NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe drew a limp salute at best when he ran his long-awaited vision for the space agency up the Capitol Hill flagpole, making it more likely that Congress will rewrite the Bush Administration's NASA spending request for Fiscal 2003 to reflect its own priorities.
Moscow Boeing has agreed to set up an aircraft maintenance center with a Russian airline as talks get underway to roll back tariffs on Western-built aircraft. Russia's East Line, an airline holding company, concluded an agreement in principle with Boeing on Apr. 15 to jointly establish a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility at Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport. The facility, Russia Technique, will specialize in servicing the country's rapidly growing fleet of Western-made aircraft.
Jeff Young has been promoted to vice president-global solutions, sales and marketing from executive director of sales, global products and services at Space Imaging in Denver. Merry Ann Vernon has been appointed vice president/general counsel. She was assistant general counsel at the Gates Corp.
Solid profitability should be the order of the day for most defense contractors as they report their operating and financial performance for the quarter that ended Mar. 31. No shortfalls are foreseen, and upcoming program decisions are apt to bolster investor confidence. A long weapons-spending upswing is anticipated that will lift prospects for winners.
The Pentagon will boost the strength of the GPS signal 10 dB. as soon as it can to make it more difficult to jam the navigation and timing system. GPS satellites being built by Lockheed Martin and Boeing will be upgraded to transmit the stronger signal. The first satellite will be launched between June 2003 and March 2004, says John Stenbit, assistant secretary of Defense. The Pentagon is building 26 more GPS 2F and 2R satellites. At least 20 of those will have the stronger signal, he says.
Thales will attempt to apply modular construction techniques pioneered in offshore oil platforms and cruise liners to the U.K.'s future aircraft carrier program. The company proposes to divide each vessel into five self-contained ``superblocks'' and to offer each for tender among competing shipyards. Winning bidders would build the same section for both ships to save costs. The process, to be coordinated by Halliburton KBR, an offshore engineering specialist, will mark a considerable advance in the U.K. Ministry of Defense's Smart Acquisition Policy, Thales said.
Inmarsat is entering the race to provide inflight Internet services--e-mail, video streaming, file transfer, etc.--with Swift64. The London-based mobile satellite communications provider says the service will initially be targeted at business jets with ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network) speeds of 64 Kbps. Later this year it is to include a mobile packet data service based on an IP protocol. The services will be through Telenor Satellite Services of the U.S. and Norway with avionics from Honeywell/Thales.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China, which has been battling airlines that sell unauthorized discounted tickets for years, said that those who violate the rules risk having services suspended on some routes. The administration pushed 22 major domestic carriers into signing a no-discount policy covering some 113 key domestic routes during a recent conference in Changzha, according to International Aero Information, a Beijing-based affiliate of Aviation Week&Space Technology.
Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Co., a China Southern Airlines/ Lockheed Martin Aeronautics International partnership, reached agreement with Aviation Partners Boeing (APB) to cooperate on retrofits of winglets on Boeing aircraft at Gameco's overhaul center in southern China. Aviation Partners is to provide retrofit kits to Gameco. APB has obtained a supplemental type certificate to apply the technology on 737-700/800s and plans to extend it to other Boeing aircraft types.
BAE SYSTEMS' MANASSAS, VA., FACILITY reports it has developed ``the world's most complex radiation-hardened random access memory chip.'' The 4-MB chip contains 25 million transistors and 8 million resistors. The company's Space Systems&Electronics facility expects to develop hardened 8M and 16M chips during the next three years. The effort is sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Six U.S. F/A-18s arrived at Manas Air Base in Kyrghyzstan last week as the rebuilt facility continues to ramp up to support the Afghanistan anti-terrorist effort. A half-dozen French Mirage 2000D combat aircraft are already operating from Manas, along with four French and Australian tankers, five C-130 airlifters from four European countries and a pair of Spanish SAR helicopters. Norway and Italy are also planning to station combat aircraft at the base.
BAE SYSTEMS RECENTLY DELIVERED a prototype of an upgrade for the U-2's defensive electronic warfare capability, referred to as U-2/Block 30. It includes a high-speed signal processor to more quickly identify threat radars and a modular techniques-generator for use with fiber-optic towed decoys such as the ALE-55, which the company developed for the U.S. Navy's F/A-18E/F and is planned for use on USAF's B-1B and F-15E.
The Defense Dept. is pressing ahead with developing the Space-Based Infrared System-Low satellites, but endorsement of the program is noticeably tepid. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) plans to build two SBIRS-Low satellites that will serve as a testbed to determine whether the Pentagon needs an entire constellation of spacecraft with long-wave IR sensors and, if so, what technologies it should include. No deployment decision has been made, MDA officials insist. The incremental approach is part of the new SBIRS-Low strategy that combines two competing contractor teams.
EADS Aeroframe will perform letter checks on JetBlue Airways' fleet of Airbus A320s, under a five-year agreement. EADS also will provide heavy maintenance for Air Jamaica's fleet of Airbus aircraft.
In a continuing drive to make the H-IIA commercially attractive, Japan's science and technology ministry and National Space Development Agency want to reconfigure the vehicle's first stage in order to lift today's heaviest payloads into geostationary transfer orbits.
As the American Airlines Flight 587 probe enters its sixth month, investigators remain focused on upset events and the role of wake turbulence to yield major clues as to what caused the Nov. 21, 2001, crash. The Airbus A300-600's composite rudder and vertical stabilizer fell off the aircraft minutes after takeoff from New York JFK International Airport.
Britain has signed off on the A400M military airlifter Common Agreement, which covers German funding and penalty details. Contract go-ahead is anticipated by the end of the month.
NASA temporarily set aside a long-simmering internal dispute over replacing or upgrading the space shuttle in order to defend its long-term space transportation plans against congressional questioners last week.
EADS, Northrop Grumman and Galileo Avionica have submitted a joint proposal to NATO covering cooperative transatlantic development to meet its long-standing Alliance Ground Surveillance requirement. The proposal would draw on the U.S. Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program and the European Sostar-X radar technology demonstrator. Galileo Avionica is a new Finmeccanica company combining the former avionics and equipment divisions of Alenia Difesa.
Malaysia has picked European missile-maker MBDA to supply its Jernas short-range air defense system under a multi-million dollar deal. Key pieces of the air defense system will be designed and built in Malaysia, MBDA said.
Air Canada will launch another of its low-cost subsidiaries this summer in what President and CEO Robert Milton calls a continuing effort to reach multiple segments of the market with ``sub-brands.'' As yet unnamed (but rumored to be called ``Zip''), the new carrier will sell tickets over the Internet exclusively, offer no interlining and exist on a single-pricing policy. A basic premise is that all the passenger is buying is a seat--everything else (like refreshments) costs extra. The new carrier will start with Canada-only services but eventually add on U.S.
Carl O. Johnson has been promoted to vice president/Global Hawk program manager of the Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Integrated Systems Sector in San Diego. He has been director of the company's activities as prime contractor for the U.S. Air Force Global Hawk.
Hawker de Havilland has been added to the list of organizations participating on the technology development team for Boeing's planned Sonic Cruiser transport. The Boeing subsidiary will contribute its expertise in advanced materials, including composites, to the technology development effort for the aircraft, which could be available to customers in 2008. The company designs and manufactures commercial and military aircraft aerostructure components.
Even while management of the nation's airlines remains in flux, the Civil Aviation Administration of China has granted a tenth carrier, Yunnan Airlines, international operating rights with immediate effect. The CAAC wanted Yunnan to be absorbed by China Eastern Airlines, one of the first two carriers to be granted international traffic rights, but that plan is in dispute (AW&ST Apr. 15, p. 54).
