Europe's Arianespace launched Eutelsat's W1 communications relay platform without a hitch Wednesday night, clearing the way at the Guiana Space Center near Kourou for next week's planned launch of an Ariane 5 with two commercial satellites aboard. Liftoff of the Ariane 44P with four solid-fuel strap-on boosters came at 6:33 p.m. EDT Wednesday, sending the big Astrium spacecraft toward an orbital slot at 10 degrees East longitude, where it will provide service to Europe and Southern Africa.
Aerochem Inc., a subsidiary of Los Angeles-based Ducommun Inc., signed a $4.6 million long-term agreement (LTA) with Hughes Space and Communications Co. to supply satellite battery cell housings through June 2002.
U.S. AIR FORCE identified the student pilot who was killed Sept. 6 in the crash of a T-37 trainer during an approach to Vance AFB, Okla. (DAILY, Sept. 7). Ens. Kristopher Krohne, 24, U.S. Navy Reserves, died when the aircraft crashed at about 8:20 a.m. He was from San Diego.
Boeing received FAA authorization Wednesday to install "blended winglets" on the Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) and said it plans to add the feature to the BBJ sister airplanes, the 737-700 and -800. The composite, eight-foot winglets, which sweep up from the tip of the BBJ wings, allow the aircraft to fly 300 n.m. farther and carry up to 4,000 pounds more in payload. FAA's approval culminates a flight-testing program that began in June 1998 through a partnership with Seattle-based Aviation Partners Inc.
Flight operations of 22 of 45 AV-8B Harriers, which had recently returned to service following a July 11 grounding, have again been suspended from flight, Naval Air Systems Command said Wednesday. The move was made when an engine being disassembled for repair at the Naval Aviation Depot at Cherry Point, N.C., was found to contain a damaged No. 3 bearing.
Precision Castparts Corp. is looking to add about 250 new positions to the Portland, Ore., facilities of its PCC Structurals and Wyman-Gordon Castings units because of "significant increases" in aerospace and industrial gas turbines castings production.
VICE ADM. WILLIAM J. FALLON has been nominated for appointment to the grade of admiral with assignment as Vice Chief of Naval Operations. Fallon currently serves as commander, Second Fleet and commander, Striking Fleet Atlantic in Norfolk, Va.
Europe's Airbus Industrie - readying a $20 billion bet on the future of very large aircraft - yesterday forecast continuing growth in the large-jet market, but nonetheless scaled back its air traffic growth and jet delivery projections from the 20-year forecast issued a year ago.
Thirteen BAT submunitions were dispensed by a U.S. Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) in an Aug. 30 test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., according to Northrop Grumman, prime contractor for the submunition. The test marked the end of development testing by demonstrating the performance of pre-production BAT submunitions and Lockheed Martin's Block II TACMS delivery vehicle. Some of the brilliant anti-armor submunitions carried warheads and some carried data recorders to collect flight test information.
Arrays of low-power lasers may prove to be an alternate to microwaves for transmitting solar power from collectors in Earth orbit to the ground, particularly since they would be much more practical for surface-to-surface power relay schemes that could evolve into space solar power (SSP) systems, experts told Congress yesterday.
NASA's Earth Observing System Project has brought together some 200 scientists from Africa, the U.S. and elsewhere for a six-week field experiment that combines observations from the Terra and Landsat 7 spacecraft with data from NASA's ER-2 high-altitude aircraft and other platforms to study biomass burning in Southern Africa.
A U.S. Navy report concludes that Sanders' Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (IDECM) Radio Frequency Countermeasures (RFCM) is "potentially operationally effective" and "potentially operationally suitable." The Operational Assessment, released in July by the Navy's Commander, Operational Test and Evaluation Force, recommends continuing the IDECM RFCM program according to the Test and Evaluation Master Plan, Sanders, a Lockheed Martin company, said yesterday.
NASA will sponsor a conference Sept. 10-13 in Sacramento, Calif., on the use of Earth science tools to cope with environmental disasters like the forest fires that have raged in the West this year. The Applications of Geospatial Information Workshop will cover such areas as the use of infrared and other satellite imagery to monitor wildfires; how satellite radar imagery can map flooding, and how space-based techniques can limit environmental damage from fertilizers and pesticides by helping farms apply them with greater precision.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank has financed or committed to finance $161.2 million in aerospace-related dual-use exports over the past three years, according to an annual status report compiled by the General Accounting Office. Ex-Im Bank is authorized to use part of its financing authority to support non-lethal exports that have defense applications but will be dedicated mainly to civilian use.
PANAMSAT will carry signals from 25 broadcasters, programmers and news agencies from more than two dozen nations worldwide during the upcoming Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. The Greenwich, Conn.-based communications satellite operator will use almost 50 satellite paths and more than 20 transponders on five spacecraft to relay more than 10,000 hours of total video transmission time during the Games. The U.S.
Boeing announced its acquisition of AeroInfo Systems Inc., a Canadian provider of maintenance software applications for the airline industry. The move, Boeing said, adds AeroInfo Systems' aviation maintenance planning technology to its portfolio of aviation services. Financial terms of the transaction, completed on Sept. 1, were not disclosed.
V-22 Ospreys, temporarily restricted from flight on Aug. 25 by a U.S. Navy order, are flying again. Naval Air Systems Command lifted the restriction on all 11 Ospreys on Sept. 1, and two have returned to flight. The aircraft have been cleared to fly as soon as they pass an inspection that checks coupling assemblies to ensure proper torque in the twin tiltrotors. NAVAIR expects to complete the inspections on the remaining nine aircraft in about a week.
The United States cannot afford more than one good space-based radar system and efforts to field a single system for use by both the military and intelligence community should continue, the director of the National Reconnaissance Office said yesterday.
ATLANTIC RESEARCH CORP. will provide reaction control thrusters for the X-37 Future X Pathfinder flight demonstration vehicle under a contract with Boeing. The Gainesville, Va.-based unit of Sequa Corp. will deliver hydrogen peroxide monopropellant thrusters that are a modification of a flight qualified 1960s-vintage design that traces its heritage to peroxide thrusters from the X-1, X-15, Mercury and Centaur programs. The 19 thrusters, each delivering 20 lfb, will provide primary attitude control for the X-37 after it is released from a U.S.
Lockheed Martin is upgrading its AN/TPS-73 mobile air traffic control radar for the U.S. Marine Corps under an $18.2 million contract that, with options, is valued at almost $60 million.
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION gave Sextant, a unit of France's Thomson-CSF, and Germany's Diehl the green light to go ahead with an avionics joint venture. The new entity will merge the operations of an existing joint venture between the two and Diehl's control and navigation activities.
United Industrial Corp. signed a definitive agreement to sell its transportation systems operations to Baltimore-based RailWorks Corp. in a move to reduce exposure outside its core focus areas of aerospace and defense. New York-based United Industrial will take a one-time, $10 million, or $0.80 per share, charge related to the deal, which is slated to close in 60 days.
CACI International Inc. won a five-year, $16.9 million prime contract from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego, for Navy, Joint Services and national Command, Control, Communications, Computer and Intelligence (C4I) systems. "Our work for this important Navy client supports our growth goals and strengthens our position as a dominant provider of C4I systems software engineering and testing services to our nation's Command and Control community," said Jack London, chairman and CEO of the Arlington, Va., company.
IIT RESEARCH INSTITUTE, Chicago, has won a $276.5 million contract to provide engineering support services for the continued operation and maintenance of the technical capabilities of the Joint Spectrum Center (JSC), under the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Pentagon said. DISA's mission is to develop, test, operate, and maintain information systems for C4I and mission support for the Dept. of Defense. JSC, as a field organization under DISA, provides this support to the warfighter, according to the Pentagon.
