U.S. NAVY AND LOCKHEED MARTIN personnel tested two Trident II D5 Fleet Ballistic Missiles April 30 from the USS Wyoming missile submarine, cruising in the Eastern Test Range. The launches represented the 88th and 89th consecutive successful launches of the Trident II in a string going back to December 1989. The three-stage solid-fuel SLBM can carry as many as eight Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs).
SURREY SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY Ltd. has set a June launch date for its SNAP-1 nanosatellite, a six-kilogram spacecraft that carries advanced GPS navigation, on-board computing, propulsion and attitude control technologies, as well as a machine-vision system designed to inspect other spacecraft. A Russian Cosmos rocket will launch the tiny British satellite from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome along with the Tsinghua-1 satellite, also built by Surrey. Tsinghua-1, a high-resolution satellite, will be used for disaster monitoring and mitigation.
The European Union has asked for a one-month delay before replying to the International Civil Aviation Union on the hushkit issue, a European Commission official said here yesterday. The EU at the moment has until the end of June to send its arguments to the Montreal-based ICAO, an arm of the United Nations. The arguments will respond to a protest lodged by the U.S. in March with ICAO against the EU regulation banning hushkits, which enters into force today.
RAYTHEON CO. received a $270 million FAA contract change to incorporate modifications involving human interface issues in the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS). The changes are a result of joint efforts by the company, the FAA, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and the Professional Airways Systems Specialists, the company said. Bill Voss, FAA director for Air Traffic Systems Development, said the work "creates a clear path for full STARS deployment."
ORBITAL IMAGING CORP. plans to use the Internet to sell high-resolution imagery of as many as 125 major cities in the U.S. and elsewhere by the end of the year. The "OrbView Cities" archive, available at www.orbitmage.com, already carries images of 20 cities in North America. Orbimage is working with several aerial imagery firms, including ISTAR, Triathlon Inc., GlobeXplorer, Vargis LLC, and GeoInformation Group, to obtain the digital images, which it says can be used in the normal GIS and web-based applications.
ORBITAL SCIENCES CORP. has completed a new satellite manufacturing facility at Dulles, Va., that it says is the largest east of the Mississippi River. The 125,000-square-foot facility will house all of Orbital's satellite manufacturing, assembly and testing. Among satellites that will be moved into the new facility are the NTT DoCoMo N-Star C geostationary mobile communications platform and NASA's QuickTOMS satellite.
As civil aviation regulators get ready this month to start tackling another round of jetliner noise standards - known as Stage 4 - analysts think moderately tougher limits would probably be good news for Airbus, Boeing and some of their suppliers, but bad news for other companies dependent on replacement parts sales.
TWO CONTRACTORS -- Lockheed Martin Astronautics and TRW -- have won five- month, $6 million phase 1B contracts to continue detailed designs for the Discoverer II space-based radar demonstration system managed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the U.S. Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office. Discoverer II is to demonstrate surveillance of fixed and moving targets on the surface using high-resolution synthetic aperture radar and precision digital terrain elevation data.
Lockheed Martin Corp. has complied with a State Dept. request to respond to allegations that it violated U.S. arms control regulations, a company spokesman said yesterday.
To meet such challenges as export control and technology transfer in the era of globalization and still maintain the vitality of the defense industrial base, says former deputy defense secretary John Hamre, the U.S. government must come to terms with the demands of the new century and stop reinforcing parochial interests.
NASA'S STENNIS Space Center in Mississippi has tested the Rocketdyne XRS-2200 linear aerospike engine again, this time for a record 263 seconds. The XRS-2200 was built to power the X-33 suborbital testbed under development by NASA and Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. A Stennis spokesman said all 10 test objectives were met in the April 30 hot-firing.
Britain is dropping the 27mm Mauser BK27 cannon from its Eurofighter aircraft, and only the first 55 Royal Air Force fighters -- already ordered to begin replacing some 80 RAF Tornado F.3s from mid-2002 -- will have the gun. A gun's value in modern combat, especially in the scenarios Defense Ministry planners see ahead, "is questionable," a ministry spokesman said yesterday, so the U.K. decided not to buy guns for the second batch on order. Second-batch quantities are still undecided, but the U.K. expects to buy 232 Eurofighters in total.
PANASONIC is expanding its Peachtree City, Ga., factory to accommodate the manufacture of receivers for the satellite radio service provided by Sirius Satellite Radio, Panasonic reported. The facility, operated by Panasonic's Matsushita Communications Industrial Corporation of USA, will produce receivers both for automakers and for individual consumers to install, with an initial capacity of 350,000 receivers a year.
International Launch Services orbited the newest U.S. geostationary weather satellite early yesterday aboard an Atlas IIA rocket, placing the $250 million spacecraft in position to backstop the six-year-old satellite that monitors hurricanes in the Atlantic. Liftoff from pad 36A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station came at 3:07 a.m. EDT, and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-L (GOES-L) separated successfully 27 minutes later.
SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL Corp. has won a $54 million task order from NASA headquarters for Internet support and other information technology services. Under the "Information, Technology Systems, Engineering, and Management" (ISEM) task order SAIC will support applications development, user services, information management, systems engineering and integration, telecommunications services, and security for agency headquarters.
L-3 Communications' Aviation Recorders unit clinched a deal to be the sole source supplier of Hardened Voyage Recorders (HVR) to Korea's Samsung Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. (SHI) for new ship production. The deal also covers opportunities on retrofit and modernization programs, L-3 said yesterday.
The Senate Armed Services strategic subcommittee yesterday approved its portion of the fiscal 2001 defense budget, including the requested $85 million to start construction of a radar system on Shemya Island, Alaska, as the first step in a National Missile Defense (NMD) system, Senate sources said. The subcommittee also increased the $1.916 billion request for NMD, and boosted funding for the Airborne Laser program, the sources said.
After inking a $6.4 million contract for work on the Sirius Long-Range Infrared Search and Track (LR-IRST) system with Netherlands-based Hollandse Signaalapparaten B.V., DRS Technologies is hoping to score additional wins with other American allies for the naval missile defense system. "Our work on the Sirius program has positioned DRS as a key supplier of systems for missile defense that are critical for Canadian and allied international fleet operations," said Mark S. Newman, chairman, president and CEO of the Parsippany, N.J., company.
AMERICAN AIRLINES announced orders for 20 Boeing 757s, giving it "increased flexibility to grow modestly," while retiring MD-90s and MD-87s. Boeing will take in trade five MD-90s acquired form American's Reno Air acquisition. The 757s will seat 22 in first class and 154 in coach, allowing more passenger legroom. They will be delivered between mid-2001 and early 2002 with Rolls-Royce engines.
BAE Systems tapped Mercury Computer Systems Inc., Chelmsford, Mass., to provide signal processing subsystems for the Sampson multifunction radar. "The order in support of the British Royal Navy further strengthens our partnership with BAE Systems," said Andy Pine, managing director of Mercury Computer Systems Ltd. "The BAE Systems radar design is among the most advanced in the world and has the potential for deployment by the navies of several allied companies."
Satellite communications specialist ICO Global Communications should officially emerge from bankruptcy this month with $1.2 billion in hand to finish its satellite constellation and ground network. Voting on the company's reorganization plan was completed April 26, and all indications are that the plan has been approved, said Joseph Tedino, ICO's communications and investor relations VP. Assuming the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., confirms the vote during a May 3 hearing, the company should emerge May 15 from nine months in Chapter 11.
The U.S. ambassador to Russia says the U.S. has explained to Russia that "technological limits" are to be built into a National Missile Defense system the U.S. would like to field. James Collins said, "Our people have laid out for them limits that are built in the system, in fact, just technologically, as well as any limits that you might negotiate about its capabilities that would be put into a treaty which are not in any way defined."
Israel Aircraft Industries is looking for a partner in the United States to help it produce interceptors for the Arrow missile system, a U.S. Army general said. The production line is Israel is "insufficient to meet their needs," so the country is looking at the potential of having a U.S. company, or companies, join it in producing the interceptor, said Brig. Gen. John M. Urias, U.S. Army program executive officer for air and missile defense.
