Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. reported the first flight of a tanker version of the C-130J airlifter for the U.S. Marine Corps. The Marines have ordered eight of the aircraft, and three more are in the fiscal year 2001 defense budget request. They will be used for aerial refueling, rapid ground refueling and airlift. At least 51 will be needed to replace the USMC's fleet of aging KC-130F/Rs, Lockheed Martin said. The first of the new aircraft is slated for delivery later this year.
Boeing plans to launch its next Delta III rocket in mid-August, but after searching for a paying customer the company has opted to send an instrumented payload simulator aloft instead. Gale Schluter, vice president and general manager of Boeing Expendable Launch Systems, pegged the decision to fly a dummy payload on a mismatch between the Delta III launch schedule and the schedules of potential customers.
SPACE IMAGING has slashed the prices it charges for Landsat satellite imagery it collects with its ground stations of U.S. scenes, aiming to boost sales of imagery to customers who need to monitor large land areas regularly. New rates will be $600 to $1,675 per 185-by-179-kilometer scene, down from the old rates of $2,500 to $3,350. Space Imaging said one of its customers, Earth Satellite Corp.
THIOKOL PROPULSION has formed a "strategic technology alliance" with IMPCO Technologies in which IMPCO's Advanced Technology Center in Irvine, Calif., will work to commercialize Thiokol's composite conformable hydrogen fuel tank technology for the automotive fuel cells market. Under the deal IMPCO gets exclusive manufacturing and distribution rights to the Thiokol technology as it can be applied to fuel delivery and storage systems for the fuel cell vehicles anticipated from major automakers beginning in 2003.
President Clinton has nominated Army Lt. Gen. Donald L. Kerrick for assignment as deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs and deputy national security advisor. Kerrick currently serves as the assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
UNIVERSAL SPACE NETWORK has joined forces with the Swedish Space Corp. to provide a worldwide network of ground stations for commercial satellite operations. Dubbed "Priora," the combined service will use its ground stations in Alaska, Australia, Hawaii, Norway and Sweden to provide satellite communications services, including telemetry, tracking and control. The joint venture also has access to ground station in Maryland, Chile, Spain, Italy, Kenya and South Africa.
Lockheed Martin has reached a $13 million settlement with the U.S. government over charges Martin Marietta Aerospace, which the Bethesda, Md.-based aerospace giant later acquired, illegally transferred satellite kick motor technology to Hong Kong-based AsiaSat. State Dept.
Boeing reported completion of the first flight of a 777-200ER powered by two General Electric GE90-94B engines. An Air France 777-200ER is being used as the testbed for the new engine, Boeing said yesterday.
Today, as in the Korean War fifty years ago, an air war would likely be fought over enemy territory but continuing improvements in surface-to-air missiles will make flights there increasingly difficult, according to U.S. Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters. Speaking last week at a Capitol Hill symposium on air power and the Korean War, Peters said "dominance in the sky was never in doubt" during last year's Operation Allied Force over Kosovo. No U.S. aircraft were lost to air-to-air conflict and no ground troops were threatened by aircraft, he said.
The General Accounting Office would have to conduct a review of several aspects of the Army's AH-64 Apache helicopter program under an amendment approved yesterday as part of the Senate's fiscal 2001 defense authorization bill.
Though British military leaders are generally happy with their performance during last year's crisis in Kosovo, a new lessons-learned report highlights several areas that need beefing-up, including surveillance, intelligence, secure communications, strategic airlift, all-weather attack capability and precision-guided weapons.
NASA AWARDED four contracts worth a total of almost $14 million to Raytheon, Eastman Kodak and Ball Aerospace to continue development of large, extremely lightweight space mirrors. At about $3 million each, the contracts will support work the companies started in the design phase of the program, which is supported by the U.S. Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office as well. Over the next two years the contractors will build and test four large mirror segments, with Raytheon building two under two separate contracts.
The FAA is seeking the services of a system engineering contractor in the development, evaluation and implementation of next-generation surveillance products for the Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Advanced Technologies Integrated Product Team (AND-500).
HUGHES NETWORK SYSTEMS has sold its "DirecWay" suite of satellite services to Ryder System Inc., a worldwide transportation management and logistics company. The very small aperture terminal (VSAT) system will link Ryder workshops that maintain the company's fleet of more than 175,000 commercial vehicles, giving shop workers quick access to detailed histories of each vehicle, including past performance and preventive maintenance schedules.
EMBRAER of Brazil said it has formed a partnership with the Swiss Liebherr group that has led to the creation of a new company, Embraer-Liebherr Equipamentos do Brasil. The primary goal of the new company, according to Embraer, is to establish a "world class" landing gear systems company. Liebherr employs 17,800 people worldwide and its aerospace unit manufactures flight controls, hydraulic and electronic systems and landing gears.
EXCALIBUR MEDIA SERVICES has been hired by Johnson Space Center to manage the video content originating on Space Shuttle and International Space Station missions. The company's "Screening Room" technology will be used to archive the video from human space flights and to "re-purpose" it over NASA's Intranet for real-time and post-mission analysis. NASA recently hired a Silicon Valley startup, Dreamtime, to perform similar functions agency-wide (DAILY, June 2).
Two Russian cosmonauts who have spent the past two month getting the 14-year-old Mir orbital station ready to receive commercial visitors will return to Earth tonight, leaving the station abandoned again with no firm date set for anyone to return.
Information in a soon-to-be-made-public docket on the EgyptAir Flight 990 investigation casts doubt on the theory that a first officer purposely flew the jet into the ocean, sources with knowledge of the probe tell AviationNow.com and Aviation Week&Space Technology.
A joint office to coordinate directed-energy technology and weapons programs would be set up at the Defense Dept. under a proposed amendment to the Senate's fiscal 2001 defense appropriations bill. Another amendment pending late yesterday would require an Air Force report on the potential for an electronic warfare version of the B-52 bomber. Yet another proposed amendment would require testing the National Missile Defense (NMD) system against countermeasures before it could be deployed.
The Navy Theater Wide missile defense program still faces technical and schedule risks even though Congress boosted funding for the program by 150% for fiscal years 1996 through 1999, the General Accounting Office said in a new report. It said the Navy should revise the funding profile and test schedule to be sure that initial operational testing can be undertaken before most of the missiles are produced.
The U.S. aerospace industry's public e-commerce marketplaces face a year or two of evolution before they taste success, according to a panel of industry and technology specialists at a conference here. Single-company efforts, building on established supplier relationships, will fare better in the short term, the specialists said.
Raytheon Co. delivered the first of four flight inspection aircraft for SIVAM, the System for Vigilance of the Amazon, a surveillance system to collect and update information about the Amazon River. The Brazilian Air Force took delivery of the aircraft, a modified Hawker 800 XP, in Rio de Janeiro on June 1.
Australia has requested a possible buy of U.S. AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM), including captive air training missiles, maintenance and pilot training and other related elements of support. The Pentagon and the Australian Embassy in Washington both declined to disclose the number of missiles or the value of the proposed buy. But Wing Commander Chris Wheaton, FMS spokesman for the Embassy, did say the deal would be follow-on to a buy of missiles that should be delivered in 2001 and 2002.
