Raytheon Technical Services Company, Indianapolis, Ind., is being issued a $7,730,358 firm-fixed-price order for three radar data processors in support of the AN/APG-71 radar used on F-14 aircraft. Work will be performed in Indianapolis, Ind., and is expected to be completed by October 2001. Contract funds will not expire by the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Inventory Control Point, Philadelphia, Pa., is the contracting activity (N000383-G-001A) (Order 5225).
The FAA on Dec. 2 will begin a three-month review of Boeing production and quality control procedures, an FAA official said yesterday. The review follows the crash of EgyptAir 990 on Oct. 31, but is the result of other incidents, including discovery of adhesive in some air ducts in airliner cabins; improper application of adhesive to a condensation barrier that keeps moisture out of avionics, and the finding by an airline that two of 16 bolts holding the vertical stabilizer were not sufficiently tightened.
The FAA plans to allow exceptions to the yearend deadline after which Stage 2 aircraft will not be allowed to operate, effectively permitting airlines which have claimed to operate all-Stage 3 fleets to continue to use Stage 2 engines.
The U.S. Navy has awarded two contracts for work on the Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile. Marconi Systems Technologies, Inc., Rockville, Md., got a $37.7 million contract to provide systems integration support for the Trident I and II. Work is expected to be completed by September 2000. Northrop Grumman Marine Systems, Sunnyvale, Calif., won a $51.1 million contract for launcher production and deployed systems support for Trident I and II of the U.S. and U.K., with work to be completed by December 2003.
Fairchild Aerospace this month begins a critical design review of its proposed 70-seat airliner, the 728JET. The review is expected to lead a decision next spring to built prototype aircraft. Fairchild describes the plane as the "first member of a new family of Fairchild airliners in the 55 to 105-seat class." It says the 728JET "is the only product line that offers complete commonality over a broad range of airliners in the 105-seat and below market."
WEATHER SPINOFFS: Capabilities developed for Terra and Aqua to monitor climate change over the 15-year EOS mission life will also help future weather forecasters do their jobs, once they are transferred to planned weather satellites.
The Conventional Mission Upgrade Program (CMUP) for the U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber saw an increase of $45.7 million in the September 1999 Selected Acquisition Report (SAR), the Pentagon reported. The 2.2% increase in the B-1 CMUP from $2.117 billion to $2.163 billion since the June 1999 SAR was blamed on a 8 1/2 month Avionics Flight Software (AFS) development delay. The Pentagon said the delay is needed to assure mature software is available at the start of CMUP flight test in March 2000.
Canadian Aerospace Group International has sold 30 Twin Panda aircraft, valued at $94.5 million, to Air Group du Brazil for use in a new business venture involving charter and cargo operations. Canadian Aerospace also announced an equity investment of $9 million by Fernani Trade Lease and Finance Corp. of the British Virgin Islands for warrants to be converted into preferred shares in CASG on the date of the final aircraft delivery to Brazil.
The Pentagon is reviewing an industry proposal under which the competitors for the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (EHF) program would combine forces, sources reported last week. Under the proposal, Hughes and a team of Lockheed Martin and TRW would cooperate in a way similar to the arrangement on the Milstar satellite program, rather than compete for Advanced EHF, a source explained. "This idea is just being kicked around," one program official told The DAILY. "The Pentagon is looking at it."
Norway grounded its fleet of F-16s last week because of hydraulic fluid contamination in the emergency power system, according to a Lockheed Martin spokesperson. The problem appears to be isolated to Norway's 58 F-16s, and is apparently due to the servicing equipment involved in maintaining the aircraft and how it was used. Norway's F-16 fleet is standing down "because the emergency power system is an integral backup system," the spokesperson said. Lockheed Martin has sent a team to Norway to help clean the fluid out of the system.
California Microwave Systems, Woodland Hills, Calif., has been awarded a $7.4 million U.S. Navy special operations contract for Lightweight Tactical Automated Communications Control Systems (LTACCS), the company announced. The contract is for the Communications Gateway System (CGS)-Lite, a portable system that provides tactical communications control and message processing for special operations forces.
PAKISTAN IN ORBIT: Pakistan is continuing its push into low-Earth orbit with the planned March launch of its 154-pound Badr-2 experimental satellite aboard a Russian Zenit booster from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Built in Pakistan to give technicians there experience in creating space hardware and software, Badr-2 will follow the Badr-1 platform launched in 1990 by China.
FARO Technologies Inc., Lake Mary Fla., said it has won a $325,000 contract from Boeing Information, Space, and Defense Systems to provide Computer-Aided Manufacturing Measurement (CAM2) services on the Airborne Laser (ABL) program. The Program Definition and Risk Reduction (PDRR) contract includes the engineering and quality verification of the identified 3D engineering coordinate locations used for ABL installation on a modified Boeing 747-400F.
SATELLITE AQUA: NASA's next Earth Observing System satellite will be called "Aqua," complementing the "Terra" satellite scheduled for launch next month (see story page 319). Michael King, senior project scientist, tells reporters the new name is the all-but-official choice among 17 nominations, and is based on the primary focus the new spacecraft's instruments will have. "Aqua was the first choice based on the hydrologic cycle and the water elements...atmosphere, ocean and land water that will be complementary to Terra," he says.
Formal hand-over of the first of 25 Lockheed Martin C-130Js ordered in 1995 for the Royal Air Force took place last Tuesday at the Hercules transport Wing air base of Lyneham, in Wiltshire, nearly two years behind the original schedule. In an official ceremony, the first C-130J-30 of 15 in the initial order - the remainder being short-fuselage versions - was accepted by Air Vice Marshal Philip Sturley, Air Officer Commanding the RAF's No 38 Group, from Tom Burbage, president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems.
DSCS READY TO GO: Lockheed Martin has sent the Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) B8 satellite back to Cape Canaveral for launch. It is now slated to go in late January, sources say. The satellite was slated for launch this year, but was sent back to the contractor due to an issue with the harness, a program source says.
Consortia led by British Aerospace and Thomson-CSF have won competitive contracts to assess design options for Britain's two new 40,000-ton aircraft carriers, or CVFs. Marconi Electronic Systems also was confirmed as prime contractor for the Royal Navy's dozen planned Type 45 anti-air warfare destroyers - its other main requirement from last year's Strategic Defense Review - with an initial design study contract.
SATELLITE CYCLES: Satellite manufacturing should generate some $16.1 billion in revenues worldwide by 2003, but the annual revenue figure should drop by some $5 billion a year over the following two years, according to Frost&Sullivan. The problem is not a decline in the market, but the cyclical nature of the satellite industry, the international marketing consulting firm believes.
HELP WANTED: It's been 10 years since NASA split its big 13-instrument payload package into the two smaller packages on Terra and Aqua, but there are still some measurements that won't be covered. In 1991, when the new packages were picked (DAILY, Nov. 14, 1991), some capabilities were dropped because the technology was considered too new or too expensive.
JOHN R. DAILEY, associate deputy administrator at NASA for the past seven years, has been picked to head the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, replacing the late Donald D. Engen. Dailey joined NASA in 1992 after 36 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he rose to the rank of general and served at the end of his career as assistant commandant. At the space agency he played the role of executive officer to Administrator Daniel S. Goldin, managing the day-to-day activities of the NASA bureaucracy.
NASA's $1.3 billion Terra climate-change spacecraft, the first of the Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites, is set to lift off Dec. 16 from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., a little more than eight years after the U.S. space agency downsized its instrument package to accommodate an Atlas IIAS launch vehicle instead of a Titan IV.
FAA and industry efforts to introduce new traffic management techniques and technology received a boost when the agency this month approved installation of UPS Aviation Technologies' communications, navigation and surveillance equipment in the 21 different aircraft models set to participate in the Alaska Capstone project. Larry Speelman, technologies director for UPS on the project, said that installation already had begun on the first of 132 participating airplanes and that all should be equipped by next June.
BMDO REORGANIZES: The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization this week will announce plans for a reorganization, BMDO officials tell The DAILY. The move, orchestrated by BMDO Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, will flatten the whole operation and eliminate a number of management layers, officials say. "The key issue is that we are reducing layers, improving efficiency of the organization and focusing our efforts to deliver what we promise in theater missile defense, national missile defense and technology," a BMDO official says.
