The Netherlands would get Javelin anti-tank missiles under a $360 million deal announced last week by the Pentagon. The deal, which must be approved by Congress, calls for 242 command launch units, 3,190 missile rounds and 60 lot acceptance missiles. Simulators, support hardware and personnel services will be included. The sale, according to the Pentagon, will improve the military capabilities of the Netherlands, a NATO ally. It said the Javelins will increase interoperability of the country's armed forces and U.S. forces.
Pratt&Whitney will buy 119 Delta Airlines 727-200s over the next six years as they are retired, with the aim of converting them to freighters. Pratt will work with Republic Financial Corp. of Denver to market the planes after conversion. The deal also includes up to 39 spare JT8D engines.
Moody's Investors Service confirmed the long- and short-term debt ratings of Eaton Corp. following a change in the financing plan for Eaton's $1.7 billion acquisition of Aeroquip-Vickers Inc. At the same time, the debt ratings of Aeroquip-Vickers remain under review for possible upgrade pending the final legal structure of Aeroquip's debt in Eaton's organization, Moody's said.
Top-level Russian outrage at the U.S.-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia hasn't had a big effect on the day-to-day operations of the Space Station program. Mission Control Center-Moscow continues to work with Mission Control Center-Houston to keep the Station flying, and there has been no change in plans for a joint program review in Moscow April 8-12, with a general designers review on April 9. A few NASA employees in Moscow have been advised to avoid their offices in the U.S.
Stock price under-performance could increase the pressure on managements of large companies to re-examine portfolios amassed through consolidation, says Merrill Lynch aerospace analyst Byron Callan. "The notion that the large diversified electronics/systems integration companies would do better than other defense businesses has been overturned by the stock performance of the sector in 1998, and so far, in 1999," he tells investors. Big companies were supposed to have depth and diversity to sustain low risk rates of growth, but instead expectations have been lowered.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) says he will work in conference to get the final version a national missile defense (NMD) bill as close to the House version as possible, but adds that it's difficult to predict how it will end up. The House passed a bill making it U.S. policy to deploy an NMD system. The Senate version calls for deployment of a system "as soon as technologically possible." Weldon worries that an amendment added to the Senate bill also making it U.S. policy to seek continued arms reduction talks with Russia could be detrimental.
NASA's top officials plan to review the civilian U.S. space agency's policies and procedures for controlling technology exports and foreign visitors as part of a regular meeting next month. An "export control team" has been set up at agency headquarters to review how well managers across the agency are doing in the wake of reports that a government scientist leaked sensitive nuclear weapons information to China.
Today the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile is scheduled to make its sixth try at hitting a target. The missile failed in all five of its previous attempts, the last of which was May 12. The pressure is on the Lockheed Martin team to perform. If the missile's poor track record doesn't improve by the end of the year, the Pentagon is expected to make the Navy's Upper Tier theater missile defense system its premier upper tier TMD program. Pentagon leaders are slated to brief the press on the THAAD test this afternoon if it goes.
The U.S. Coast Guard plans to extend the first phase of the Deepwater project to include concept and functional design, said Lt. Cdr. Gary Bracken, a Coast Guard spokesman. Coast Guard representatives are negotiating contract modifications with the three industry teams led by Avondale, Lockheed Martin and SAIC, Bracken confirmed.
GARY L. SMITH, director of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, has been named deputy director for science and technology of the Central Intelligence Agency.
South Africa's Avitronics has won a contract from Sweden's Ericsson Saab Avionics AB for electronic subsystems for the Saab-British Aerospace Gripen fighter. Avitronics, a member of the Grintek Group and a specialist in electronic warfare equipment, said it will develop and manufacture a power unit for the Gripen's display system supplied by Ericsson Saab Avionics. Under the first phase of the contract, worth $1 million, Avitronics will develop and produce units for the next 64 Gripens on order for the Swedish Air Force.
The forward fuselage for Boeing's X-32A Joint Strike Fighter demonstrator was rolled out at the Phantom Works in St. Louis on Friday. It is being shipped to Palmdale, Calif., where final assembly of the aircraft is scheduled to begin in mid-April. Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, has completed "about 60%" of its X-35 demonstrator, a company spokesman said.
Trimble's plan to discontinue its line of Global Positioning System products for general aviation, announced this week, was sparked by lack of a marketing and distribution network, said Bradford Parkinson, president and CEO emeritus of the Sunnyvale, Calif., company.
Thiokol Propulsion has static tested another Stage 1 qualification motor for the Minuteman Propulsion Replacement Program (PRP), and initial results indicated the motor "met all ballistic and performance test requirements."
Two B-2 bombers participating in the NATO strikes on Yugoslavia "performed perfectly and the crews performed even better," said Brig. Gen. Leroy Barnidge Jr., commander of the 509th Bomb Wing. "If I had to guess" on the accuracy of the B-2's bombing runs, he said, "based on historical perspectives, we measure miss distances with a yard stick." Barnidge was addressing reporters Thursday on the flight line at Whiteman AFB, Mo., after the jets returned safely to the base from a round-trip, non-stop mission.
Northrop Grumman said financial agreements have been completed through the Export-Import Bank for an air traffic management system for the former Soviet republic of Georgia. This is the first loan guarantee granted by the bank based on commitment of incremental revenues by air traffic overflight fees, the company said. The turnkey project also will include emergency power equipment, spare parts, training and documentation.
The FAA has completed testing to make sure that software in its Leased Interfacility NAS Communications System (LINCS), which provides controllers much of the information they need to separate aircraft, will recognize the year 2000. The system connects mission critical radar, radio, computer and weather-reporting sites to air traffic control facilities, and FAA said over 5,000 of its components were upgraded to make it Y2K ready, including 3,750 monitoring systems and 800 network switching systems.
Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense announced plans to spend up to $9 billion in a ten-year plan to develop a low-altitude missile defense system to protect against missiles fired by mainland China. The announcement, in a report delivered by the MND to Taiwan's Legislature, said the system, encompassing radar warning, command centers and missile launch bases, will provide some degree of protection to 70% of Taiwan's land area.
Boeing Co. named several officials to new financial positions to increase focus on business planning, said Debby Hopkins, chief financial officer. Robert Stone, formerly assistant treasurer, was named to the new position of VP-financial planning and analysis. Laurette Koellner, formerly VP-general auditor, was designed VP and corporate controller. Gale Andrews, director of internal audit at Boeing Commercial, will succeed Koellner.
The European Union Transport Ministers could decide at a meeting here Monday to postpone the phaseout of hushkitted aircraft in the EU, the spokeswoman for EU Transport commissioner Neil Kinnock said Friday. She said the EU "member states are a bit wobbly on the issue." U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater is touring Europe in an attempt to convince individual Transport Ministers to curb the ban.
NASA's latest schedule for Space Shuttle launches this year anticipates a November launch of Russia's Service Module to the International Space Station, instead of the September date the Russians have said they can meet. Once the Service Module is attached to the Station, NASA wants to send the Shuttle Atlantis aloft within a few weeks to check out and outfit the facility. The mission for that job - STS-101 - is now targeted for a Dec. 2 launch. An accelerated mission to replace the gyros on the Hubble Space Telescope - STS-103 - is targeted for Oct.
Controllers at the Moscow and Houston mission control centers have started preparations for the next Shuttle visit to the orbiting Space Station May 20, readying a series of tests of the vehicle's power system that will help them plan the best way to heat the U.S.-built Unity module before the astronauts get there. An antenna for the U.S. communications system installed on that last Shuttle mission to Station is back in operation, but at diminished capacity because of an as-yet-undetermined problem (DAILY, March 22).
Boeing expects to fly the second RAH-66 Comanche helicopter by March 31, a company spokesperson says. The engines were spun to 100% on Thursday, and track and balance of the rotor blades were checked in preparation for the first flight. Five flights hours are scheduled to be logged in a month before the helicopter is grounded to await mission equipment in 2001.
Researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center have generated oxygen from a simulated Martian atmosphere to demonstrate hardware that will be field-tested on the surface of the Red Planet early in the coming century. The chemical process run for the first time Wednesday night at JSC could be the first step toward in situ resource utilization on Mars, where robotic chemical plants would produce propellants and breathing oxygen for human explorers.
