U.K. Defense Procurement Minister Baroness Symons inspected the Boeing and Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter demonstrator aircraft Friday during a private trip to California. The JSF is a contender for the U.K.'s next generation of aircraft carriers.
JAPAN'S SPYSATS: Japan has set the final details for the reconnaissance satellite system it plans to begin launching in 2002 aboard the planned new H-2A rocket. The government has picked the city of Akune, in Kagoshima Prefecture in southwest Japan, as the site of the second ground station that will draw imagery from the fleet of four spysats. Two data control centers and another Earth station at Tomakomai, on the northern island of Hokkaido, will round out the ground segment.
DRS Technologies Inc. said it has won about $11.8 million in new contracts from the U.S. Army for Second Generation Forward Looking Infrared (SG FLIR) sighting systems. These efforts, which include production and engineering services, support the service's Horizontal Technology Integration (HTI) initiative and apply common night vision technology across several land platforms, including the Abrams M1A2 tank System Enhancement Package (SEP), the Bradley M2A3 Infantry Fighting Vehicles and the M1025 and M1114 Humvees.
Orbcomm Global L.P. missed a scheduled interest payment on its outstanding senior debt, as expected, and said it was hiring Wall Street investment house Donaldson, Lufkin&Jenrette (DLJ) to help find ways to recapitalize the debt. The Orbital Sciences Corp. offshoot said DLJ would assist in negotiations with holders of its $170 million of 14% Senior Notes that mature in 2004. The interest payment is subject to an automatic 30-day grace period, Orbcomm said.
Magellan Aerospace, Toronto, logged stronger second quarter performance versus last year, boosting net earnings 30.3% on a 5.6% revenue gain. "All of the leading manufacturers of commercial aircraft are experiencing strong sales performance year-to-date in 2000, and each is expected to increase production rates over the next two years from current levels," Magellan reported. It has won follow-ons to existing contracts and new work indications from Boeing and Airbus.
The Defense Dept. should proceed with the F-22 program but "cancel" the Joint Strike Fighter, an "expensive" program that would provide only limited benefit, according to a report released yesterday by the Project for the New American Century, a group headed by conservative commentator William Kristol.
Harris Corp. received a $67 million engineering, manufacturing and development (EMD) contract from Boeing for avionics equipment to support the U.S. Army's RAH-66 Comanche helicopter. "We're very pleased to continue providing innovative avionics solutions to the Comanche team, where performance is absolutely critical and core to the success of the 21st Century Army and its soldiers," said Bob Henry, president of Harris' Government Communications Systems Div.
UNITED DEFENSE said it has awarded two contracts for continued development of a Long Range Land Attack Projectile for the Advanced Gun System (AGS). Raytheon Co., Tucson, Ariz., and Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), McLean, Va., received demonstration phase awards. United Defense's Armament Systems Div., Minneapolis, is developing the 155 mm AGS for the U.S. Navy's Zumwalt class Land Attack Destroyer, DD 21. Each company received a contract valued at $17.3 million for a 28-month period.
The U.S. military's Millennium Challenge 2000 experiment gets underway this week, the first joint field experiment in which top brass from all four military branches will examine and test different ways of going to war 10, 20 or even 30 years from now.
Prudential Securities aerospace analyst Todd Ernst downgraded the entire industry from an "accumulate" to a "hold," and cut ratings on General Dynamics, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, citing valuation concerns. He said General Dynamics "remains the stock with the best upside potential, at present valuations."
Researchers in the space science community are piqued that promised NASA funding has suddenly disappeared, discounting denials by agency officials that funding for space science is dwindling in the face of other priorities. Although officials at NASA headquarters insist that funding had not been cut, members of the science community interviewed by Aerospace Daily Web affiliate AviationNow.com asserted that the funding picture was much more positive only a few months ago.
Seven years after killing the C$5.7 billion EH-101 helicopter program as the replacement for Canada's elderly Sea Kings, Defense Minister Art Eggleton today cleared the way for his nation to buy 28 new off-the-shelf multi-mission helicopters for fielding by 2005 in a C$2.9 billion program. After an extensive review, Eggleton said, Canada is embarking on a new procurement strategy, "buying off-the-shelf" in an effort to save taxpayers' dollars on a new multi-mission helicopter in light of changing defense needs and allied interoperability demands.
The Defense Dept. says that a Senate-approved cut in the Russian-American Observation Satellites program could "endanger" RAMOS and "damage" U.S. efforts to cooperate with Russia on missile defenses. In an appeal to the congressional conference committee that's considering the House and Senate fiscal 2001 defense authorization bills, DOD said it has begun preliminary talks with Russia on an international agreement to "underpin" the RAMOS program, which is to provide technology for the next-generation Russian early warning satellite system.
HOUSE GOVERNMENT REFORM SUBCOMMITTEE on national security will continue to scrutinize the Defense Dept.'s production cost reduction plans for the F-22 in light of recent findings by the General Accounting Office, but no more hearings are planned until early next year at the earliest, subcommittee Republican staff director Lawrence Halloran told The DAILY. The subcommittee wants to see how those cost cuts fare, and whether the Air Force and the Office of the Secretary of Defense narrow the $7.8 billion difference in their estimates, Halloran said.
ROBERT R. GILRUTH, the first director of what is now known as Johnson Space Center, died yesterday. He was 86. Gilruth joined the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics in 1937, and ran Project Mercury from 1959 to 1961. He oversaw the Space Task Group at Langley Research Center, Va., and later at the Houston facility originally called the Manned Spacecraft Center. He also conceived and directed the Gemini program that validated the on-orbit rendezvous and docking maneuvers used on the Apollo moon program.
Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems Sector (ISS) won $41.9 million contract to make 17 wing center sections for the U.S. Navy's EA-6B Prowler. The electronic warfare aircraft is flown by both the U.S. Navy and Air Force. The wing center section replacements will help extend the service-life of the aircraft until the next-generation platform is identified. The EA-6B is expected to be in service until about 2015.
Sanders, a unit of Lockheed Martin Corp., finished the initial phase of contractor flight testing of the Advanced Threat Infrared Countermeasures/Common Missile Warning System (ATIRCM/CMWS). Sanders and personnel from the U.S. Army's Aviation Technical Test Center completed captive seeker testing on an Army EH-60 helicopter Aug. 3 at Sanders' test range facilities in Merrimack, N.H.
Precision Castparts Corp.'s board has approved a two-for-one stock split effective to shareholders of record as of Sept. 1, 2000. "This split, the first in six years, is intended to increase the stock's trading liquidity and should help to create a broader base of ownership in PCC," said William C. McCormick, chairman and CEO of PCC. McCormick said PCC has enjoyed "excellent sales and earnings growth" in the first half of the year and forecast continued strong performance for the latter half of fiscal 2000.
The Defense Dept. should develop a detailed plan for correcting 22 major deficiencies in "operational effectiveness and suitability requirements" for the V-22 Osprey before the Milestone III full-rate production decision in December 2000, the Pentagon's Office of Inspector General said in a report released this week. The Navy insisted that the deficiencies aren't major, but it agreed that such a plan is needed and said the V-22 program management office is writing one.
LOGICON INC., a unit of Northrop Grumman Corp., will head a team providing information technology services to the Dept. of the Treasury. The five-year Treasury Information Processing Support Services-2 (TIPSS-2) contract has a potential value of $250 million for Logicon. The contract has one base year and four one-year options.
Boeing has selected Martin-Baker to produce the ejection seat for its future Joint Strike fighter aircraft. Lockheed Martin also has chosen Martin-Baker to produce seats for its future JSF (DAILY, Aug. 14). In both cases Martin-Baker was picked over BFGoodrich.
AASI Aircraft and Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. are curing airplane components together. The Long Beach, Calif., neighbors are sharing AASI's autoclave. "We hope that this is only the beginning of a long and advantageous association for both companies," said AASI Aircraft Chairman and CEO Carl L. Chen.
TELEDYNE TECHNOLOGIES priced its required public offering of 4,100,000 common shares at $19.50 per share. The offering is expected to close on Aug. 22. Goldman, Sachs&Co., Banc of America Securities LLC and A.G. Edwards&Sons Inc. are underwriting the offering and hold options to buy up to an additional 615,000 shares.
A three-year review of the design and durability of aircraft fuel tank systems, spurred by the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996, shows no major safety problems. The precise cause of the crash is still not known, but it apparently centered on a main fuel tank. The Aircraft Fuel System Safety Program (AFSSP), voluntarily initiated by the industry in August 1997, covered 990 aircraft from different manufacturers and took over 100,000 man-hours to complete.
EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY'S constellation of Cluster spacecraft is complete, with the second two spacecraft in the four-satellite fleet now flying in step with the first two. ESA said the orbits of the four satellites will be "trimmed" over the next two weeks into the tetrahedral formation planned for gathering three-dimensional data on the interaction of the solar wind and the earth's magnetosphere. But a correction maneuver Sunday kicked the Rumba and Tango satellites into their operational 90-degree-inclination orbits.
