NASA has picked a team headed by Swales Aerospace to commercialize its Small Explorer-Lite (SMEX-Lite) spacecraft, granting the Beltsville, Md., firm the rights to its SMEX-Lite "plug-and-play" spacecraft architecture and related technologies. Goddard Space Flight Center, which developed SMEX-Lite, said a key factor in Swales' win over Ball Aerospace, Boulder, Colo., which also entered a proposal to commercialize the spacecraft, was Swales' plan to offer SMEX-Lite for Goddard's "catalogue" of off-the-shelf satellites.
TRW-Vinnell Corp., Reston, Va., won a contract from the U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) to manage its $118 million Turkey Base Maintenance Contract (TBMC), TRW reported yesterday. TRW-Vinnell will provide operations and maintenance support at USAFE's bases in Incirlik, Ankara, and Izmir, Turkey. Work will be performed by Vinnell-Brown&Root (VBR), a joint venture of TRW-Vinnell and Houston-based Brown&Root. Work begins today, and the contract is expected to run through September 2003.
Lockheed Martin said it will release its Pathmaker wideband mine countermeasures system for worldwide sales. The high-frequency array and high-resolution flat panel sonar display were originally developed for the U.K. Royal Navy as an upgrade to the Hunt mine hunting systems. The ship-based sensor has demonstrated detection of low-signature mines at depths of 100 meters and distances of 1,000 meters.
Boeing Military Aircraft and Missile Systems has moved all St. Louis production for other parts of the company to the new Integrated Manufacturing Control System (IMACS), a production management system, according to Western Data Systems of Calabasas, Calif., the maker of IMACS.
Fairchild Aerospace Chairman and Chief Executive Carl Albert said the revolution in regional jets is only in its first phase, and that the next will see 32- and 37-seat RJs of the type it makes growing more popular. Speaking to the Aero Club of Washington Tuesday, Albert also said that turboprops will become obsolete with the growth of smaller pure jet-powered RJs, and that larger RJs will continue opening up new markets that are too thin to support 737s and whose distances are too great for turboprops.
The U.S. Army received a shipment of Generation III night vision goggles and tubes two months ahead of schedule, prime contractor Litton Industries announced. The MX-11620 weapon sight tubes and AN/PVS-7D goggles were delivered to in February as part of a three-year Omnibus V contract worth up to $190 million. Under the agreement, Litton Electro-Optical Systems Div. will manufacture AV/PVS-14 night vision monoculars and, if options are exercised, AN/AVS-6 Aviator's Night Vision Imaging Systems.
NATO member nations must invest in sophisticated weaponry and aircraft, rather than relying on the U.S. to provide the "lion's share of the sophisticated aircraft and weaponry" as it did in Operation Allied Force, the newly appointed chairman of NATO's military committee said yesterday.
B-2 bomber proponent Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) is pushing for another independent study of the U.S. bomber force, particularly since the B-2 performed well during the war against Yugoslavia. "The B-2 was clearly the star of the air campaign," Dicks told The DAILY Tuesday. He would like the Air Force's 21-plane B-2 force to be closer to a 40-60 plane force. But his attempts to sway the Administration to buy more of the Northrop Grumman bombers have failed in the past.
U.S. intelligence officials have collected evidence that North Korea is preparing for another long-range missile launch, one that would have serious effects on its relationship with the U.S., according to Kurt M. Campbell, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia and Pacific Affairs. "We have seen some indication of a potential launch in the future," Campbell told reporters at a Washington breakfast meeting yesterday.
NASA space science managers have decided to kill the proposed Champollion comet-landing mission to save money for future Mars orbiters and to pay for overruns on two of the agency's orbiting observatories. Edward Weiler, associate administrator for space science, decided on Friday to terminate work on the advanced spacecraft, which was scheduled for launch on a Boeing Delta rocket in 2003. A spokesman for Weiler said Weiler took the decision as a way to cover other budget problems in NASA's space science program.
Boeing delivered the seventh production model F/A-18E/F Super Hornet to the U.S. Navy on June 25, a month ahead of schedule, the company reported yesterday. The aircraft, a single-seat E model, joins the first six production aircraft at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, Calif., for operational evaluation (OPEVAL). Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Nine (VX-9) began the evaluation at China Lake last month. Delivery of this final OPEVAL aircraft brings the total for VX-9 to three E-models and four two-seat F-models.
Northrop Grumman has completed its acquisition of Data Procurement Corporation Inc. (DPC Technologies) in a stock transaction valued at about $33 million, Northrop Grumman reported yesterday. DPC, based in Laurel and Fort Meade, Md., provides IT services and support to the Dept. of Defense and various intelligence agencies. The company, which employs about 180 people, reported 1998 revenues of about $60 million (DAILY, May 20).
AAR Corp. set sales and earnings records for both the fourth quarter and fiscal year, the company reported. AAR posted earnings of $41.7 million for fiscal year 1999, up 16.9% from FY98, while sales climbed 17.4% to $918 million.
NASA and other U.S. federal government agencies responsible for scientific and technological research need more help from industry in winning funds for their work, which will sustain the U.S. economy 10 or 20 years down the road, Administrator Daniel S. Goldin urged yesterday.
BOEING and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers yesterday began preliminary talks that will lead to formal collective bargaining Aug. 16. Dick Schneider, the Machinists' chief Boeing negotiator, said his 49,000 members - Boeing has a total of 214,000 workers - are ready to strike if the union leadership does not present an acceptable contract. Job security tops the list, but health care and pensions are also principal issues in the talks, Schneider said.
A design error allowed a "subtle, but known" electronics characteristic to trigger pyrotechnics prematurely, leaving the solid-hydrogen cryogen inside NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Explorer (WIRE) space telescope exposed to direct sunlight and ruining the instrument scientists had hoped would help them inventory the asteroid belt and find planetary debris around nearby stars.
Mercury Computer Systems, Chelmsford, Mass., has received orders worth more than $11 million for its RACE multicomputer systems from Raytheon Systems Co. for the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System-2 (ASARS-2) improvement program.
The NASA/Orbital Sciences Corp. X-34 rocket testbed completed its first captive carry test on Orbital's L-1011 carrier aircraft yesterday, giving engineers "most of the data they were looking for" before a vibrating panel on the airplane cut the flight short. A spokeswoman for Dryden Flight Research Center, where the test was conducted, said it "went well" despite the vibration problem. The L-1011 with the X-34 tucked beneath it took off at 1:20 p.m. EDT and landed at 3:02 p.m. EDT, about a half-hour earlier than planned.
Boeing, after accelerating the pace of its Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) production line to 450 kits a month for Operation Allied Force, is preparing to slow it to a "sustainable rate" of 300 a month, said Carl Avila, Boeing program manager. International sales for the GPS-guided munition, however, are expected to fund an increase in the production line, which is capable of delivering 1,600 JDAM kits a month without added floor space. First orders could come this year.
ONTIC ENGINEERING and Manufacturing Inc., North Hollywood, Calif., has purchased AlliedSignal's DC brush-type starter generator and inverter product line. The generators and inverters are used on older aircraft, primarily business jets.
Moody's Investors Service downgraded Orbital Sciences Corp.'s sub debt rating and Orbcomm Global's L.P. senior notes because of what it said was "deteriorating financing performance."
The Civil Aviation Administration of China has signed an agreement with ARINC of the U.S. to purchase a ground-to-air communications network to enhance flight safety. The purchase is part of China's preparations to build a system that would cover all major domestic air routes and improve the country's ground-to-air data exchange ability, according to Liu Jianfeng, director general of CAAC.
"First light" of the U.S. Army/TRW Tactical High Energy Laser was achieved Saturday at TRW's Capistrano, Calif., facility, a U.S. Army spokeswoman said yesterday.
