A life-sciences experiment designed by schoolchildren in Beijing is scheduled to fly as a commercial payload on the U.S. Space Shuttle next year under a deal announced yesterday by Spacehab Inc. Under the arrangement China Time Network, a state-authorized Internet company, will sponsor the experiment from the Jingshan School in Beijing under Spacehab's Space Technology and Research Students (S*T*A*R*S) program (DAILY, Dec. 1). Jingshan School was selected from almost 900 proposals submitted by schools across China, including Hong Kong and Macao.
Lockheed Martin said yesterday it will streamline its space and military aircraft units and eliminate 2,800 to 3,000 positions, a move it expects will generate annual savings of $200 million. Most of the estimated savings, it said, will come from consolidating the management ranks, administration functions and engineering and production activities in the Aeronautical Systems business area.
Lockheed Martin, stepping up its lobbying efforts, is pushing the House and Senate to resolve their differences on a bill it needs passed in order to proceed with full acquisition of Comsat, the U.S. signatory to Intelsat. This particular bill has been deadlocked for months, and the House and Senate have failed to reach a consensus on the privatization issues for several years. Nonetheless, Lockheed Martin and Comsat officials said they expect to see action in this session of Congress with a series of conferences expected to kick off next month.
Lockheed Martin Space Operations said it has convened a 15-member panel of scientific advisors to help it perform space communication and data handling operations under the company's $3.4 billion Consolidated Space Operations Contract (CSOC). The CSOC Science Working Group will hold its next meeting Feb. 15-16 at the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) Center for Advanced Space Studies in Houston. USRA assembled the group of scientists and engineers who make up the panel.
Concerned about what may happen in defense industry competition once the winner of the Joint Strike Fighter program is chosen, the U.S. Dept. of Defense is reviewing options before a winner is chosen, a senior Pentagon official said yesterday. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are competing for the contract, which promises more than 3,000 aircraft.
The Pentagon should establish teams of users, developers, testers and contractors to streamline the process for large acquisition programs, according to the Defense Science Board. David Heebner, chairman of the DSB's task force on test and evaluation, said the teams "should be oriented toward all aspects of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the acquisition process," not just T&E.
NASA's Ames Research Center and Carnegie Mellon University have established a partnership in information technology research and education, the two institutions announced. To be located at the NASA Research Park on the Ames campus in Mountain View, Calif., the partnership will give Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon access to the computer-based industry and research capabilities in Silicon Valley.
NASA Space Shuttle and International Space Station managers decided yesterday to begin planning for a split in the next mission to the Station, with a maintenance flight as early as April to be followed by an outfitting flight about a month after Russia finally gets its long-awaited Zvezda Service Module attached to the orbiting laboratory.
Pacific Aerospace&Electronics has won follow-on contracts worth an estimated $2.3 million in aggregate from Lockheed Martin's Sanders unit and Northrop Grumman to supply modular missile systems and components for the U.S Army's Hellfire anti-armor missile, part of the Apache helicopter Longbow weapon system. The company reported both orders will ship in 2000 and represent additional purchases of a key Army program expected to run through 2008.
Cessna, a unit of Textron, Inc., ended 1999 with a record $2.2 billion in sales, up 22% versus fiscal 1998, and 1,102 aircraft valued at more than $5.3 billion in current backlog. "Cessna enjoyed yet another remarkable year," said Gary Hat, Cessna CEO. "The customer demand for Cessna products is at its highest level in the company's history.
An article in the Jan. 25 issue of Aerospace Daily -- "Australia's Wedgetail buy seen spurring AEW&C interest" -- contained several major inaccuracies and muddled the distinction between the AWACS Radar System Improvement Program (RSIP) and the Boeing 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control program (AEW&C), which are separate programs. The Radar System Improvement Program is associated with AWACS not the 737 AEW&C program. The article also lists North Korea as a future customer for the Boeing 737 AEW&C aircraft, which is untrue.
Northrop Grumman yesterday reported fourth quarter earnings of $1.96 per share, easily surpassing consensus earning estimates of $1.69 per share. "I am very pleased with our excellent financial results in 1999, which was a pivotal year for our company," said Kent Kresa, chairman, president and CEO. Northrop Grumman reported fourth quarter net income of $138 million, or $1.96 per share, on sales of $2.5 billion compared to a net loss of $3.0 million, or $0.04 a share on flat sales for the same period in 1998.
SPACE SHUTTLE managers have confirmed Jan. 31 as the launch date for the Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-99, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, after paperwork reviews, engineering analysis and physical inspections demonstrated the thermal protection tiles on the orbiter are "in excellent shape for launch." The launch date originally was made contingent on the tile review, which was triggered when the Shuttle Discovery lost a tile on its mission to the Hubble Space Telescope last month.
The U.S. Navy is adding personal computer-based simulations to its primary flight training syllabus after students used the desktop systems to improve their test scores by up to 55%, according to findings from an experiment conducted by the Navy and the University of Central Florida Institute for Simulation and Training in Orlando.
Spectrum Astro Inc. has completed the spacecraft bus for NASA's High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI) and shipped it to the University of California at Berkeley, where researchers will install its scientific payload. The next NASA Small Explorer scientific mission, HESSI will study energy release and particle acceleration in solar flares by observing x-ray and gamma-ray emissions with a high-resolution imager and spectrograph.
The FAA says airlines are "much less enthusiastic" about the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), into which it is pouring over $2 billion, than they are about the Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS). An agency analysis of WAAS also says that for airline aircraft equipped with flight management systems (FMS), WAAS "will not provide substantial added economic or operational value ... beyond what unaided GPS can provide, or beyond what they can achieve with RNAV-capable FMS equipment."
Airbus Industrie needs a minimum of 40 orders and a similar number of options to launch the proposed A3XX super jumbo airliner, according to estimates by Lehman Brothers. A December study by the New York consulting firm suggests that Airbus could expect a strong return on investment if it sells 665 aircraft of the type in 20 years. Airbus would not be threatened financially if airlines ordered only 528 within the same time frame. But if only 364 A3XXs were sold, it would be "a financial disaster," Lehman Brothers says.
CPI Aerostructures Inc. said its revenue of $21.3 million for 1999 was its highest yet, surpassing 1998's by about $1.5 million. The Edgewood, N.Y., company manufactures subassemblies for military and commercial aircraft, Edward Fred, vice president and chief financial officer of the company, said in an interview. One of CPI Aerostructures' large contracts, which earned $4.5 million for the company last year, was canceled, Fred explained. The company had manufactured apron assemblies for MD-90 engines.
Lockheed Martin announced it has teamed with Alenia Marconi Systems S.p.A. of Italy to study joint development of an active solid-state S/C-band phased array radar for naval applications. Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics and Surveillance Systems, Moorestown, N.J., said it signed an agreement last month with the naval systems division of Alenia Marconi Systems to begin a four-month feasibility study to identify top-level requirements and architectures for a single-faced active solid-state rotating phased array radar and design a basic configuration.
SCI Systems Inc. filed a shelf registration statement for a proposed secondary offering, a combination of debt and equity products, worth about $800 million. The registration statement, filed yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), noted the proceeds may be used in the normal course of business activities, including but not limited to capital expenditures or debt refinancing. SCI also indicated the company may choose to invest the funds in new businesses, products or technology through acquisitions.
A transient signal culled from mountains of data collected by the 45-foot radio antenna at Stanford University has raised "cautious optimism" NASA's Mars Polar Lander may have reached the planet's surface intact and is trying to contact Earth.
Alcatel Space will build Eutelsat's big new multimedia spacecraft under a new deal announced Tuesday. Tentatively named "NewBird," the satellite will operate at 8 degrees West longitude to provide the European satellite services consortium with backup capability and expanded digital and multimedia services. Delivery on the ground is scheduled in 16 months, Alcatel Space said, with the company also arranging launch services.
The U.S. Army delayed a flight test of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile yesterday due to high winds at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. There is a possibility the test could be run this week, but the weather is not expected to improve, an Army spokeswoman said.
