Contractor personnel have laid the foundation for the Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., where Lockheed Martin Astronautics will prepare its new Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) for launch. Some 167 concrete trucks organized by general contractor Hensel Phelps of Greeley, Colo., poured about 1,500 cubic yards of concrete over 392,000 pounds of steel reinforcement bars on March 27 for the foundation, which will support a structure that will tower some 280 feet high when it is completed late next year.
The Russian government, under fire from abroad over high-tech exports to Iran and elsewhere, wants to strengthen the criminal penalties for illegal exports of all types.
Lockheed Martin Government Electronic Systems' Launching Systems operation, Middle River, Md., signed a direct commercial sale contract with Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) for licensed production and test of MK 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS), Lockheed Martin reported yesterday. The Phase I contract is valued at about $70 million and includes production of eight eight-cell modules, facilities, manufacturing data, assembly training and test equipment.
Two GE units and San Francisco-based lease finance firm Curtis&Co. this week agreed to form a wide-ranging engine lease joint venture called Curtis Power Co., building on Curtis's existing portfolio and GE's deep pockets.
Michael Hawes, NASA's chief engineer on the International Space Station program, will replace Gretchen McClain as the top Station official at NASA headquarters, the U.S. space agency announced yesterday. McClain, the deputy associate administrator for space development (Space Station) since 1997, is leaving the agency for the private sector (DAILY, April 8). Hawes, a 21-year NASA veteran who was senior engineer in the old Space Station Freedom office in Reston, Va., will assume her duties in an acting role, NASA said.
A safety board investigating the March 29 crash of the No. 2 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle held its first meeting yesterday and is expected to report its findings in a few weeks. The UAV was performing a check flight for participation in Operation Green Flag last week when it departed controlled flight and crashed on the China Lake, Calif., test range. It had been scheduled to provide reconnaissance and surveillance imagery for the military exercise and another training event this week.
An international symposium on transportation recorders, including expanded use of the data they collect, is scheduled May 3-5 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va., by the National Transportation Safety Board and the International Transportation Safety Association. NTSB Chairman Jim Hall said the symposium will bring together for the first time professionals from all transportation modes to share information and experiences in investigating accidents and in improving safety and efficiency.
Russia hopes that despite its souring relations with NATO, Greece could choose its Sukhoi Su-30MK fighters to reequip the Greek Air Force. Greece invited Sukhoi to participate in a competition to supply 60 fighters first tendered last year, but the company could not submit paperwork because of the opposition of the former director of Russia's Rosvooruzhenie arms export concern, Yevgeni Ananiev, who supported Sukhoi's competitor MiG.
NATO air forces continued a heavy pace of strikes on Yugoslavia, conducting the second 400-sortie day in a row. "We are flying day and night missions," said Rear Adm. Thomas Wilson, director of intelligence for the Pentagon's Joint Staff. "They are large packages."
EUROPEAN COMMISSION approved Eaton Corp.'s acquisition of Aeroquip-Vickers Inc., the U.S. company said yesterday. On March 10, Eaton announced that the waiting period for U.S. government review of the acquisition had expired without a request for additional information. The boards of directors of both companies previously approved the transaction, and a meeting of Aeroquip-Vickers shareholders to vote on the merger will be held April 8 in Maumee, Ohio. The deal is expected to be completed shortly thereafter.
John Douglass, president and CEO of Aerospace Industries Association, was misquoted in the March 31 issue of Aerospace Daily. His statement should have read, "The aerospace industry can be proud of its trade record and continuing growth in the global market especially when our national trade deficit is at an all-time high."
A Hunter tactical unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down by ground fire over Kosovo yesterday, a U.S. defense official said. He said the UAV had been conducting reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition and bomb damage assessment when it was downed by ground fire.
Ericsson Saab Avionics won a contract from Sweden's Defense Materiel Administration to produce color displays for two squadrons of JA 37 Viggen fighters. The display is identical to a system used in the Gripen fighter and will be re-used in the Gripen when the JA 37 is phased out. First flight with a prototype of the new display took place March 9. Delivery will begin April 1, 2000, and take 11 months.
Orbital Imaging Corp. will modify the Eagle Vision II mobile satellite ground station to receive data from its planned OrbView-3 Earth imaging satellite under a $2.8 million contract from the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.
Northrop Grumman's Logicon has won a contract with a potential value of $118 million to provide analytical and technical support to the Pentagon's Joint Staff and Unified and Specified Commanders in Chief. Under the Joint Analytic Support Program (JASP), Logicon, of Herndon, Va., will provide a range of services in conducting joint war games, and developing and improving analytical models, techniques and procedures used in various studies and analyses, Northrop Grumman said.
Final assembly of the first Boeing Joint Strike Fighter concept demonstrator, the X-32A, began yesterday in Palmdale, Calif., two weeks ahead of schedule, the company said. The X-32A's forebody was joined to the mid-fuselage section. "Our assembly simulations modeled the joining of the forebody and the mid-fuselage a year and a half ago - just as it happened today," said Frank Statkus, vice president and JSF general manager. "There were no surprises."
Space Technology Development Corp., Alexandria, Va., has received a license from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce to operate the U.S. Navy's Naval EarthMap Observer (NEMO) satellite.
NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) is in processing at a NASA facility on Cape Canaveral Air Station for a Delta II launch next month, the U.S. space agency reported. The satellite, developed by the Johns Hopkins University in partnership with NASA, the French and Canadian space agencies, and the Universities of Colorado and California-Berkeley, is scheduled for launch on May 12 from Launch Complex 17 at CCAS. It arrived at the Cape on Monday.
A string of minor technical glitches Tuesday night thwarted Boeing's attempt to get its new Delta III space launch vehicle flying from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., and it will be "at least a week" before another attempt to launch Loral's Orion 3 telecommunications satellite can be scheduled.
Boeing is in discussions and expects to announce a buyer in the second quarter for its Boeing Information Services (BIS), a subsidiary that provides information and systems integration services to the federal government, the company reported yesterday. A Boeing spokeswoman said the potential sale is not related to a February announcement that Boeing would begin a review of all its programs and fix or jettison those it considered "value destroying" (DAILY, Feb. 25).
Aircraft from the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt entered combat over Yugoslavia Tuesday for the first time in the heaviest attacks on Serb targets to date with more than 400 sorties being flown by NATO aircraft. F/A-18s and F-14s from the Roosevelt, steaming in the Adriatic Sea, joined U.S. Air Force A-10s and Harriers from the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and British forces in attacks on Serbian military convoys that included tanks and armored vehicles.
All of the advanced technologies in flight test aboard NASA's Deep Space 1 probe are working well as the spacecraft hurtles on a beam of ions toward an asteroid rendezvous this summer, and are likely to make encore appearances in space as scientists begin using them for more ambitious exploration of the outer planets and of smaller objects nearer Earth that could hold clues to the evolution of the solar system.
Boeing is working under a $1.2 million U.S. Army contract to explore teaming capabilities of helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles. Boeing said the concept would allow helicopter pilots to get information from a UAV to locate, identify and target an enemy, and share the information in real time with friendly forces. The program, called Airborne Manned/Unmanned System Technology Demonstration (AMUST-D), or "AMUST-Baseline," will team an AH-64D Apaches Longbow helicopter with a Hunter UAV.
