Moody's Investors Service and Standard&Poor's placed their ratings on Aerospatiale Matra SA under review, the company's reported Friday. The move follows the agreement between Lagardere SCA and DaimlerChrysler Ag to combine Aerospatiale Matra and DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (DASA) activities to create the European Aeronautical, Defense and Space (EADS) Company (DAILY, Oct. 15).
EVANS&SUTHERLAND COMPUTER CORP., Salt Lake City, has been selected by Emirates, the international airline of the UAE, to supply the visual system for its latest A330/340 simulator. The simulator, which will be supplied by CAE, features Evans&Sutherland's top-of-the-line visual system. This is the second time that E&S has provided a visual system for an Emirates simulator.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, Stratford, Conn., is being awarded a $19,041,875 indefinite-quantity contract for repair and overhaul of H-53E helicopter dynamic components which include gear box assemblies and rotary rudder heads. This contract contains options, which, if exercised, will bring the total cumulative value of this contract to $50,807,391. Work will be performed in Shelton, Conn., and is expected to be completed by December 2004. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured.
The U.S. Navy's aerial targets program manager says the time has come to seek commonality between the targets used to test weapons and those used for training. And, said Capt Michael Mentas, the Navy and Air Force much achieve interoperabilty of their full-scale target drones.
LOCKHEED MARTIN Aeronautical Systems has delivered the first of three EC-130J Command Solo psychological operations aircraft to the Pennsylvania Air National Guard's 193rd Special Operations Wing. The aircraft can broadcast on all commercial AM and FM radio bands, as well as VHF and UHF television bands and military VHF, HF and FM frequencies. It is used to inform and influence military personnel and civilians in areas of military and political unrest. The ANG unit, based in Harrisburg, currently flies eight ECD-130Es that are near the end of their service life.
InfoEdge Technology, Arlington, Va., is being awarded a $6,695,333 cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for litigation support services such as scanning and coding of documents in support of the Office of General Counsel, Naval Litigation Office, Washington, D.C. This contract contains options, which, if exercised, will bring the cumulative value of this contract to $35,856,766. Work will be performed in Arlington, Va., and is expected to be completed by September 2000. Contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Esterline Technologies, Bellevue, Wash., finalized its acquisition of the outstanding stock of UK-based Muirhead Vactric and Norcroft Dynamics from Silvermines Group Plc. for $20.9 million, Esterline reported Thursday. The operations now are part of Esterline's Europe-based aerospace subsidiary, Auxitrol S.A. The acquisition, which significantly broadens Auxitrol's high-end aerospace sensor business to include a full line of motion control devices, is expected to generate annual sales of about $35 million.
TRW and the U.S. Army have demonstrated the "handoff" process between two subsystems of the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) system, being developed to destroy short-range missiles. In an Oct. 12 test at White Sands Missile Range, TRW said yesterday, the command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I) subsystem passed information on flying Katyusha rockets to the pointer tracker subsystem (PTS), marking the first time for such a handoff with live targets.
AAI/ACL Technologies, Inc., Brea, Calif., is being awarded a $14,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract, F42620-99-C-0112, to provide for test and support equipment and integration services to support depot level maintenance facilities at Helwan Air Base, Egypt. This effort supports foreign military sales to Egypt. There was one firm solicited and one proposal received. Expected contract completion date is September 2002. Negotiation completion date was Oct. 14, 1999. Ogden Air Logistics Center, Hill AFB, Utah, is the contracting activity.
ROLL-OUT CEREMONY for the Litening II precision attack targeting system for F-16s was held yesterday at Tucson Air National Guard Base, Ariz. The system, made by Northrop Grumman Corp., combines night and day targeting and navigation capabilities in a single pod. Yesterday's ceremony was hosted by the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Test Center.
A Soyuz rocket outfitted by the Franco-Russian Starsem joint venture launched four more Globalstar low-Earth orbit communications satellites yesterday, bringing to 44 the number of the "big LEO" satellites in orbit. Another Soyuz launch next month and a Delta II launch in December are slated to complete the Globalstar constellation of 48 operational satellites and four on-orbit spares. Globalstar initiated limited commercial service using the satellites and some of its planned Earth stations last week (DAILY, Oct. 13).
Israel's BVR Systems (1998) Ltd. said yesterday that it expects to write down $6.4 million in capitalized software costs and inventory in its third quarter, a result of the settlement of its dispute with Israel Aircraft Industries. The agreement settled all commercial disputes and other related outstanding litigation, and eliminated the need for certain competing components of the advanced airborne ACMI System developed by BVR (DAILY, Aug. 11).
Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Va., is being awarded a $5,024,209 modification to previously awarded contract N00024-99-C-2100 to exercise an option to aircraft carrier engineering support services. This option provides engineering, technical, and design agent services, including the development of ship alteration packages and life cycle logistics support, for aircraft carrier programs. With this modification award, the total cumulative value of this contract is $16,310,086.
The capability to conduct video imaging from munitions may provide better bomb damage assessment in future conflicts, Defense Secretary William Cohen said last week, reporting on lessons learned from operations in Kosovo. Often during the 78-day Operation Allied Force targets were attacked by multiple systems, making an assessment of any single system's effectiveness nearly impossible, Cohen told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday in a written report on the lessons learned (DAILY, Oct. 15).
Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) Low contract winners Spectrum Astro and TRW will use the next year to conduct cost and technical trade studies on options for requirements, according to Col. Scott Rounce, deputy program manager for SBIRS Low at the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center here.
Lockheed Martin Fairchild Systems, Syosset, N.Y., is being awarded a $22,775,000 firm-fixed-price contract for the FY 99 low rate initial production III of 4 F/A-18 Advanced Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance Systems (ATARS), 4 ATARS shipping containers, sustaining engineering, integrated logistics support and other related data. Work will be performed in Syosset, N.Y., and is expected to be completed by May 2001. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured.
Reflectone, Inc., Tampa, Fla., is being awarded a $19,203,782 firm-fixed-price contract for one E-2C operational flight trainer and related supplies and services for the government of France under the Foreign Military Sales Program. Work will be performed in Tampa, Fla. (75.5%), and Bruz, France (24.5%), and is expected to be completed by April 2005. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured.
Spectrolab Inc., a Los Angeles solar cell manufacturer owned by Hughes Electronics Corp., plans to introduce a new quadruple-junction cell by 2002 that will be able to convert 40% of the energy in sunlight to useable electricity for spacecraft, up from the 27.1% conversion efficiency that is the state of the art today.
COMSAT CORP. said Lawrence S. Eagleburger has resigned from its board of directors. Eagleburger, a former U.S. secretary of state, has served on the board since 1995. He cited the pending merger of Comsat with Lockheed Martin "and the need, therefore, to add another Lockheed Martin representative to the Comsat board. John V. Sponyoe, chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications, has been designated to fill the vacancy created by Eagleburger's departure.
AlliedSignal Inc. earned $386 million in its 1999 third quarter, up 17% from the same period a year ago, the company reported Thursday. Sales increased 3% to $3.84 billion over the same period. "Our strong performance in the third quarter was driven by our broad aerospace aftermarket offering, 19% revenue growth in our turbocharger products, and the profitability rebound in our extensively restructured transportation products businesses," Lawrence Bossidy, AlliedSignal chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
STATION SCHEDULE: NASA and Russian managers are still wrestling with the exact launch schedule for the next phase of International Space Station assembly, the long-awaited launch of Russia's Zvezda Service Module and its outfitting soon there after by the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Workers at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., have started wiring inspections on Atlantis as they wrap up inspection and repair work on Discovery and Endeavour, but no date has been set for the STS-101 mission to Station.
THE FUTURE OF EUROPE: While the European primes seem finally to be moving ahead in consolidating, the subcontractor base continues to lag behind. "The biggest amount of [future] deals will be in the subcontractor level, particularly, ones that are below the political radar screen," says Jon Kutler, head of Quarterdeck Investment Partners. Meanwhile, the major players not included in the DASA-Aerospatiale Matra combination could turn their attention to the U.S.
NMD SITE STUDIES: Pentagon Ballistic Missile Defense Organization officials are in the midst of completing environmental impact studies on sites in Alaska and Grand Forks, N.D., for possible deployment of an initial national missile defense system. During the last week of the month officials will hold formal public hearings at the possible sites, says Lt. Gen. John Costello, head of Army Space and Missile Defense Command.
