LOCKHEED MARTIN said it will cut its workforce at Marietta, Ga., by 280 jobs, or 3%, from the current level of 9,300 over the next month. It cited slow sales of the C-130J airlifter and high costs.
BRITTEN-NORMAN GROUP of the U.K. will purchase Romania's Romaero S.A., an aircraft manufacturing and repair facility near Bucharest. Britten-Norman said the move will allow it to expand well beyond production of its Islander and Defender aircraft. Romaero employs 1,250 people on a 74-acre site at Baneasa Airport. Britten-Norman said it has designed, built and repaired a range of aircraft for 75 years, and that it holds a variety of contracts with OEM companies around the world.
Vice President Gore announced a $400 million "new initiative" to "modernize" the Global Position System, including the addition of two new civil signals to new-generation GPS satellites scheduled for launch in 2003 and 2005.
While there has been progress in modernizing the U.S. military's C4ISR capability, much needs to be done to take advantage of rapidly advancing technology to achieve broad interoperability, representatives of the Dept. of Defense, the Joint Staff and the Navy agreed at a conference here.
U.S. Army leaders have applied the plus-up their service received in the fiscal 2000 Clinton Administration budget request to such readiness accounts as training and troop quality-of-life, adding about $452 million to procurement from the fiscal 1999 level of $9.287 billion. The service's $67.2 billion topline marks the first growth in real terms since 1985, and readiness drew top priority on the extra money.
The Pentagon's fiscal year 2000 request for procurement programs, included in the overall $280.8 billion request, falls short of the $54 billion goal defense officials had been shooting for, although the Dept. of Defense is still on track to reach the $60 billion procurement goal set for 2001. The overall defense request being sent to Congress today includes $267.2 billion for the Pentagon and $13.6 billion for non-DOD defense spending. It includes a total of $87.4 billion for total modernization.
A last-minute problem with the engine startup sequence on its Delta II launch vehicle yesterday forced another delay in the U.S. Air Force ARGOS science and engineering mission, already delayed almost two weeks by weather over Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The Boeing launch vehicle shut itself down automatically just before engine ignition at the T-minus-2-second mark when it detected a fault in the engine self-initiating sequence, according to a Boeing spokesperson. Launch had been set for 5:44 a.m. EST.
Hunkering down for the aerospace industry slowdown, Titanium Metals Corp. hopes a series of long-term supply deals with aerospace heavyweights - including two unveiled Monday with Pratt&Whitney and Rolls-Royce - will help put a profitable floor under its balance sheet for 1999.
Lockheed Martin management cited delays in C-130J airlifter deliveries and in commercial satellite launches, along with "disappointing" performance by its Space&Strategic Missiles unit, as causes for fourth-quarter 1998 results that failed to meet Wall Street's expectations for growth at the aerospace giant. Net earnings reported yesterday for the quarter were $125 million, off 66% from $371 million in fourth-quarter 1997. For the year, net earnings were $1.001 billion, a 23% decline from the $1.3 billion posted in 1997.
PHILIP J. DUKE was named vice president and chief financial officer of Lockheed Martin Corp., effective Feb. 1. Duke, 53, is now VP-finance. He is slated to succeed Marcus C. Bennett, who is retiring.
Rolls-Royce engineering managers at the Indianapolis facilities hope to have a handle on a permanent fix for oil leaks on AE 3007 turbofans within days, following three inflight shutdowns in a week during extremely cold weather in early January. In addition, testing is under way to extend inspection intervals for one of the temporary measures - installation of an oil vent line cap - beyond the initial seven day limit.
The U.S. cannot launch a campaign to take out Iraqi airfields with the assets currently available in the Persian Gulf, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday. Iraqi fighters, on an almost daily basis, are engaging in "cat and mouse" confrontations with U.S. and allied fighters in the U.N. imposed no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq. But the Iraqi planes quickly retreat to areas with high concentrations of missile sites.
The Chinese Academy of Science has named space technology, and particularly small satellites, as a top area for government-backed research in the coming century, according to the official Chinese news agency Xinhua. Lu Yongziang, the Academy president, told members at its annual meeting in Beijing that priorities were picked "in accordance with national needs and international science trends."
NASA's Office of Space Science has picked five proposed missions for feasibility studies that could lead to their inclusion in the agency's medium-class Explorer (MIDEX) program of low-cost probes. Picked from among 35 proposals, each of the five will receive $350,000 for four-month implementation feasibility studies that focus on cost, management and technical issues. Of the five, two will be picked in September for development leading to launch in 2003 and 2004 as the third and fourth MIDEX missions.
The Senate Armed Services Committee marked up a bill to increase military pay and retirement benefits for members of the military. It calls for a 4.8% pay raise to become effective Jan. 1, 2000, and includes several initiatives to improve retention.
The Clinton Administration's proposed defense spending plan, due to arrive on Capitol Hill Monday, falls short of the military services' needs by at least $40.5 billion and contains misleading budget data, the Senate Republican Policy Committee reported. "Even on its face, the president's proposal falls far short of the recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff," a committee statement said.
U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command has tentative approval from the Department of the Army to conduct one, and possibly two, commercial satellite launches at Kwajalein Missile Range in the Pacific Ocean, SMDC officials reported. Kwajalein Missile Range, headquartered on Meck Island in the Pacific, can accommodate small boosters, including Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Taurus, which can loft payloads weighing 700 to 1,000 pounds, SMDC officials said in a prepared statement provided to The DAILY.
The DarkStar unmanned aerial vehicle program was cancelled this week because technology work under the effort was mostly done and because the larger but less expensive Global Hawk UAV could carry out most of its missions, officials said yesterday.
Launch of the Telstar 6 satellite, scheduled for Jan. 30 on a Proton rocket from the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan, has been delayed "for not more than 30 days" because of a computer problem in the fourth stage of the rocket, Loral Space and Communications said yesterday. Loral said Krunichev, maker of the Proton, told it that the computer will have to be replaced, and that this means removing the rocket from the pad and demating the fourth stage.
Surprising aerospace executives and Wall Streeters alike, parts-specialist Crane Co. this week moved to appeal a federal judge's ruling dismissing Crane's legal challenge to BFGoodrich's planned $1.3 billion acquisition of Coltec Industries. Both BFGoodrich and Coltec have substantial engine component businesses, although it's Coltec's position as the U.S.'s largest landing gear-maker that drew the attention of antitrust regulators and investment speculators.
The "ad hoc, sometimes chaotic nature of software acquisition capabilities" of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and its "continuing serious problems" in handling inventory place the agency's financial management program among 26 "high-risk" government programs, according to the General Accounting Office. The 26 programs have greater vulnerabilities to waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement, GAO said in a report, "Major Management Challenges and Program Risks" (OCG-99-1).
Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Air Force agreed yesterday to terms under which the Air Force will accept its first six C-130J aircraft. The AF said a contract change was negotiated last month to give the company another milestone payment and establish new contract delivery dates. In the last few weeks, it said, the two parties "agreed on all exceptions remaining for the government to accept the six aircraft."
SWALES AEROSPACE has delivered the Starboard 0 Heat Pipe Radiator System for the International Space Station to Boeing for integration into the Station's S0 truss segment near the center of the orbiting facility. The thermal control system, designed to cool Station electronics, consists of a five-by-21-foot heat pipe radiator panel, 14 transfer tube head pipes and nine heat pipe equipment plates. The radiator, with 53 embedded heat pipes in two tiers, is the largest ever fabricated, Swales said.
