Hard by the Onizuka Air Force Station, where data from many of the nation's secret spy satellites is received by a forest of steerable Earth dishes and processed in the famous "Blue Cube," Lockheed Martin Missiles&Space is struggling to move from the "black" world of its Cold War heritage to the harsh light of the commercial marketplace.
SECOND AH-64D APACHE LONGBOW BATTALION is beginning full scale unit training to qualify for U.S. Army combat certification in October. The final elements of the unit arrived earlier this month at Ft. Hood, Tex., where pilots and maintainers have been conducting individual training since April. The unit, 2nd Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, is assigned to Ft. Campbell, Ky., with 24 Apache Longbow helicopters.
Executives of Lockheed Martin's commercial satellite enterprise think they may be able to streamline the cumbersome export licensing process they see hampering their ability to sell and launch their products overseas by helping the government zero in on the sensitive technology in a license application.
Loral Space&Communications posted a net loss of $49.7 million in its 1999 second quarter on revenues of $453.6 million. In the 1998 second quarter, the it showed a net loss of $70.6 million on revenues of $406.1 million.
Hong Kong Aero Engine Services Ltd., the joint venture of enginemaker Rolls-Royce and Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Co., won a US$25 million deal to repair and overhaul Rolls-Royce Trent engines powering Emirates' fleet of widebody jetliners in service and on order. The five-year agreement, signed July 14 in Dubai, covers Trent 800s powering Boeing 777s and Trent 700s powering Airbus A330-200s. Emirates already flies nine 777-200 widebody twins and will lease three -300s - two for delivery this year and a third by the end of 2000.
Limerick, Pa.-based Sermatech-Lehr launched a new high-speed process to "broach" blade insertion slots into gas turbine disks using electro-chemical machining rather than conventional mechanical disk broaching. Forming multiple rough slots in one machine cycle can cut production time for gas turbine disks in half, the company says. There's also savings from no longer have to replace the broach, which is perpetually having to be resharpened and must be replaced after 100 to 200 disks.
NASA's Deep Space 1 experimental spacecraft flew closely above the surface of Asteroid 9969, named "Braille," at 12:46 a.m. EDT yesterday, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) reported. The spacecraft used a new autonomous navigation system and exceeded 100% of the mission objectives, JPL said.
German charter carrier Condor gave a joint venture of Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) and enginemaker Rolls-Royce its first civil aerospace contract for a real-time engine condition monitoring system, covering 757 narrowbodies for the next decade. The ECM system will help the Reston, Va.-based Data Systems&Solutions venture keep watch on a fleet of 13 RB211-535-powered 757-300s as they enter service this year and in 2000.
TWO COSMONAUTS completed what probably will be the last spacewalk from Mir yesterday, according to press reports from Moscow. Viktor Afanasyev and Sergei Aydeyev spent more than five hours installing equipment and opening an antenna that would not unfold properly during a spacewalk last week. The two Russians and Jean-Pierre Haignere of France are expected to return to earth on Aug. 28. Plans call for the station to be deorbited early next year (DAILY, June 2).
Britain plans to sell 51% of its air traffic control system in a bid to secure outside management and an investment of one billion pounds ($1.59 billion) over 10 years. Under the proposal, employees of National Air Traffic Services (NATS) will be given the opportunity to buy 5% of the new company's stock and the government will retain 49% of the shares, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said. The sale could take as long as two years to complete.
Lockheed Martin has signed an agreement with Russia's Khrunichev to give rights to market the Angara family of rockets to International Launch Services (ILS), a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services and Lockheed Khrunichev Energia International (LKEI). ILS, which already markets launch service contracts for Russia's Proton, will market Angara as well.
GenCorp Aerojet and Ball Aerospace have submitted a joint proposal to build spacecraft for the Mars MicroMission program, which would begin late this year and see first launch as early as November 2002. Ball Aerospace would be the prime spacecraft contractor and Aerojet would be responsible for the propulsion system through integration and launch.
The Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration 1999 exercise, running from a command center in Suffolk, Va., is meeting its goals, according to the JWID Joint Project Office.
SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA landed Tuesday at 11:20 p.m. EDT at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., wrapping up a five-day mission to deploy the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. It was the 12th night landing in Shuttle history. The mission began early Friday after a pair of launch delays, and the Chandra was ejected from the cargo bay seven hours after liftoff (DAILY, July 26). NASA engineers now will study the Shuttle's engines to determine if a hydrogen leak was the reason that the Shuttle was left short of its intended orbit (DAILY, July 27).
The General Aviation Manufacturers Association reported a rise in billings through the second quarter of 45.1% to $3.5 billion from $2.4 billion. Unit shipments, it said, increased by 13.5% to 1,082 units from 953 units. GAMA President Ed Bolen said that "with increased in student pilot starts, strong backlogs and a healthy economy, it seems we are well on the way to one of our best years yet."
BVR Systems Ltd. said it is in the "advanced stages of negotiations" with Israel Aircraft Industries on an understanding between the parties to end all their commercial disputes and related litigation. In the past seven months, the two companies have been disputing work for a German Air Force contract and have gone to court over intellectual and property trade secrets related to the EHUD system.
Despite recent improvements in the test program, the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missiles that will be used in upcoming flight tests could still have problems, the General Accounting Office reports. A report by the GAO surfaces just days before a THAAD test in which the missile will attempt to intercept a target outside the atmosphere (DAILY, July 28). The Lockheed Martin-built THAAD last month made its first intercept of a target in the high atmosphere after six failures (DAILY, July 11).
Starsem, the Franco-Russian venture set up to market the venerable Soyuz rocket for commercial launches, sees the recent flap between Russia and Kazakhstan over the Baikonur Cosmodrome as an insignificant bump in its path to competing with Boeing's Delta II and other established commercial launchers for the low-Earth orbit constellation market.
Lockheed Martin and Korea's Samsung Aerospace completed the preliminary design review (PDR) of the KTX-2 Advanced Supersonic Jet Trainer/Light Combat Aircraft, Lockheed Martin reported yesterday. The review for the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) was held July 12-16 at Samsung in Sachon, Korea. Based on the successful outcome of the PDR, formal drawing release is scheduled to begin in September.
Shareholders of Avondale Industries Inc. approved the proposed merger of Avondale with Litton Industries, Inc. by a vote of about 71% of the total outstanding shares of common stock, the company reported Tuesday. Avondale, based in New Orleans, designs, builds and overhauls ships for the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and commercial customers. Litton is a leader in technology markets for advanced electronic, defense and information systems, and designs and builds surface combatant ships.
The Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor (JLENS) successfully provided wide-area air surveillance for air defense units during the U.S. Army's Roving Sands Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense exercise last month in New Mexico, JLENS contractor Raytheon reported.
The U.S. Army plans to buy up to 120 Motorola AN/TSQ-220 Joint Service Work Stations for the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) in a sole-source award to be handed out next month, the Army said in a Commerce Business Daily notice.
Cordant Technologies Inc. reported earnings $38.5 million in its 1999 second quarter on sales of $641.9 million. A year ago, the company earned $41.1 million on sales of $628.6 million Earnings in 1999 included a $3.1 million charge in the fastener segment for closure and relocation of an aerospace fastener facility, as well as the reversal of the Howmet Stock Appreciation Rights (SAR) benefit in the first quarter of $1.3 million.
