NORTHROP GRUMMAN won a $23.6 million U.S. Navy contract for 90 more BQM-74E aerial targets. The Navy has an option to add more targets before April 1999.
LOGICON SYSCON, Herndon, Va., won a $12.1 million, two-year contract from the U.S. Navy for fleet introduction and logistics support services for Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) Class destroyers, Northrop Grumman reported. Fleet introduction work supports planning, training and commissioning of the ships, while logistics work includes the collection, analysis, presentation and dissemination of data used to manage the ships.
Northrop Grumman delivered the first of 20 upgraded EA-6B Prowlers to the U.S. Navy, the company reported yesterday. The aircraft was flown by a Navy crew from Northrop Grumman's facility in St. Augustine, Fla., to NAS Whidbey Island, Wash.
FAA has issued a final rule severely limiting the payloads on 727s that have been converted to cargo aircraft until the floor structure is reinforced or re-qualified to carry higher payloads.
Defense and aerospace companies around the world announced or completed merger and acquisition deals worth more than $38 billion in 1998, according to a new study. And, said the Manassas, Va.-based publication Defense Mergers&Acquisitions, the number of deals, 573, is more than double the number of any of the previous five years, mostly due to deals among smaller and mid-sized companies.
Russia yesterday rolled out its newest fighter, the MFI - an acronym for single-seat multi-role tactical aircraft - at the Zhukovsky flight test center. The MFI, made by MiG-MAPO and also known as Project 1.42, is a fifth-generation fighter equivalent to the Lockheed Martin F-22, and has been in development since 1984. The MFI has faced financing problems throughout its life, and only taxi tests have been conducted so far. First flight is expected late next month.
TRW and Ball Aerospace have joined forces in the competition to build NASA's planned Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), dropping their separate efforts under NGST architecture study contracts.
NASA hasn't given alternatives to the proposed Liquid Fly Back Booster (LFBB) enough attention as it ponders its next step in human spaceflight, and may be missing a more efficient way to upgrade the Space Shuttle fleet if it decides on that course instead of developing a new vehicle, an independent panel organized by the National Research Council has concluded.
NASA has not monitored its contractors' efforts to eliminate expected computer failures when the year 2000 dawns, and runs the risk of serious problems in its financial and program management, the agency's inspector general has found. In a report issued last month the NASA IG said the agency "lacks reasonable assurance that its production contractors will provide Y2K-compliant data to support the agency's key financial and program management activities.
A U.S. F-16CJ fighter fired a High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile at an Iraqi radar site after being illuminated by the radar in the northern "no-fly" zone early yesterday, a Pentagon spokesman told reporters. The incident took place at 11 a.m. local time (3 a.m. EST). The target was an early warning radar site that is part of a network integrated with a surface-to-air missile system, but the spokesman could not identify the type of SAM batteries being fed the information. There are more than 100 of these radar sites in the country, the spokesman said.
SPATIAL DISORIENTATION of the crew caused the Oct. 21, 1998, crash of an F-15E fighter northeast of McDermitt State Airport, Ore., the U.S. Air Force said. The two crewmen were killed. They were part of a two-ship formation in a Surface Attack Tactics Night training mission.
Rep. James T. Walsh (R-N.Y.) will be the new chair of the House Appropriations panel on VA, HUD and independent agencies, which funds the NASA budget. Walsh will replace Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), who is moving to head the Appropriations defense subcommittee. Like the decision to change the name of the House National Security Committee back to the House Armed Services Committee, the appropriations subcommittee on national security is now the subcommittee on defense.
Noise in the telemetry signal forced a 24-hour delay in tomorrow's planned launch of the Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite (ARGOS) for the U.S. Air Force atop a Boeing Delta II from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., Boeing said yesterday.
The White House is resisting declassification of portions of the Cox Committee Report that concludes national security was jeopardized when sensitive information was provided to China following failure of Chinese a rocket to launch a U.S. satellite, congressional sources say.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN WON a $23.6 million contract from the U.S. Navy for 90 more BQM-74E multi-role aerial targets and air launch kits, the company reported yesterday. The Navy also has an option to add more targets to the production lot before April. The order increases Northrop Grumman's backlog to 229 aerial targets, with deliveries on the latest order expected to begin in April 2000.
STEWART&STEVENSON SERVICES, which manufactures and distributes industrial and energy-related equipment, has acquired Tug Manufacturing Corp., a manufacturer of airline ground support equipment.
Logicon Inc. has won an information technology services contract with a potential value of $1 billion, Northrop Grumman said yesterday. The contract is from the General Service's Administration, and initially covers GSA's Pacific Rim region, which includes California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, Guam, the Pacific Trust Territories, American Samoa and U.S. installations in the Far East.
GKN Westland Aerospace Inc. completed its acquisition of the assets and business of Dow-United Technologies Composite Products Inc. for $62.5 million, GKN reported yesterday. Dow-UT was a 50-50 joint venture of The Dow Chemical Co. and United Technologies Corp, with 1997 revenues of $80.2 million. The company, renamed GKN Westland Aerospace Inc., has manufacturing plants in Tallassee and Montgomery, Ala., and Wallingford, Conn.
BOEING CO. said AH-64A Apache pilots and maintenance crews from the Royal Netherlands Air Force are ready to transition to the AH-64D Apache. The company said maintainers began classes this week at its Mesa, Ariz., facility, and that pilots are slated to start training Jan. 25. Over the next two years, 68 Dutch pilots and maintenance personnel will be trained at Mesa.
PEGASUS AVIATION said it is acquiring six aircraft from International Air Lease, including two MD-83s on lease to Allegro and Aeromexico, two hush-kitted 727-200 freighters on lease to Aeropostale, one 727-200 freighter on lease to Custom Air Transport and a 727-200 passenger aircraft for which a lease is being negotiated. Pegasus said the six aircraft will generate $27 million in lease contract revenue.
Boeing and Space Systems/Loral have completed a deal for the launch of 28 more Globalstar "Big LEO" low Earth orbit satellites on a total of seven Delta II rockets, six this year and one in 2000. Boeing said yesterday most of the flights will be from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., on a Delta II fitted with four solid-fuel boosters. However, two fourth-quarter '99 flights will go from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on Delta IIs with nine of the solid boosters.
