In a bid to improve revenue growth, ImageSat International plans to increase its commercial imaging satellite constellation and target a new customer niche it hasn't focused on so far. The backbone of ImageSat's business is the Earth Remote Observation System (Eros) A1 satellite with a panchromatic camera launched in December 2000. The contract for the next, more capable satellite, Eros B-1, has already been signed. That spacecraft is to be delivered late next year and launched in early 2004--a few months later than first planned.
Thomas J. Haulik, business manager of Cytec Carbon Fibers, Alpharetta, Ga., has been elected international president of the Covina, Calif.-based Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering. He succeeds Boeing retiree Allen Penton. Other new officers include: executive vice president, Clark Johnson, project manager for Boeing Satellite Systems; senior vice president, Anthony Falcone, lead materials engineer for Boeing; vice president, Tia Benson Tolle, technology development engineer for the U.S.
In pursuit of a longtime goal--foreign cash--China said last week it will relax rules on foreign investment in its airlines and airports. The new rules have long been under discussion and were hinted at in June. They are expected to be implemented Aug. 1, subject to approval by the State Council, China's cabinet. Caps on the level of foreign investment were implied rather than stated in the announcement last week by the official China News Service.
Japan's Multi-functional Transport Satellite (MTSAT-1R), scheduled for launch next year to geosynchronous orbit, constitutes Japan's first attempt at combining independent payloads for more efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The Space Systems/Loral-built satellite, a replacement for one lost in 1999 in an H-II launcher failure, has aeronautical and meteorological missions.
The Shuttle Training Aircraft's Advanced Digital Avionics System (ADAS), which converts the Gulfstream II into an orbiter from a lift/drag and handling qualities standpoint, is being given a 10-fold increase in computer capability. The upgrades will enable critical STA training to better keep pace with shuttle flight software changes and the new glass cockpit displays in the orbiters and STA. The ADAS employs a model-following technique with mathematical equations that duplicate the orbiter's aerodynamic and flight control qualities.
The U.S. Transportation Dept. has awarded grants totaling $20 million to 40 communities in 38 states to help fund pilot programs to improve air service to small communities. States and localities added $14.8 million. Programs include stimulating initial and competitive service, increasing aircraft sizes and frequencies, and reducing fares. In a $500,000 grant, Casper and Gillette, Wyo., will buy an aircraft and lease it back to Big Sky Airlines for service to Billings, Mont. The Transportation Dept.
In a blow to Raytheon's credibility, the company for the third time this year has raised its estimate of how much it will cost to complete two power plant projects abandoned by Washington Group International Inc. (WGI) in 2001. The figure rose by another $400-450 million last week, bringing the total cost of completion to $1.21-1.26 billion. The increase will be taken as a charge against second-quarter earnings. Investors were aghast at the news, dumping large blocks of shares on July 1. The stock sank 3.60, or nearly 9%.
Kenneth E. Wilson has been appointed vice president-Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Targeting Networked Systems for the Baltimore-based Northrop Grumman Corp. Electronic Systems Sector.
European airlines hope to create a mutual insurance plan to restore affordable premiums. The plan, which would be temporarily supported by governments, is being discussed by airline executives, trade associations and the European Commission (EC). In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, aviation liability premiums covering third-party damages soared to unprecedented levels, further exacerbating the industry's dire financial straits.
Francois Lureau has been named executive vice president/chief operating officer of France-based Thales' defense businesses. He was CEO of the group's aerospace units. Jean-Paul Perrier has been appointed executive vice president/chief marketing officer of Thales International. He was senior vice president- group marketing and sales.
Northrop Grumman Corp.'s acquisition of TRW Inc. will profoundly alter the aerospace/defense industry's competitive landscape, assuming the proposed $13.3-billion transaction is approved by U.S. and European regulators. The combined company will become the U.S.' second largest defense contractor, with 2003 revenues of $26-27 billion. In addition, it will have the financial and technological clout to compete head-on with Boeing Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. in missile defense and other classified space systems, as well as for large system integration projects.
One would have thought life would have become simpler for airlines after the government took over airport security. Not so. Instead of simply requiring the airlines to pay Uncle Sam the aggregate amount of what they spent for private security in 2000, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) ordered them to produce complicated cost breakdowns last May that carriers say required them to make many subjective assumptions. The trouble didn't end there, however; the law also requires airlines to produce by Aug. 1 an independent audit of security expenses.
Thales and EADS/BAE/Finmeccanica affiliate MBDA have agreed to expand seeker collaboration for the Mica medium-range air-air missile and Aster surface-air weapon system to cover the Meteor beyond-visual-range air-air missile, as well as future modifications and derivatives. The two companies, which together will produce seekers for more than 6,000 missiles, have tried without success to combine their missile activities.
Industry officials are touting NATO's Prague Summit capability ``transformation'' agenda as a key opportunity to make progress finally on a long-standing, if unfunded, requirement for an alliance equivalent of the U.S. E-8C Joint-STARS airborne surveillance platform. When NATO heads of state meet in Prague in November, they will unveil a follow-on to the 1999 Defense Capabilities Initiative (DCI).
THE DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY chose four contractors for a 12-month concept study to develop requirements for a new generation of economically viable, scalable, high productivity computing systems (HPCS) for national security and industrial users. The goal is to field the revolutionary computers by 2007-10. At stake is the U.S. lead in supercomputing, which slipped a notch in April when a Japanese weather supercomputer became the world's fastest computer.
An experiment-carrying microsatellite launched by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1994 has reentered the atmosphere. Darpasat was designed as a one-year demonstration of advanced technologies, but had a three-year lifetime goal. Built by Ball Aerospace, the 128-kg. (282-lb.), spin-stabilized microsatellite wound up working for eight years, thanks to careful management of battery life and thermal loads. It carried two government-provided payloads--one undisclosed and one a GPS receiver--and met or exceeded all operational performance objectives.
The U.S. government is attempting to demonstrate its willingness to make a substantial contribution to global warming and other key environmental issues, including the funding of new space-, air- and surface-based hardware, despite its failure to endorse the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Europe and Japan recently ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and Europe in particular is attempting to take advantage of perceived U.S. foot-dragging in environmental matters to seize the initiative in this increasingly sensitive domain (AW&ST June 18, 2001, p. 88). A U.S.
The four Eurofighter partner nations received a welcome fillip last week when Austria selected the Typhoon to replace its obsolete Saab J35D Draken fighter aircraft. The Austrian selection, for 18-24 aircraft, marks the Typhoon's second success in the export arena. Greece selected the Eurofighter last year. However, some industrialists believe the competition in Greece will be reopened in 2004. If contract negotiations are successful, they will mark the first contracted export sale for the Typhoon, after a string of disappointments, most recently in Australia.
Joseph H. Rothenberg, a former NASA associate administrator, has been named to the board of directors of Universal Space Network Inc., Newport Beach, Calif.
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin decided that the bulk of SNPE's Toulouse chemical plant, which sustained severe damage in an accident last September, will be permanently closed. Local officials will meet on July 11 to recommend whether to exempt the section of the facility devoted to launcher and missile propellant from the decision. Regardless, the closure will have a severe effect on SNPE, which generates nearly 20% of its revenues in Toulouse, and probably require an additional capital boost for the state-owned company.
Realizing that one hurdle to the use of product design software is the amount of training required, PTC has simplified the operation of its Pro/Engineer program, calling the new version Pro/Engineer Wildfire. It doesn't lose any power, but becomes easier to use via extensive graphical previews, drag handles for intuitive geometry changes, simpler view manipulation controls, substituting a ``dashboard'' for dialog boxes, and other changes.
President Bush won a commitment to accelerate multilateral transport security at last week's summit in Canada of the G-8, the world's wealthiest nations plus Russia. A follow-on to a prior G-8 accord to freeze terrorists' financial assets, the new coordination plan calls for bolstering airport and seaport security, reinforcing passenger and cargo screening, ensuring more secure traveler identification documents and sharing of access to departure and travel lounges.
The performances of Aviation Week's Aerospace 25 and Airline 25 stock market indexes last week had to be jarring for anyone with an equity stake in either sector. Both lost ground, as did the Standard & Poor's 500 (see opposite page). Readers of this column can take some consolation, however, in knowing that the rout in aerospace/defense shares probably had less to do with fundamental weaknesses in any of the principal players or the sector as a whole than it did with other circumstances.
David Van Buren has become president/chief operating officer of CPU Technology Inc., Pleasanton, Calif. He was president of RF Components, Raytheon's microelectronics unit, and president/CEO of Tecstar Inc.
