters, says the trend to ever-larger geostationary communications platforms may be enabled in part by SSP platforms beaming power to them. Without the need to launch solar arrays along with transponders, 100 kilowatt communications satellites may be possible in the next 10-20 years.
