Members of the Mars Climate Orbiter Mishap Investigation Board have suggested the hydrazine-fueled retrorockets scheduled to ease the Mars Polar Lander to a soft touchdown Dec. 3 could malfunction as a result of their exposure to the cold of space en route to the Red Planet, "possibly leading to a non-upright touchdown."
Northrop Grumman Corporation, Bethpage, N.Y., is being awarded a not-to-exceed $138,000,000 letter contract for upgrade kits, integrated logistics support and sustaining services for the Egyptian E-2C aircraft under the Foreign Military Sales Program. Work will be performed in Bethpage, N.Y. (97%); St. Augustine, Fla. (1%); Melbourne, Fla. (1%); and Rolling Meadows, Ill. (1%), and is expected to be completed by October 2006. Contract funds will not expire at the end of thecurrent fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured.
Hughes Space and Communications Company, El Segundo, Calif., is being awarded a $27,300,000 fixed-price option modification to previously awarded contract N00039-88-0300 for the Navy's eleventh satellite (F11) in the UHF Follow-On communications satellite constellation. The satellites in the UHF F/O constellation help satisfy the Defense Department worldwide satellite communication requirements for Ultra High Frequency and Extremely High Frequency radio communications.
AirTran Holdings has confirmed that as a result of the introduction of its Boeing 717 fleet and the corresponding acceleration of the retirement of its DC-9-30 fleet, the company will record a pre-tax fleet disposition charge in the fourth quarter of 1999, of approximately $140 million to $150 million. This non-cash charge, which the company previously announced it was considering last month, represents the write-down of DC-9-30 aircraft and certain related assets to their estimated fair market value.
Ducommun Inc., Los Angeles, acquired the assets of titanium sub-assemblies maker Parsons Precision Products Inc., a subsidiary of Jordan Industries Inc., Ducommun reported last week. Parsons, based in Parsons, Kan., makes complex titanium hot-formed sub-assemblies and components for commercial and military aerospace applications. The company reported sales of $13 million in the past 12 months. Phil Stephens, president, and the management team will remain with Parsons, and the company will retain its existing facility.
Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc., Plant Apparatus Division, Pittsburgh, Pa., is being awarded a $121,466,390 modification to previously awarded contract N00024-99-C-4006 for nuclear propulsion components. Work will be performed in Pittsburgh, Pa., and is expected to be completed by December 2004. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. No additional information is provided on Naval nuclear propulsion efforts. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Arlington, Va., is the contracting activity.
A shortage of funds for the two-spacecraft Mars '98 exploration mission may have contributed to the loss of one of the spacecraft, according to the former Mars exploration program manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Donna L. Shirley, now assistant dean for advanced program development at the University of Oklahoma College of Engineering, noted Friday the navigation team that guided Mars Climate Orbiter as it flew to its demise with a too-deep dip into the planet's atmosphere was a person short.
Environmental Tectonics Corp. has formed a new composites group, ETC High Performance Composites, ETC reported last week. ETC, Southampton, Pa., makes flight simulators, aircrew trainers, centrifuges, aero-medical equipment, and motion-based, virtual reality type entertainment systems. The new group technical and management core will be comprised of the former ARDCO Composites (Advance Ratio Design Company, Inc.) of Chester, Pa.
Swissair is replacing the Mylar insulation in the cockpits and certain cabin sections of its MD-11 fleet with Tedlar, a "particularly fire-resistant brand of insulation," the carrier reporter. The carrier said the work is being done on its own initiative and is based on information from the ongoing investigation into the crash of SR 111. Swissair is taking advantage of D-checks to install the new Insulfab 330 insulation blankets in strategic zones of stripped down fuselage sections.
The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and the Office of the Secretary of Defense are mulling changing the national missile defense (NMD) deployment readiness review (DRR) to more of a "feasibility" decision as called for in the new Welch report, a top BMDO official told The DAILY. The recommendation to shift the NMD deployment readiness decision from a "readiness" decision to a "feasibility" decision is contained in the new Welch panel report on the status of the NMD program sent to Capitol Hill last Wednesday (DAILY, Nov. 12, Nov. 15).
Cordant Technologies Inc. made a proposal to the board of directors of Howmet International Inc. to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Howmet not currently owned by Cordant, the companies reported Friday. The price of $17 per share would make the deal worth about $261 million. Cordant currently owns about 84.6% of the 100 million outstanding Howmet shares. Howmet also has issued stock-based management incentives equivalent to 4.3 million shares.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope lost another gyroscope Saturday morning, automatically sending the big orbiting observatory into a safe hold and shutting off all science until the Space Shuttle Discovery arrives next month with replacement gyros and other hardware.
BELL BOEING delivered the third production MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to the U.S. Marine Corps Sunday. The aircraft is the first MV-22 to be built at the new Tiltrotor Assembly Center in Amarillo, Tex. The first two production Ospreys were assembled at Bell's Flight Research Center in Arlington, Tex. A fourth MV-22 is scheduled to be delivered to the Marines before the end of the year.
A unanimous report by the all-party House of Commons Defense Committee rejected U.K. government plans for partial privatization of the Defense Evaluation&Research Agency (DERA) through its Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program (DAILY, Oct. 27). The committee called the proposals, launched in the July 1988 Strategic Defense Review (SDR), "fatally flawed."
DEFENSE BUDGET BATTLE: The impasse between Congress and the Administration over the FY '00 budget suggests an even tougher battle looms in FY '01, suggests Merrill Lynch aerospace analyst Byron Callan. In a recent report Callan says both sides will be in even less of a mood to compromise in FY '01.
TOUGH CONFERENCE AHEAD: The House and Senate conference on legislation to privatize Intelsat is slated for early January now that both chambers have passed versions of the bill, sources say. But it will be a difficult conference, with the House pushing hard for a "direct access" language that would allow telecommunications providers to deal directly with Intelsat, rather than going thought the U.S. signatory Comsat. The Senate opposes this provision. Lockheed Martin's purchase of Comsat is tied very close to the outcome of the legislation.
GENERAL ELECTRIC has signed an agreement on behalf of GE Engine Services to acquire a controlling interest in a unit of Aero-Engines Co, an aircraft engine maintenance partnership between All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Ishikawjima-Harima (IHI). The resulting joint venture will perform aircraft engine component repair at facilities in Yokoshiba, Japan. ANA and IHI will be minority owners in the new venture. Operations are scheduled to begin next April.
After more than a year of user trials with customers, Globalstar will officially begin progressive service introduction of its worldwide satellite telephone service today, a company executive said Friday. Testing took place with nine operational gateways that will cover 30 countries, Mark Newman, general manager of Washington operations for Globalstar Limited Partnership, told the Washington Space Business Roundtable. Six more gateways are in testing, and Globalstar hopes to have 28 ready by the middle of next year.
TOLD YOU SO: Look for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) to make much of NASA's latest setback in the X-33 reusable launch vehicle project as he pushes the Pentagon's development policy of "build a little, test a little." Reacting to news one of the X-33's critical composite liquid hydrogen tanks failed after a ground test (DAILY,Nov. 5, 8, 9), the House Science space and aeronautics subcommittee chairman accuses NASA of putting "all of its technology eggs into a single X-33 basket," and calls for reforms.
Raytheon won a $30 million contract award from the U.S. Army's Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM) to develop the Aviation Combined Arms Tactical Trainer - Aviation Reconfigurable Manned Simulator (AVCATT-A) program, the company reported Thursday.
RUMOR ROCKET: Rumors in an Internet chat room helped Loral stock climb almost 25% Thursday. A newswire story based on the rumors speculated an expected announcement of a Microsoft strategic alliance would involve either Loral Space and Communications or Tandy Corp. Loral shares climbed on the idea that Microsoft might acquire Lockheed Martin's 14% share in Loral, but the shares lost most of the gain after Microsoft said its deal was with Tandy's RadioShack unit. Loral still gained $1.69 to close at $18.19 Thursday.
Reflectone, a British Aerospace company, was awarded a $1.6 million option from the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWC-TSD) to provide maintenance and logistics support for the Navy's helicopter flight simulators and training devices, BAe reported Wednesday. This option is the second year of a five-year contract and the seventh year Reflectone has provided simulator maintenance and logistics support for the Navy's helicopter training squadrons.
DRS Advanced Programs, Columbia, Md., won a $1.3 million contract from the Dept. of Defense to make new TEMPEST servers, DRS Technologies Inc., reported. The systems will be based on Sun Microsystems' UltraSPARC2 platforms, providing processing speeds up to four 400 MHz and data storage of up to 200 GB. Delivery is expected in January 2000.
