EchoStar Communications Corp. will be added to the Nasdaq-100 Index of high tech firms as of Dec. 20, the index announced yesterday. EchoStar, a provider of direct broadcast satellite television services in the one U.S., is of 15 communications and computer-related companies to be added to the index when trading begins next Monday. Eligibility criteria include a minimum average trading volume of 100,000 shares. Fifteen other companies will be deleted so the Index maintains the 100 largest non-financial stocks on Nasdaq.
Alliant Techsystems said Peter A. Bukowick, president and chief operating officer, plans to retire as an officer and director of the company in April 2000, following completion of the company's current fiscal year. The 56-year-old Bukowick said his decision to retire reflects his desire to spend more time with his family and on personal interests.
GE Capital said it is expanding its commercial flight training division through a joint venture agreement with Thomson-CSF involving ORBIT, Thomson-CSF's commercial aviation training services subsidiary. The agreement, subject to regulatory approval, calls for ORBIT to transfer its aviation training center operations and six Thomson-CSF commercial flight simulators to GE Capital Aviation Training. The joint venture will retain the name GE Capital Aviation Training (GECAT) and GE Capital will hold majority ownership.
Brazil's Veiculo Lancador de Satelites (VLS) rocket failed for the second time in as many tries Saturday when its second stage didn't ignite as it lifted a research satellite toward orbit.
Lockheed Martin Vought Systems, Grand Prairie, Tex., is being awarded a $17,600,000 letter contract modification to cost-plus-incentive-fee contract DAAH01-98-C-0062, for Patriot Advanced Capability. The contractor shall develop special configuration test hardware to support special flight testing for Patriot Anti-Tactical Missile Capabilities System Growth (PAC-3). The contractor shall furnish all services, hardware, facilities, equipment, and provide all technical, planning, management and manufacturing efforts. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Ala.
Lockheed Martin received a $69.7 million contract for 110 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) Block IA missiles and launch assemblies, the Pentagon announced. The company's Missile and Fire Control unit, Dallas, is expected to complete the work by Feb. 28, 2001. The contract was awarded by the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala.
Because of a typographical error, an article in The DAILY of Dec. 10 incorrectly stated the scheduled landing date of the Space Shuttle Discovery on its return from a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Discovery was scheduled to land Dec. 26, not Dec. 16.
The U.S. Air Force has increased its order for the Joint Surface-to-Air Standoff Missile (JASSM) from 2,400 to about 4,000, according to Richard Caime, Lockheed Martin's vice president of strike weapons. Terry Little, director of the Air Force's JASSM Joint Program Office, attributed the increase to low unit cost, about $400,000 in 1995 dollars, which he said was the result of much of the work being done at the subcontractor level.
NASA has picked an advanced weather-forecasting instrument under development by Langley Research Center as the next flight test subject for Earth observation under the New Millennium technology testbed program. The "Earth Observing 3" New Millennium spacecraft will carry a Geostationary Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer, which is being designed to produce high resolution measurements of temperature, water vapor, wind and the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
STATION BOBBLES: Ground controllers in Moscow and Houston are working a couple of troublesome problems that likely will also play into the GDR, when it finally is convened. Last week the command interface between Mission Control Center-Houston and MCC-Moscow broke down, and a switch to a backup system didn't restore the connection. The link was reestablished after 50 minutes, but the cause of the breakdown was under investigation.
Motorola has led a group of current investors in pumping another $20 million into the bankrupt Iridium LLC low-Earth orbit communications satellite company to keep it afloat while the search for a bailout continues. Iridium said Friday it would petition U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York for an extension of its current cash collateral order from Dec. 15 until Feb. 15, 2000. Motorola was said to be seeking "broader participation in the $20 million funding commitment from other current investors."
BMW Rolls-Royce has been renamed Rolls-Royce Deutschland, as it prepares to become a fully owned subsidiary of Rolls-Royce plc Jan. 1. John Rose, Rolls-Royce's chief executive, told The DAILY that the division may in the future take over responsibility for all two-shaft engines. The unit, based in Dahlewitz, is now responsible only for engines in the 13,000-23,000-pound thrust class.
RUSSIA'S MIG-MAPO was supported by the government last week after several officials offered their resignations in protest of a reorganization that they said has effectively shut down the MiG-29SMT program and will shift focus to civil programs. The officials said the reorganization would effectively kill work on military efforts.
Europe's big new Ariane 5 rocket hoisted the European Space Agency's X-ray Multimirror Mission (XMM) x-ray astronomy satellite to orbit Friday, marking its first commercial launch. The Ariane 5 shot off the launch pad at the Guiana Space Center near Kourou right on time at 9:32 a.m. EST and deployed the satellite following a nominal ascent and insertion. It was the fourth Ariane 5 to fly, and the first to be funded as a commercial mission.
Former Rep. Jane Harman, who fought for California's aerospace programs in Congress before her unsuccessful race for governor last year, is taking steps to run for her old West Los Angeles County district, which includes plants of some of the nation's biggest aerospace companies. The 54-year-old Democrat told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday that she would try to regain the seat she held for six years before running for governor.
NEW NMD BATTLELAB: The Army's Space and Missile Defense Command has created a new battlelab for national missile defense (NMD) in Colorado Springs, at the Joint National Test Facility. The goal of the new battlelab is to test NMD simulations at all levels of battle management command, control and communications (BMC3). SMDC officials say the facility, slated to be up and running in January, will test BMC3 and connectivity on a micro level because most testing to date has been at the macro level.
WHERE'S THE FIRE? Managers at NASA are taking a wait-and-see attitude on whether United Space Alliance actually can get the Space Shuttle Discovery underway to fix the Hubble Space Telescope this week, and may change their minds today about the scheduled Thursday night launch (DAILY, Dec. 10). The six-foot liquid hydrogen line USA crews were to change out over the weekend has never been replaced at Kennedy Space Center, and skepticism abounds that USA can do an acceptable job at the launch pad.
The Dept. of Defense released $1.2 billion for the U.S. Air Force's F-22 fighter program Friday following a Defense Authorization Executive (DAE) review, Lockheed Martin announced. The DAE, chaired by Jacques Gansler, Pentagon acquisition chief, is an annual review of a program's status against criteria established the previous year to determine if it is ready to proceed.
STATION REVIEW: International Space Station managers won't gather in Moscow for a General Design Review until the end (Cont. p. 396) of January, instead of this week as was hoped, because a Russian panel probing Proton launch failures needs more time. The GDR will set the schedule for Station assembly in the coming year, including the long awaited launch of the Zvezda Service Module that will house early Station crews.
Teledyne Technologies Inc. said Raytheon Co.'s shift to Williams International as the potential supplier of the engine for the Tactical Tomahawk missile won't have a material impact on its revenues or earnings for 1999 or 2000.
FINAL SAY ON SIAP: The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, rather than some new group, should be responsible for systems integration of a single integrated air picture (SIAP) program, says Space and Missile Defense Command Chief Lt. Gen. John Costello. He says the Army has sent its position supporting BMDO in this role to the Pentagon's Joint Requirements Oversight Council. The individual services should bring options to the table regarding the SIAP, "but BMDO should have the final say in what goes and what does not go," Costello says.
Shorts Missile Systems of Belfast has won a follow-on U.K. Defense Ministry contract worth some $325 million for an additional batch of Starstreak high-velocity low-level air defense missiles. As the largest-ever contract for the latest Starstreak, the award, announced yesterday, follows previous development and production orders for the system which was formally accepted into U.K. service in 1997. Missiles produced under the new contract will go to the British Army.
TRANSHAB TRAVAILS: Spacehab Inc. is in the bidding for NASA's scheme to build an inflatable Transhab for the International Station as a commercial enterprise, but it found a conventional module built by Russia's RSC Energia more amenable for its proposed "Enterprise" commercial Station module. "It's our feeling that we are a commercial company, and that Transhab represents new technology that's important but yet unproven," Shelly Harrison, Spacehab chairman, tells reporters.
Fairchild Aerospace is close to a deal in which New York investment firm Clayton, Dubilier&Rice would take a major stake in the company, according to sources in Germany. The deal could be announced as early as this week. A spokesman for Fairchild, which is headquartered in the U.S. and has facilities in Germany, said talks have been underway with a number of equity houses.
