Coltec's Chandler Evans Control Systems won the nod to supply main engine fuel pumps for AlliedSignal Aerospace's new AS907 and AS977 turbofans, Coltec reports. Connecticut-based Chandler Evans is slated next month to ship the first prototypes of the pump, which is a cartridge-style design consisting of a boost stage, gear stage and splined drive shaft.
Marconi Systems Technologies Inc., Rockville, Md., won a five-year contract worth a potential $63 million for engineering and technical services in support of the Special Communications Requirements Branch of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Div. (NAWCAD), St. Inigoes, Md.
Executives with newly trim and reorganized AlliedSignal Aerospace hope to turn their $8 billion company into a $10 billion company in two years, and continued growth in the aftermarket service sector is a crucial pillar of their strategy. The same strong growth that propelled annual aircraft deliveries in the regional, business and general aviation segment from mid-200s in the early 1990s to some 500 today is seen leveling off at a healthy 500- to 600-aircraft per year clip for most of the decade ahead.
TRW has a completed a laser test bed that it says will help validate performance of a number of solid state lasers it is producing for commercial and military customers, including the Airborne Laser for the U.S. Air Force. The company-funded test bed, called the Infra-Red Experimental Source (IRES), will give the team developing the ABL - the Air Force, Boeing, TRW and Lockheed Martin - validation of a solid-state illuminator laser for the beam control system at least two years before the first flight hardware is slated to be built, TRW said.
A student-built NASA satellite was silent and apparently drained of battery power yesterday after it failed to point its solar arrays toward the sun following its launch Tuesday. The Tomographic Experiment using Radiative Recombinative Ionospheric EUV and Radio Sources (TERRIERS) spacecraft, built by students at Boston College with help from AeroAstro Inc., the Naval Research Laboratory and MIT's Haystack Observatory, had fallen silent by the time it passed over its Boston ground station Tuesday night, NASA reported.
The U.S. Air Force has extended the interval for maintenance of its fleet of over 600 Block 25, 30 and 32 F-16C/Ds, a move that Lockheed Martin says indicates increasing reliability of the jets as they mature. The interval has been extended from a check at 200 hours to a check at 300 hours, essentially cutting inspection requirements by a third which means fewer aircraft out of service and more on the flight line, Lockheed Martin said.
While most companies look for the latest technology to keep them profitable in the consolidating aerospace industry, Tristar Aerospace Co. of Dallas has taken a different approach. Douglas E. Childress, chief financial officer of the aerospace hardware and inventory management company, said Tristar's just-in-time (JIT) services are simply an old concept that is finally being applied to the aerospace industry.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin have restructured their respective efforts in the Joint Strike Fighter program to meet schedule and budget demands in the remaining 18 months of the program's concept definition phase. Because the phase has been revamped, both companies have reserve funds and are focusing on propulsion for the Short-Takeoff/Vertical Landing (STOVL) variant.
NASA managers decided yesterday to shoot for a May 27 launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery on the second mission to the International Space Station, a one-week slip to give crews time to repair damage from a hailstorm. Weather had threatened additional delays in launching the STS-96 mission, as crews at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., maneuvered Discovery and partial booster and external tank stacks for future missions to take advantage of lightning protection equipment at Launch Pad 39B and in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).
Controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have turned over control of a spacecraft to artificial intelligence software for the first time, giving a three-part AI package the helm of the Deep Space 1 probe for 48 hours.
Lockheed Martin won a tri-national contract for Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) along with its team members DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG of Germany and Alenia Marconi Systems of Italy. The value of the contract to develop the air and missile defense system was undisclosed. Lockheed Martin beat Raytheon, which had been teamed with the same European companies.
The House yesterday passed, 259-168, a bill authorizing $41.2 billion for NASA over the next three fiscal years, turning back attempts to cap funding and cancel Russian partnership on the International Space Station. House members rejected a series of Station amendments offered by Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.), a longtime foe of the Station project. Roemer proposed prohibiting the total cost to complete the Space Station from exceeding $21.9 billion and capping Space Shuttle launch costs for Station assembly at 17.7 billion.
The House has passed a $12 billion emergency supplemental bill to cover the cost of military operations over Yugoslavia and related humanitarian relief efforts. The Kosovo bill, approved Tuesday night by a vote of 269 to 158, was included in a $15 billion spending package which included funds for disaster relief in the Midwestern U.S. and Central America. The Senate is slated to vote on the bill before the end of the week.
The House Armed Services Committee yesterday moved toward completion of its markup of the fiscal year 2000 defense budget, adding $8.3 billion to President Clinton's budget request. HASC Chairman Floyd Spence (R-S.C.) said the recommended budget will cover a large percentage of shortfalls identified by the military service chiefs, but won't pay for everything that is needed.
U.S. military space managers have been slow to follow the 1996 national space policy call for an integrated satellite control system, and as a result the managers of new satellites coming on line have been forced to acquire expensive custom control software that will make consolidation in the future difficult, the congressional General Accounting Office has found.
Northrop Grumman signed a definitive agreement to acquire Data Procurement Corp. (DPC), an information technology outsourcing company, in a stock transaction valued at about $33 million. The transaction is expected to close in about 30 days. DPC, based in Laurel and Fort Meade, Md., provides IT services and support to the Dept. of Defense and various intelligence agencies. The company reported 1998 revenues of $60 million.
Boeing has selected a team of rocket engineers to study the May 4 failure of its second Delta III launch vehicle to place a satellite in orbit, concentrating on the abrupt shutdown of the second stage engine. Russell Reck, director of engineering technology at Boeing Expendable Launch Vehicles and head of the investigation board, said the team will focus on the sudden halt in the second stage turbomachinery, working with a separate team from Pratt&Whitney and sharing information with Lockheed Martin.
DAIMLERCHRYSLER AEROSPACE sales climbed 10% to 2.6 billion euros ($2.77 billion) in the first four months of 1999, the company reported yesterday. Overall sales at DaimlerChrysler improved 9% to 46.7 billion euros (49.8 billion) in the same period.
Xerox Corp. has agreed to sell majority interest in dpiX, the sole U.S. manufacturer for flat panel cockpit displays used in several key military aircraft, to a five-company consortium of dpiX customers led by France's Trixell SAS. The consortium signed an agreement Monday to buy 80% of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based dpiX for an undisclosed price.
Quantum Magnetics, a wholly owned subsidiary of InVision Technologies of Newark, Calif., won an additional $1 million award from the U.S. Army Night Vision and Electronics Sensor Directorate for its landmine detection system, the company said yesterday. The contract brings the total amount Quantum has been awarded for the program to $8.4 million.
U.S. ARMY Maj. Gens. Donald L. Kerrick and Charles S. Mahan have been nominated for promotions to lieutenant general. Kerrick will be assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mahan will become Army deputy chief of logistics.
Lockheed Martin's Sanders unit has received a $30 million U.S. Army contract for additional AN/ALQ-144A countermeasures sets. The initial phase of the contract calls for 133 of the devices, which jam infrared seekers of missiles, and is worth about $4.8 million. A company spokesman said the primary recipients of the units will be those operating Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk helicopters and Bell Helicopter Textron OH-85D Kiowa Warriors. The system is standard on Special Operations aircraft and the Boeing Apache AH-64 attack helicopter.
The U.S. Air Force has scheduled the next Titan IVB launch for May 22, which will clear the way for NASA to launch its long-delayed QuikSCAT ocean scatterometer satellite. Officials delayed the launch, which will carry a National Reconnaissance Office satellite to orbit from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., pending review of its similarities to a Titan IVB that failed to put a Defense Support Program early warning satellite in its proper orbit.
THE U.S. DEPT. OF DEFENSE yesterday approved the sale of four Raytheon Patriot missile batteries to Greece. The contract, worth up to $1.1 billion, includes Patriot guidance enhanced missiles with PAC-3 ground systems and an option to buy two more batteries.
