DANIEL C. TAM, a former top official of NASA's International Space Station development effort who returned to TRW as director of planning and investments for the company's Space and Electronics Group, has been named assistant to Administrator Daniel S. Goldin for commercialization. NASA said yesterday Tam will be responsible for "aggressively seeking opportunities to increase commercialization of NASA infrastructure, operations and technology." He will be based at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
B/E Aerospace Inc., Wellington, Fla., completed the sale of a 51% interest in its In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) business to a subsidiary of Sextant Avionique S.A. for $62 million. The venture will be called Sextant In-Flight Systems LLC (SIFS).
Europe's Arianespace launch services consortium orbited satellites for the Arab League and the British Ministry of Defense Friday aboard an Ariane 44L vehicle. Liftoff of the most powerful version of the Ariane 4, with four liquid-fuel boosters, came at 5:44 p.m. EST from the Guiana Space Center near Kourou. It carried Arabsat 3A and Skynet 4E to their target orbits at third-stage separation, according to the consortium.
AlliedSignal's lawsuit against the proposed BFGoodrich-Coltec merger may not halt it, but should be enough to keep AlliedSignal's interests protected, industry analysts said. AlliedSignal filed the suit Friday in Indiana, claiming the merger would violate anti-trust laws and breach a contract between AlliedSignal and Coltec (DAILY, March 1). AlliedSignal and Coltec signed a ten-year agreement in 1995 to jointly market each others' products.
Cubic Defense Systems, San Diego, delivered the first 10 units of its initial production order of the Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS) to U.S. Naval Air Systems Command. The order calls for 36 units as part of a $1.5 million contract for GPWS units for H-53 and H-56 helicopters, Cubic said. The remaining 26 will be delivered within the next two months. Cubic said it has a negotiated option for 90 more units, and a potential follow-on for 400 additional units.
Air Transat of Montreal has taken delivery of the first of two A330-200s airliners, the first to enter service with Rolls-Royce Trent engines. The second is to be delivered this spring. Both are leased from International Lease Finance. The first is the 15th A330 to be delivered to ILFC, which has committed to 45, according to Airbus. The A330-200 is a longer range version of the A330. A six-month certification program for the A330-200 and the Trent 772B engines was completed in December.
U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen has ordered key aircraft to leave Europe where they were sent last week to support possible NATO air strikes against the Serbs in Kosovo. Five of the 10 EA-6B Prowlers sent to the theater are to return to NAS Whidbey Island, Wash. Once there they will resume their prepare-to-deploy posture. The reduction of U.S. air power in the region, which currently stands at 252 airplanes, will be minor, said Ken Bacon, the Pentagon's spokesman.
Remec Inc. of San Diego, which designs and makes multi-function modules for commercial and military wireless telecommunications market, will acquire Airtech plc of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, U.K., a supplier of coverage enhancement products for wireless mobile communications networks. The transaction, for about $32 million of Remec common stock, will be recommended to Airtech shareholders and will be accounted for as a pooling of interests, Remec said.
L-3 Communications signed an agreement to acquire Aydin Corp. for about $72.3 million, expanding its telemetry, instrumentation and communications business. The buy of Aydin, which makes advanced telemetry, communications and other electronics products and systems in Horsham, Pa., is one of a number of acquisitions L-3 has made since it spun away from Lockheed Martin in 1997.
Three competing consortia made final briefings yesterday to the House of Commons Defense Committee on the U.K. Ministry of Defense's $1.2 billion Airborne Stand-Off Radar (ASTOR) program. This marked the closing stages of the long-standing battlefield surveillance requirement, on which a decision is now expected within the next few weeks.
Loran C will be "operated at least until 2008," according to a paper presented by the FAA last week at a Navigation User Forum in Washington. The paper said that "recent concern about the high cost of acquiring geosynchronous satellites and vulnerabilities, particularly to interference with GPS signals, has led the FAA to reexamine available navigation alternatives."
A Russian cosmonaut who spent six months aboard Russia's Mir orbital station and a Slovak who spent less than a week there returned safely to Earth Sunday, leaving behind what is probably the final crew to serve on the 13-year-old spacecraft.
U.S. and British aircraft have expended more than 200 missiles and bombs while patrolling the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq since Operation Desert Fox in December. U.S. Central Command, responsible for patrols over the southern no-fly zone, reported Friday that coalition jets have expended slightly more than 100 weapons in 3,500 sorties since Desert Fox.
Aviation Sales Co. (AVS) Year 1997 Year 1998 Change Sales $322.5 $500.8 + 55 Operating income 25.0 61.4 + 146 Earnings 4.8 25.5 + 431 The increases reflected strong internal growth combined with the contribution from the acquisitions of Whitehall Corp. in July 1998 and Triad International Maintenance Corp. (Timco) in September 1998.
