SPACEHAB INC. received a $5 million modification to its Research and Logistics Mission Support contract with NASA for the STS-107 mission to the International Space Station scheduled for June 2001. The modification covers additional services on Spacehab's Research Double Module, which will be flown in the cargo bay of a Space Shuttle on a mission dedicated to microgravity and life sciences research. With the modification Spacehab's contract for supporting STS-107 is worth $34.9 million.
FGM Inc., Dulles, Va., is being awarded a $20,294,609 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with cost-plus-fixed-fee pricing for research and development for command, control, communications and intelligence (C4I) software applications and databases. Specific efforts include engineering products related to C4I software applications and database or database management systems for current and new C4I systems.
Defense officials are urging the Senate to drop language in the fiscal 2001 intelligence authorization bill that would redirect money within the National Imagery and Mapping Agency to boost funding for modernizing the tasking, processing, exploitation, and dissemination (TPED) of imagery and geospatial information. In a June 28 letter included in the Senate Armed Services Committee's recently released report on the bill, Defense Secretary William Cohen and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen.
ORBITAL SCIENCES CORP. has named Garrett E. Pierce to be its chief financial officer, replacing Jeffrey V. Pirone. Pierce, who will also hold the title of executive vice president at the Dulles, Va.-based commercial space concern, has been CFO with Sensormatic Electronics Corp. of Boca Raton, Fla. A CPA, Pierce has also been CFO of Adaptive Broadband Corp. (formerly California Microwave Inc.) and president and CEO of Sony Corp.'s Materials Research Corp.
DTAI Inc., San Diego, Calif., is being awarded a $22,571,336 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with cost-plus-fixed-fee pricing for research and development for command, control, communications and intelligence (C4I) software applications and databases. Specific efforts include engineering products related to C4I software applications and database or database management systems for current and new C4I systems.
MIRCORP has teamed with GPC International, a Toronto-based consultant in public affairs, government relations and "strategic communications," to market sponsorship and advertising rights on Russia's Mir orbital station. MirCorp, a partnership between Russia's RSC Energia and Western investors, has leased Mir for its remaining service life and is developing it as a commercial operation.
NASA should hold a "full and open competition" for the $600 million solar studies contract it awarded to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) on a sole-source basis, the chairman of the House Science Committee has urged Administrator Daniel S. Goldin.
FAIRCHILD CORP., Dulles, Va., said Michael T. Alcox has resumed his position of senior vice president and chief financial officer. Alcox held the post from 1987 through 1996, and thereafter was vice president-finance. Colin Cohen will be leaving the company to assume a position with an emerging Internet infrastructure developer, Fairchild said.
An attempt by the U.S. Army/Israel Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) to shoot down multiple rockets, scheduled for yesterday in New Mexico, has been postponed while the Middle East summit is underway at Camp David, Md., a Defense Dept. official said yesterday. The test, to shoot down several Katyusha rockets of the kind that Hezbollah guerrillas have fired at Israel from southern Lebanon, was scheduled to take place at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., but has been "postponed until further notice," the official said.
United Technologies Corp., West Palm Beach, Fla., is being awarded a $16,542,812 (estimated) cost-plus-fixed-fee-requirements-type contract to provide for post production support services through July 2003 for the F100 engines on the F-15 and F-16 aircraft. These services include technical, engineering, design, training technical documentation, and field support services. Funds will be obligated as individual delivery orders are issued.
Silver Bullet Solutions Inc., San Diego, Calif., is being awarded a $25,421,514 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with cost-plus-fixed-fee pricing for research and development for command, control, communications and intelligence (C4I) software applications and databases. Specific efforts include engineering products related to C4I software applications and database or database management systems for current and new C4I systems.
A Navy Theater Wide missile defense test last Friday was deemed a failure when the third stage failed to separate, according to a spokesman for the Ballistic Missile Defense Office. The test, the first Flight Test Round (FTR-1), marked the first flight with an active third stage rocket motor (TSRM).
Science Applications International Corp., San Diego, Calif., is being awarded a $24,237,820 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with cost-plus-fixed-fee pricing for research and development for command, control, communications and intelligence (C4I) software applications and databases. Specific efforts include engineering products related to C4I software applications and database or database management systems for current and new C4I systems.
ITN Energy Systems, Inc., Wheat Ridge, Colo., is being awarded a $34,965,044 ($24,965,044 Government Share; $10,000,000 Contractor Share) other-transaction-for-prototype contract to provide for a research and development program in support of the TechSat 21 flight experiment. The contractor will design, construct, and flight-test a three-microsatellite constellation that will fly in formation. This technology may enable mission concepts such as on-orbit satellite inspection, advanced sensing, and aircraft missile launch of microsatellites.
Recent examinations of defense export policy that arose in part from lessons learned in Kosovo are not only aimed at allowing allies to have increased interoperability with the U.S. military, but also at providing the U.S. with the best technology available, according to a senior defense official.
SPACE MEDIA INC., a Spacehab subsidiary that is developing a Russian-built commercial module to the International Space Station (DAILY, May 5), has acquired "The Space Store," an on-line vendor of "products related to space exploration and learning." The Website www.thespacestore.com offers more than 400 items, including flight suits, toys and astronaut mission patches.
AEROSPACE INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION says the military construction appropriations bill that President Clinton signed into law last week contains the welcome repeal of a 1999 "slow pay" law that would have delayed payments to defense contractors by five days at the end of September. AIA President and CEO John W. Douglass said the repeal will spare defense contractors additional borrowing costs. AIA said Congress initially developed the delay as an accounting device to push about $1.3 billion in payments from fiscal 2000 to fiscal 2001.
PANAMSAT has activated its new Galaxy IVR satellite at 99 degrees West longitude after "flawless" in-orbit maneuvers and testing, the company said. The spacecraft, a Hughes HS 601 HP platform launched April 18 on an Ariane 4 (DAILY, April 17), is replacing Galaxy XI, which is migrating to 91 degrees West. The new satellite carries 24 C-band and 24 Ku-band transponders for video, radio and Internet services over North America.
ORBITAL IMAGING CORP. has hired Gary E. Payton as vice president, engineering and operations, with responsibility for managing the company's satellite operations and engineering departments. Payton, a former Air Force colonel and DOD astronaut who flew a classified mission on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1985, has been deputy associate NASA administrator for space transportation technology since 1997.
A House-Senate conference committee reached tentative agreement late Thursday on a fiscal 2001 defense appropriations conference report that cuts funding for the Joint Strike Fighter despite a plea from the Clinton Administration.
BAE Systems' $1.67 billion bid for Lockheed Martin's Aerospace Electronics Systems (AES) unit may advance its goal to become the "world's benchmark in aerospace electronics," give Lockheed Martin some welcome cash and bolster transatlantic ties, but it's not certain that everyone will be pleased.
BAD WEEK: Israel, having backed away from its $250 million sale of Phalcon airborne early warning radar systems to China because of intense pressure from the U.S., must also reevaluate its options in a Turkish surveillance satellite program. Turkey picked Israel Aircraft Industries' $274 million bid to provide and launch satellites with a resolution of less than one meter - but then re-opened the competition after Alcatel of France came in with a lower bid.
The Sea Launch Commander on Friday was set to leave its Long Beach, Calif., port July 16 in preparation for the July 28 launch of the PAS-9 satellite. The Odyssey Launch platform cast off July 13. The two vessels will travel about 3,000 miles to the launch site on the equator in Pacific at 154 degrees West Longitude, Sea Launch said. The 200-foot Zenit-3SL rocket will launch the PanAmSat satellite, built by Hughes Space&Communications Company, into geosynchronous transfer orbit.
