Archer Communications Systems Limited (ACSL), prime contractor for the British Ministry of Defense's Bowman project, picked ITT Industries of the U.S. over France's Racal Defense Electronics for work on the all-service tactical communications system's VHF subsystem.
Moody's Investor Service projects a moderate recovery in the defense sector of the aerospace industry and a down-cycle in the commercial aircraft sector beginning in 2000.
Curtis Brock has been named vice president, Internal Audit and Shared Services. Paula J. Patineau has been named vice president and senior financial officer. John S. Picek has been named vice president and controller.
Robert W. Klein has been appointed vice president-Advanced Systems&Technology for Airborne Early Warning and Electronic Warfare (AEW&EW) Systems in Bethpage, N.Y. He succeeds Richard Delasi, who has retired. Caio A. Ferreira, principal engineer for the Vehicle Systems Group in El Segundo, Calif., as been selected as a fellow by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He was selected for his contributions to the development of switched reluctance motors and generators applied to advanced electric aircraft.
David Lasky, chairman and chief executive officer, has decided to retire following the annual meeting of stockholders on April 7, 2000. It is anticipated that he will continue to serve as a director of the company. Martin R. Benante, president and chief operating officer, will succeed Lasky.
House and Senate lawmakers brokered a deal last week clearing the way for Lockheed Martin to complete its buy of Comsat. The final version of the legislation, to be introduced in the next week or two, will allow Lockheed Martin's full acquisition of the U.S. signatory to Intelsat. The issue has been deadlocked for months with Lockheed Martin bolstering its lobbying efforts to get results in this session of Congress (DAILY, Jan. 28). The compromise bill will do away with an existing ownership cap that has prevented the Comsat buy.
Boeing has won a $162.6 million contract for 8,163 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits, the Pentagon said Friday. Of the kits, 5,073 are for U.S. Air Force Mk. 84 2000-pound bombs; 2,174 are for the Air Force BLU-109 2,000-pound bombs, and 916 are for the U.S. Navy's BLU-109 2,000-pound bomb. The JDAM, a strap-on kit with INS/GPS capability, is attached to bombs to increase accuracy. Work under the contract, awarded by the Air Force's Air Armament Center, Eglin AFB, Fla., is expected to be completed Feb. 28, 2002.
Louis Le Portz has been appointed chairman and chief executive officer. He succeeds Dominique Paris, who has been appointed chairman and chief executive of Snecma Moteurs.
GLOBALSTAR founding partner Telecommunications par Satellites Mobiles (TE.SA.M.) christened the satellite partnership's newest gateway in Venezuela, and will open additional gateways in Peru, Turkey and Senegal over the next few months. After completing final testing, the 13th gateway will service Venezuela and neighboring countries, including Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and French Southern Caribbean islands.
NO INSPECTIONS: The U.S. Air Force currently has no plans to check the C-17 airlifter's horizontal stabilizer, which resembles that of the MD-80 airliner. Failure of a nut that holds the jackscrew that raises and lowers the stabilizer on the MD-80 and similar Boeing-built twinjets is thought to have caused the Jan. 31 crash of an Alaska Airlines MD-80 off Southern California, killing all 88 aboard. An Air Force spokesman said the service looked into the situation because the C-17, also built by Boeing, has a similar T-tail.
'DANGEROUS AND UPREDICTABLE': Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Henry H. Shelton says he doesn't see the upward turn in the Pentagon's procurement budget "as a one-time blip on the screen." It was up last year after 14 years of decline, and the Dept. of Defense is seeking $60 billion for fiscal year 2001. "Things are moving in the right direction," Shelton says.
DUMMY PAYLOAD: Boeing faces the prospect of launching its next Delta III with a simulated satellite aboard, at a cost of some $85 million, if it can't find a replacement for the satellite bankrupt ICO Global Communications was to have flown on the new rocket. That could prove tricky, given the failures of the first two Delta IIIs for unrelated causes. As it did with its Zenit-based Sea Launch venture, Boeing may decide to launch an instrumented dummy payload as a demonstration that the bugs are worked out of the new Delta, and that it's safe to fly.
Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Va., has been awarded a $100 million contract modification to exercise an option for planning, procurement and construction for the CVN-77 aircraft carrier program. The action brings the total value of the contract to $247.5 million, and if one remaining option is exercised, the contract will total $346.2 million, the Dept. of Defense said Friday. Naval Sea Systems Command awarded the contract. Work on the contract is expected to be completed by December 2000.
TAIWAN DEFENSE REQUEST: Sure to be an issue at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing this week on Taiwan's annual defense request will be a House-passed bill calling for greater U.S. military assistance to Taipei. Several senators are not pleased with the House's take on the legislation and say it needs careful consideration in the Senate. Among other things, it calls for increased military-to-military cooperation and future sales of theater missile defense systems.
ARIANESPACE launched the Superbird-4 telecommunications satellite for Japan's Space Communications Corp. (SCC) Thursday night aboard an Ariane 44LP rocket. Liftoff of the Ariane 4 variant with two liquid- and two solid-fuel strap-on boosters came at 8:04 p.m. from the Guiana Space Center near Kourou. The 8,925-pound Hughes HS 601 platform achieved its targeted geostationary transfer orbit, from which it will ultimately be placed at 162 degrees East longitude over the Pacific Ocean.
The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are pressing new technologies for operations in the world's littoral regions, top officials of the services said at a conference here.
The Defense Dept.'s top 100 contractors for fiscal year 1999 are listed in the following table, released by the Pentagon (DAILY, Feb. 16). Net value of prime contract awards to each contractor and the value of awards to their subsidiaries are given. Additional information is available at http://web1.whs.osd.mil/peidhome/procstat/p01/fy1999/top100.htm. Total of all contract awards $118,138,926 Total of 100 companies/subsidiaries $70,996,368
Charles Edelstenne, 62, will succeed Serge Dassault, 75, as chairman and chief executive officer of Dassault Aviation. Edelstenne is senior executive VP-financial and economic affairs, while Dassault owns a controlling stake in the company. Last year, despite the slow start of the Rafale combat aircraft program, Dassault Aviation made a healthy $175 million net profit on $2.9 billion in revenues, 68% of which was from the civil market.
A FAINT RADIO SIGNAL that raised hopes NASA's Mars Polar Lander made it to the planet's surface intact was likely of terrestrial origin and not an attempt by the lander to communicate with its controllers, radio scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have concluded after carefully analyzing the data. Careful analysis of data collected in response to controllers' subsequent efforts to trigger another signal from the probe also turned up nothing, leading NASA managers to conclude the original analysis was false.
NASA flight controllers cleared the Space Shuttle Endeavour for a full nine-day mapping mission yesterday, after concluding the orbiter will have enough cryogenic fuel on board to maintain its 200-foot-long mapping boom at the proper angle to Earth. However, there were no plans to try for a 10th day of mapping to collect topographic data over the entire landmass beneath its 57-degree orbit, according to a spokesperson for Johnson Space Center.
