Space Imaging Inc. plans to move carefully to build up a space-based commercial remote sensing industry, trying to avoid some of the pitfalls that have snared other new space industries, according to the head of the Colorado-based company that released the first commercial one-meter-resolution satellite images on Tuesday.
ROCKWELL COLLINS said its USQ-146 dual receiver-transmitter has been selected for the Marine Corps' Mobile Electronic Warfare Support System (MEWSS) Light Armored Vehicle (LAV). Lockheed Martin Corp., Owego, N.Y., is the prime contractor for the program, which involves production of 12 systems through FY 2004.
ALLIEDSIGNAL AEROSPACE is forecasting strong demand for new business aircraft with deliveries of 6,800 units valued at $89 billion between 2000-2010. A company survey showed that market growth will be driven by new and derivative aircraft models entering service with corporate flight departments, and by rapidly expanding fractional ownership plans.
Senate and House defense appropriators, having worked out a key sticking point on the fiscal year 2000 budget for the F-22, directed the U.S. Air Force to establish new procedures for more accurate tracking of the cost of the planes beyond those built in the development phase. The conferees, in the report accompanying their fiscal year 2000 bill, also direct that costs associated with the additional test aircraft be separately identified in future research and development budget documents.
Boeing Chief Financial Officer Debby Hopkins says Washington State isn't the best place for the company to grow its business. Hopkins said in an address last week to the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce that Boeing wants to "expand our horizons. We want to grow and capture a larger piece of the aerospace pie....We want to grow in Washington. Unfortunately, right now, Washington is not a top competitor. The business climate is not right."
GEC will retain the Marconi name for its remaining telecommunications and hi-tech businesses, following the $12.4 billion sale to British Aerospace of GEC Marconi Electronic Systems (MES), comprising its aerospace, ship-building and defense electronics and systems interests. BAe's takeover of MES, due to be completed by the end of November, was facilitated by Trade Secretary Stephen Byers' surprise overruling of U.K. Office of Fair Trading objections. U.S. regulatory clearance for the deal, however, has still to be achieved.
Lockheed Martin Mission Systems is competing for the U.S. Air Force's Integrated Space Command and Control (ISC2) contract on the strength of the experience it and its industry teammates would bring to the task of consolidating some 40 discrete information systems at the U.S. Space Command and NORAD, according to the company's ISC2 program manager.
BOEING CO. has won a U.S. Navy contract, worth $123 million with options, to modernize the cockpits of the service's fleet of 16 E-6 aircraft. The Multifunction Display System (MDS) contract calls for the company to adapt its Next-Generation 737-700 cockpit and avionics architecture to the fleet as a cost-effective way of achieving compliance with the Global Air Traffic Management (GATM) requirement. This, Boeing said, will give the Navy continued access to preferred airspace as International Civil Aviation Organization guidelines are implemented around the world.
Astronomers worldwide who watched for signs of water ice July 31 when NASA's Lunar Prospector probe crashed near the moon's south pole came up empty handed, but they haven't concluded as a result that there is no water on the moon. A University of Texas research team told a planetary science conference in Italy yesterday none of the Earth- and space-based telescopes aimed at the probe's planned crash site detected the ultraviolet emission lines for hydroxyl they were seeking with their spectrometers as a sign of water ice.
A three-year program to develop the Miniature Air Launched Decoy (MALD) has succeeded and the effort will begin transition to the U.S. Air Force with the fiscal year 2001 program objective memorandum, according to the manger of the program for the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Globalstar officially launched its "Big LEO" satellite telephone service on Monday, announcing at the Telecom '99 conference in Geneva that it is providing limited service to selected "friendly users" during a checkout period before full service begins "over the next few months." Selected users in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Argentina, China, Korea, South Africa and parts of Europe will take part in the early trials, Globalstar announced. The "phased rollout" involves areas served by the network's first nine ground stations.
Spacecraft managers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have set Oct. 20 as the date for the next cruise-phase maneuver to set up the Mars Polar Lander for its Dec. 3 touchdown on the Red Planet, after determining that the confusion over measurement units that claimed the Mars Climate Orbiter will not affect the lander.
Raytheon Co.'s stock lost about 40% of its value yesterday after the company reduced its earnings expectations for the second time in less than a month, dropping 18.75 by the bell to close at $24.25.
The Ground Based Radar (GBR) prototype being developed for the Pentagon's national missile defense (NMD) program experienced a software glitch when operating in a "shadow mode" during the first NMD intercept test earlier this month, program officials said yesterday. The GBR prototype had some intermittence in tracking, and this was found to be a software issue, Maj. Gen. Willie B. Nance, director of the NMD Joint Program Office, said at an NMD panel discussion at the Association of the U.S. Army show in Washington.
ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS has won a $2 million U.S. Navy contract to supply 25mm PGU-32/U ammunition for use by the service's Mk. 38 shipboard machine gun and the U.S. Marine Corps' AV-8B aircraft. The Minneapolis company said that if all options are exercised, the total value of the contract could reach $6.5 million over the next 15 months.
NASA's Galileo Jupiter probe sent itself into a safe mode early Sunday as it was bombarded by radiation before its closest-yet flyby of the moon Io, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported. Engineers at JPL traced the safeing to an error in the onboard computer memory triggered by high radiation trapped by the massive planet's gravity. The event shut down all non-essential activity on board just as the spacecraft approached Io, but JPL engineers were able to trace the problem and load new commands.
DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION appropriations bill that Congress passed and sent to President Clinton last week cuts funding needed for Global Positioning System satellite signals and for a program augmenting those signals, leaving the program even farther behind schedule. Congress had already slowed funding for development of Phase 2 of the GPS and in the latest move, cut $17 million that FAA and DOT said they needed to start adding new civil signals to the next batch of satellites.
Increased reliance on precision guided munitions has put added pressure on the U.S. Air Force to deliver accurate and up-to-date satellite weather data to theater commanders. During Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia, NATO commanders relied even more heavily on data from the Air Force's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), officials at the service's Space and Missile Systems Center (SMSC) here told The DAILY.
B/E AEROSPACE INC., Wellington, Fla., has completed the sale of its remaining 49% equity interest in Sextant In-Flight Systems LLC (SIFS) to its joint venture partner, Sextant Avionique Inc. B/E will receive no less than $93.3 million for the sale. The company got $62 million for the initial 51% interest previously sold to Sextant, and depending on the performance of SIFS, the total could be about $125 million. Sextant is a wholly-owned subsidiary of France's Sextant Avionique, S.A.
CATHAY PACIFIC AIRWAYS placed an order for two new Boeing 747-400 freighters powered by Rolls-Royce engines to serve growing demand on Asia's main trade routes. The first aircraft will be delivered in September 2000 and the second in August 2001. This will bring Cathay's cargo fleet to 11 widebody aircraft.
The U.S. Army and the U.K.Ministry of Defense will jointly explore use of tactical unmanned aerial vehicles on future battlefields under a joint initiative announced yesterday. UAVs from the armies of both countries "played a major successful role" in Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia earlier this year, and "...this joint initiative is expected to assist other U.K./U.S. national TUAV programs," the U.K. MOD said.
Northrop Grumman Corp. said yesterday that the Aerostructures business area of its Integrated Systems and Aerostructures (ISA) sector has been reorganized to improve near-term performance, cut costs and enhance its competitive position. It announced the following assignments: -- Tom Risley has been named vice president and Integrated Product Team leader-Boeing Commercial Programs. Risley had been VP and IPT leader-Empennage Programs.
The TRW laser being developed for use in the U.S. Air Force's Airborne Laser (ABL) missile defense system has successfully completed a four-month test program at the company's Capistrano Test Site in Southern California, TRW said yesterday. The flight-weighted laser module-3 (FLM-3), which is the technical foundation for the modules to be carried by the ABL, exceeded power and beam quality requirements of the operational system by a significant margin, according to Col.Michael Booen, director of the the Air Force's ABL program.
