Litton Industries' unsolicited offers last week to acquire Newport News Shipbuilding and Avondale Industries not only could pass anti-trust scrutiny, but would please the Navy in terms of synergy between defense electronics and ships, analysts said. The combination of the pair with Litton's Ingalls Shipbuilding would create the largest shipbuilder in the industry and a company capable of making every ship the U.S. Navy needs.
The Senate Intelligence Committee called on the Clinton Administration to reappraise its policy of allowing U.S. satellites to be launched from China, given evidence that sensitive technology transferred to China has helped its ballistic missile development. The Intelligence Committee released an unclassified version of its investigation Friday concluding there is no doubt that U.S. technology was indeed transferred to China.
LIFE AFTER JSF: It would be the wrong move to split the Joint Strike Fighter buy between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, but the U.S. government must make sure that the loser of the competition remains in the technology business, says Jacques Gansler, under secretary of defense for acquisition and technology. "We've got to make sure we maintain competition and a viable industry without setting up two lines," he tells AIAA's Global Air&Space '99 conference.
The Senate Armed Services Committee intends to mark up its FY '00 defense bill this week, with full committee markups on May 12 and 13. The individual subcommittees will work on their portions of the bill on May 11. The House Armed Services Committee's panels also will start work on their versions of the bill. However, the HASC procurement and research and development panels will wait at least another week before they start to mark up.
MCI WORLDCOM, citing communications demands of multinational businesses and government agencies, said it has enhanced its digital satellite services to Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Baltic states, the Middle East and Europe. MCI WorldCom said it already offers a family of end-to-end services and traditional correspondent-based private line satellite services to Europe via global and regional satellite systems.
A dispute over financial controls that resulted in Orbital Sciences Corp. firing its auditor has led NASA's top procurement officer to urge agency officials to proceed with caution in any new business dealings with the Dulles, Va.-based aerospace company.
Bell Helicopter Textron is taking its HV-15 tiltrotor aircraft to Key West, Fla., this week for a U.S. Coast Guard shipboard demonstration. Bell is teamed with Lockheed Martin on the USCG Deepwater Program, and is pitching the newer iteration HV-609 tiltrotor as a replacement for the Coast Guard's current fleet of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.
FAA Administrator Jane Garvey and National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall said they will co-sponsor a committee to examine how new flight data technology can help maintain the current level of safety into the crowded skies of the future.
A U.S. Air Force investigation into the cause of last month's failure of a Titan IVB/Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) vehicle to put a Defense Support Program (DSP) early warning satellite in the proper orbit has traced the problem to an apparent incomplete separation of the IUS first and second stages.
The first operational Bell/Boeing MV-22 Osprey will roll off the production line at Arlington, Tex., on Friday. On May 24, Marine pilots will fly Aircraft No. 11 from Texas to NAS Patuxent River, Md., where it will await delivery of Nos. 12, 13, and 14. The four tiltrotor aircraft will be used for operational testing beginning this October.
TEST FIRING of the new Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) M270A1 launcher was conducted May 3 by the U.S. Army at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., Lockheed Martin reported. The launcher successfully fired an Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) Block I missile, the company said.
German controllers hope they can save the Abrixas x-ray telescope from the power failure that claimed it shortly after launch last month, but they'll have to wait until June to do so. That's when the sun's rays will strike the satellite's solar arrays long enough that enough electricity may be generated to reestablish contact with the ground.
The U.S. Army's Space and Missile Defense Command sees its program to base lightweight phased-array radars on aerostats as a low-cost way to take full advantage of its defensive weapons at a cost roughly one-tenth that of aircraft-based radars.
COMING ATTRACTIONS: NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin says he has taken on the role of systems engineer in the agency's new push for advanced space transportation technology, and will outline his ideas in some detail during a series of speeches over the coming months. After introducing the program at an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics appearance last week (DAILY, May 4), Goldin will elaborate his views on technology, policy and cost in upcoming appearances.
Russia's Perm Motors and Pratt&Whitney are working together to build an upgraded PS-90A2 jet engine intended for long- and medium-range Russian airliners as well as Il-76 cargo aircraft. The engine is an upgrade of the PS-90A engine developed by Perm-based Aviadvigatel in the 1980s. The old engine has prompted complaints by its Russian operators for low reliability and short operational lifetime. The most recent versions of the PS-90A log no more than 4,300 hours between major repairs.
Improved standards of military equipment co-operation are being sought from a Memorandum of Understanding signed earlier this week by John Spellar, the U.K. under secretary of state for defense, and his Czech opposite number, Deputy Defense Minister Jindrich Tomas, in Brno. The MOU is intended to encourage the exchange of ideas and the establishment of joint projects between the U.K. and the Czech Republic in the development and procurement of defense equipment.
BFGoodrich reports that commitments from two private, Middle East-based operators to re-engine their Boeing 727-200s to Super 27 configuration bring contracts from private operators to 18 aircraft. The program involves installing new nacelles and new engines. So far 53 Super 27s, including 22 from Valsan, have been sold.
The Pentagon's "open and public" procurement system is too slow to develop and buy in a timely fashion the weapons needed to arm the U.S. and its allies against emerging threats, several decision makers said at a conference.
The General Accounting Office released a report concluding that U.S. efforts to reduce stockpiles of Russian nuclear and chemical weapons has doubled in cost without the expected results. The cost to the U.S. for funding the nuclear material storage facility at Mayak, Russia, already has increased from the original estimates of $275 million to $413 million, and ultimately may exceed $1 billion, GAO said. GAO looked at two specific facilities funded under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program - Mayak and Shchuch'ye.
Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications, TRW and Italy's Telespazio announced formation of Astrolink LLC, a $3.6 billion satellite venture to provide wireless, on-demand, broadband service for Internet and intranet users as well as for multimedia and corporate data transmissions. Astrolink, based in Bethesda, Md., will receive $900 million from its founding partners - $400 million from Lockheed Martin, and $250 million each from TRW and Telespazio, a company of the Telecom Italia Group - to begin construction of a constellation.
New York-based New Air ordered 25 firm International Aero Engines-powered Airbus A320 twins, and took options or "purchase rights" on 50 more, in an order for V2500 turbofans worth as much as $900 million to the IAE consortium, IAE reports. Deliveries are supposed to start next year. The firm portion of the deal alone is worth some $300 million to IAE. New Air is a temporary name for the new low-cost airline, which plans to run a range of domestic flights out of a John F. Kennedy Airport hub.
First Aviation Services is exploring the sale of its gas turbine repair and overhaul unit, National Airmotive Corp. NAC posted record sales and profits in its most recent quarter, and management is counting on profits of $10 million on about $110 million in sales for the current fiscal year.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) opposes portions of a bill on Intelsat privatization passed by the Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday and will not move it to the full Senate for a vote anytime soon, Capitol Hill and industry sources said yesterday. Some aerospace and telecommunications companies also have criticized the bill, saying it does not go far enough in meeting their concerns.
The U.S. Army is having difficulty supporting smaller units like battalions and brigades of 3,000 personnel because of problems with the service's logistics system, which is designed to support divisions and corps consisting of 11,900 to 50,000 soldiers, said Gen. John N. Abrams, commander of Training and Doctrine Command. "We right now do not have an alternative that is viable to replace divisions ... ," Abrams said, citing "... an issue of ground logistics, intelligence and fire support."
