INTELSAT will lease as many as six 36 MHz C-band transponders on China's SINOSAT-1 telecommunications satellite to meet growing customer demand in the Asia Pacific region. The satellite was launched in July 1998 primarily to provide domestic television service in China, but Intelsat sees its landmass coverage from 110.5 degrees East longitude as useful for Internet backbone connections, regional business networks and multimedia as well.
Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics and Surveillance Systems, Manassas, Va., is being awarded a $10,268,643 firm-fixed-price contract for eight USQ-78B aircraft kits for incorporation into the P-3C aircraft and the integrated logistics support associated with this effort. Work will be performed in Manassas, Va., and is expected to be completed by June 2002. 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-C-0235).
Motorola Inc., Systems Solution Group, Scottsdale, Ariz., is being awarded an increment (appropriation number and dollar value will be issued with each delivery order) as part of a $49,742,000 indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract for acquisition of the Joint Services Work Station (JSWS).
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) suggested yesterday that work on the fiscal 2001 defense authorization bill could drag on for weeks as Senate leaders try to reduce the number of proposed amendments. The Senate stopped debating the bill last week to try to shrink the list of almost 200 amendments to something more manageable. Lott told reporters yesterday that the Senate probably will resume consideration of the bill tomorrow but that it may be another week or two before senators can agree on a final list of amendments to consider.
The Boeing Joint Strike Fighter Avionics Flying Laboratory (AFL), a modified 737-200, relayed targeting information to an airborne F-15, allowing it to destroy a ground target with a 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., Thursday as part of live fire demonstration of the company's JSF integrated mission system.
Boeing and its three e-commerce partners expect to finalize an operating agreement for their Internet aerospace exchange within the next two weeks, David Smukoski, Boeing's director of new ventures, said yesterday. The exchange, with the working name "Newco," has hired Andersen Consulting as its interim management and systems integrator. Newco will most likely be based on the U.S. East Coast for the convenience of European participants such as BAE Systems, Smukoski said.
The Boeing Company, Aircraft and Missile Systems, Seattle, Wash., is being awarded a $53,793,122 firm-fixed-price contract for one C-40A Clipper Aircraft. Work will be performed in Seattle, Wash. (90%) and Wichita, Kansas (10%), and is expected to be completed in July 2002. 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-C-0299).
A group of more than 35 scientists and engineers visited Capitol Hill yesterday to argue against deploying a national missile defense (NMD) system. At a press conference, the group said there is no scientific basis for deploying the system. President Clinton is scheduled to decide this fall whether to deploy an NMD.
Northrop Grumman Corp. continues to tighten its focus on defense electronics, information technology and systems integration, announcing yesterday it is selling its commercial aerostructures unit to the Carlyle Group in a deal worth about $1.2 billion and buying an electronic warfare specialist in a separate stock swap.
'FLEXIBLE SYSTEM': Charges that tests of the kill vehicle for the projected national missile defense system have been dumbed down to make them easier are denied by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.
The contractor that built the retrorockets for the failed Mars Polar Lander did not test the hydrazine-fueled thrusters at the low temperatures they would encounter as they approached the planet's surface, assuming the designs would work because they were similar to existing thrusters, investigators from NASA's Office of Inspector General have found.
FAILURES ON STATION: Three of 10 new International Space Station smoke detectors installed on the Russian-built Zarya control module last month have failed and been disconnected, but controllers in Moscow and Houston believe the remaining sensors will be sufficient to give a warning if needed. Meanwhile, the Proton rocket set to launch the long-awaited Zvezda Service Module has arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, and Space Station managers from the U.S.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac, showing off the latest moves to develop a true European defense capability, committed to purchasing between 50 and 75 Airbus A400M military transport aircraft. The two countries said Friday that the step was taken to create conditions for a common European transport fleet. Germany, prior to the official announcement, had been on the fence, considering Russia's Antonov AN-7X transport aircraft.
Senate work on two major fiscal 2001 defense bills slowed to a crawl by late last week, but senators said they hope to jumpstart those efforts this week. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) interrupted the Senate's third straight day of work on the defense authorization bill late Thursday so the number of pending amendments could be pared from almost 200 to a more manageable level. Many of the amendments aren't defense related.
SIA WEIGHS IN: The State Dept. should move quickly to implement laws passed by Congress to create a faster, more open licensing process for commercial satellite exports, says Satellite Industry Association executive director Clayton Mowry. Since the shift in licensing authority from the Commerce Dept. to the State Dept. in 1999 wasn't accompanied by "clear and measurable" improvements in the licensing process at State, there has been a "profound impact" on the U.S.
The British Royal Air Force's four soon-to-be leased Boeing C-17 Globemaster IIIs will make their home at Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, Armed Forces Minister John Spellar said. "They will revolutionize our capability rapidly to deploy forces with real punch to deal with crises anywhere in the world," Spellar said. The U.K. decided to lease the aircraft to boost airlift capabilities as part of the Strategic Defense Review. The planes are slated to arrive at Brize Norton by mid-2001.
Controllers at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (APL) have shut down an instrument on the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) probe after it starting drawing excess electrical current and stopped sending data.
North Korea is "consciously ending its isolation" by exercising diplomatic relations with countries as diverse as Australia, Brunei, Italy and Japan, in addition to the upcoming summit with South Korea, says a State Dept. official. Historically, the regime has concentrated its attention on the U.S. to the "exclusion of virtually everybody else," and has been disinterested in all other countries except China, according to Stanley Roth, assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
JOINING THE F-16 CLUB: Portugal on Friday joined the five other European countries participating in the F-16 Multi National Fighter program. The move, on the 25th anniversary of the founding of the group, will make it easier for Portugal to upgrade its F-16s, said Defense Minister Julio Castro Caldas. Through the cooperative venture, he indicated, Portugal will focus on improving weapons delivery accuracy and standoff capabilities.
NEW RULES: New regulations aimed at speeding up the export licensing of commercial satellites, satellite technology, and satellite parts to U.S. allies will take effect July 1, says John Holum, senior adviser for arms control and international security affairs at the State Dept. A main feature of the new rules, published in the Federal Register last month, will be the ability to use high-volume or "bulk" export licenses for parts and technical data.
FORMULA FOR FAILURE: Researchers at the Aerospace Corp. believe they have correlated spacecraft complexity and mission development time in a way that allows them to predict when a "faster-better-cheaper" space probe is developed too fast or too cheaply to work. The study by David A. Bearden, director for JPL programs at Aerospace, plotted 21 measures of subsystem complexity across 43 spacecraft launched between 1990 and 1999.
WHOSE IN-BOX? Despite repeated questions about the status of a report on the Joint Strike Fighter winner-take-all contract review, the Pentagon remains tight-lipped. "I'm not going to give you a 'whose-in-box-is-it-in-today' sort of description," says Defense Dept.
Hafnium 179, a potential nuclear fuel that emits gamma rays instead of neutrons, may hold the key to nuclear rocket propulsion for space transportation that would be safer to operate than uranium-based propulsion systems.
