The Boeing-led Sea Launch venture is moving ahead with plans for a demonstration shot of its Ukrainian Zenit booster with a simulated payload this month, despite a U.S. federal grand jury probe into possible criminal export control violations by Boeing in connection with the multinational project.
The Pentagon is projecting billions of dollars in savings thanks to the Defense Reform Initiative (DRI), and the money is being included in its budget plans, Defense Secretary William Cohen said Monday. More than $30 billion has already been saved through public/private competition for jobs and base closures, Cohen said at a Pentagon press conference. Two more rounds of the base closures will free up an additional $20 billion for other priorities. Four rounds of closures are projected to have saved $14.5 billion a year by 2001.
The credit quality of the global aerospace/defense industry should hold at its current level for the foreseeable future, Moody's Investors Service reported yesterday in its annual industry outlook.
Senior Senate Republican budget leaders yesterday punched holes in the Clinton Administration's $112 billion plus-up in the defense budget over six years (2000-2005), and warned that the Senate Budget Committee may have to impose its own priorities. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) noted that the budget projects six years of savings from lower inflation, including lower fuel costs, and favorable foreign currency fluctuations, and said, "I don't know if I want to build a new budget on these kind of fluctuating things."
CASA, the Spanish aerospace manufacturer, will be privatized in coming months, according to Pedro Ferreras, the chairman of Sociedad Espanola de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI), the State holding company which controls the company. Ferreras, in an interview published Monday by the Spanish business daily Expansion, said Spanish authorities are examining offers by British Aerospace, Aerospatiale of France, DASA of Germany and Italy's Alenia. "We hope we will reach a decision before June," he said.
The U.S. Air Force disclosed that it is restructuring the Airborne Laser program to reflect a 10 to 12-month delay because of cuts by Congress and the need to reduce risk. The disclosure was made Feb. 24 in Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael E. Ryan's prepared testimony to the House Armed Services Committee. "The ABL program," he said, "is being restructured to reflect a 10 to 12 month delay due to congressional actions that reduce funding and direct additional risk reduction tasks."
Lucas Aerospace will supply Boeing 747 conversion kits and cargo handling systems to Cargo Conversions LLC of San Francisco, a move it said will double its share of the aircraft conversion market and generate $250 million of additional sales over the next ten years.
The Senate Armed Services Committee may favor pay raises for uniformed personnel over purchasing all the big ticket items the U.S. military services want, according to statements made yesterday by committee members when the service secretaries testified before the panel. "Buy fewer pieces of heavy equipment for the Army..., one less ship, or a few less F-22s to divert the funds to meet the growing threat of weapons of mass destruction abroad and at home....I am prepared to lead that effort," said Sen. John Warner (R-Va.).
Continuity of Operations Plans, or COOPS, for coping with the Year 2000 problem are nearly finished at each U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command air base, which must turn in its final plan to ACC by early March, reports Teresa Salazar, chief of ACC's Y2K Program Management Office. The idea is to ensure mission continuity even in the face of the unexpected, she says, noting that tests later this year will involve the entire base infrastructure: communications, flightline, command post activities and other base services.
PROTOTYPE OF THE CONCORDE SST made its first flight 30 years ago yesterday, taking off from Aerospatiale's airfield at Toulouse. Concorde airliners, each powered by four Rolls-Royce-Snecma Olympus 593 engines, have since logged more than 900,000 flying hours, two thirds of them above Mach 1. These 600,000 supersonic hours exceed those of the total fighter fleet in the Western world. The record for a trans-Atlantic crossing stands at two hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds, at an average speed of around 1,300 mph.
The Dept. of Defense "is at considerable risk of being unable to meet the Year 2000 deadline," according to a Senate report on the computer problem released yesterday.
A Proton rocket sent a Russian military communications satellite toward geostationary orbit Sunday in a launch reportedly delayed because of financial constraints. Flying from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Proton put a Raduga-1 communications satellite into geostationary transfer orbit, according to Russian press accounts that noted the launch had been scheduled for Jan. 28. The satellite will join four other operational Radugas, according to the Itar-Tass news agency.
Russia is ready to make its Glonass satellite system the backbone of an international Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). In a move to attract foreign investments, the Russian government will re-qualify Glonass - the Russian analog of the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) - from purely military status to a "dual use system," and split responsibility between the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Space Agency.
February 23, 1999 Analytic Services, Inc., Arlington, Va., is being awarded a $56,812,455 face value increase to a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to provide for analytical and technical services through December 2000 in support of the development and acquisition of military systems. Expected contract completion date is Dec. 31, 2000. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Bolling AFB, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (F49620-91-C-0031-P00044).
TOMAHAWK II INC., San Diego, has received a new order from Intergraph Corp. for document conversion services for the U.S. Dept. of Defense. The order, worth about $649,000, is for conversion of mechanical drawings to an electronic format for the Army's Tank Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM).
For the second time in three weeks, British and U.S. pilots operating over Iraq have received greater authority to attack Iraqi forces who threaten them, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen told reporters yesterday. Cohen said the coalition pilots "have been given greater flexibility to attack those system which place them in jeopardy," Cohen said, noting that it was the second time in three weeks that the pilots have been given more leniency in selecting targets in the Iraqi no-fly zone.
The European Union will postpone its decision on banning hushkitted aircraft, which had been scheduled to be formalized on March 9. "We have interest in defusing the tension with the United States," the spokeswoman for EU Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock said yesterday. The U.S. has opposed EU plans to forbid the addition of hushkitted aircraft to EU carriers' fleets starting on April 1.
YEAR 2000 WORK underway at the Pentagon is nearing 93% completion, Deputy Defense Secretary John J. Hamre said at a Pentagon press conference yesterday. He said the Defense Dept. finished all repair and testing by October. Hamre also predicted a "B" grade on the quarterly report due out today from Congressman Steve Horn (R-Calif.).
Lockheed Martin faces possible strikes at two of its plants after union members rejected contracts over the weekend, a Lockheed Martin spokeswoman said yesterday. Company officials have been negotiating contracts with three locals of the Independent Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Workers at Aeronautical Systems in Marietta, Ga., and Skunk Works in Palmdale, Calif., rejected proposals, while workers at Missiles&Space in Sunnyvale, Calif., accepted their contract.
February 25, 1999: Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services, Inc., Littleton, Colo., is being awarded a $70,700,000 face value increase to a firm-fixed-price contract to provide for one Atlas IIIB commercial space launch vehicle and associated launch services. Expected contract completion date is May 2002. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles AFB, Calif., is the contracting activity (F04701-96-C-0002-P00026).
NASA yesterday formally renamed its Lewis Research Center in Cleveland for retired Sen. John Glenn, the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the earth who returned to space last year as the oldest man to fly in space. Administrator Daniel S. Goldin announced the name change, which was proposed in the agency's fiscal 1999 appropriations bill by Sen. Mike Dewine (R-Ohio) and had already been adopted informally. As one of the seven original Mercury astronauts, Glenn trained for space on a multiple axis "gimbal rig" at Lewis.
