NASA must trim about $250 million a year from Space Shuttle operations to avoid cutting into other agency programs for the remainder of the decade, a task that will be made harder by the demands of International Space Station assembly, the General Accounting Office reported. GAO evaluators found that NASA has so far kept its promise to protect Shuttle safety as it looks for economies in Shuttle operations. But they warned that safety is hard to measure as pressure to cut operations costs grows.
McDonnell Douglas made its ninth ahead-of-schedule C-17 delivery in a row, handing over the 21st production airlifter to the U.S. Air Force on Monday, the company reported. The plane left McDonnell Douglas' Long Beach, Calif., plant for Charleston AFB, S.C., early Wednesday to join the 437th Airlift Wing, about a month earlier than originally scheduled.
Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are building on their long experience with planetary space probes, including lessons learned from a couple of costly failures, to keep the Cassini Saturn mission on schedule and budget for launch to the ringed planet in October 1997. JPL designers have "hardened" Cassini's propulsion system to avoid a repeat of the fuel blowout suspected in the Aug. 21, 1993, loss of the Mars Observer as it maneuvered toward orbit around its target planet (DAILY, Jan. 6, 1994, page 19).
The lawyer for the only officer tried and acquitted in the "friendly fire" downing of two Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters over Iraq in 1994 suggested yesterday that the Identification Friend or Foe system may not have been working properly in the disaster.
Congressional actions to date on selected fiscal 1996 U.S. missile procurement programs are listed below. Tables highlighting aircraft procurement and military space RDT&E and procurement appeared in The DAILY Aug. 2 and Aug. 3.
The capabilities of the U.S. helicopter industry-now and after any consolidations-will be "adequate" for the "foreseeable future" to meet the Defense Dept.'s needs, according to the conclusions of a long-awaited Pentagon study on the rotorcraft industry.
JOSEPH H. ROTHENBERG has been named director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Md. He has been deputy director of the center since he returned to the space agency from the private sector last spring (DAILY, April 10, page 48). He replaces John M. Klineberg, who took an early retirement buyout (DAILY, March 22, page 430).
TERADYNE INC., Boston, said yesterday that Hughes Aircraft Co. has chosen its M900 VXI Digital Subsystem to provide digital test capability in the Common Test Station (CTS). Hughes is prime contractor on CTS, an effort to develop the first automatic test system for munitions systems.
GENERAL ELECTRIC handed over the first F404 turbofan for the Swiss air force's McDonnell Douglas F/A-18s this week, and will deliver three more this month. It's part of a deal worth more than $130 million to GE to supply 75 engines for 34 Hornets, first ordered in 1993.
Pratt&Whitney is talking with the U.S. Air Force about an unusually large buy-out plan for four lots of C-17 airlifter engines beginning in 1998 that should net the government an average 10% discount over the four years covered. Dave Hymer, who heads the C-17 F117 engine program at P&W's Government Engines&Space Propulsion business here, told DAILY affiliate Aerospace Propulsion that a lot will depend on the Defense Acquisition Board's Milestone IIIB decision on the airlifter program in November.
WITH BOTH SIDES making uncertain claims of victory, the House is expected to vote today on an amendment that would strike out of the fiscal 1996 defense appropriations bill $493 million in long-lead funding for additional B-2 bombers.
WALBAR'S Ontario, Canada, compressor blade plant can't make money, and will close before the end of next year, parent Coltec Industries reported. Volumes have been well off the pace at the Aerowood Drive plant in Mississauga for a long time, and "operating this plant has been a drain on our profitability," explained John M. Cybulski, Coltec's senior aerospace VP. The compressor blade plant chipped in only 6% of Walbar's sales-16% of the sales of Walbar Canada-and less than a half a percentage point of sales for Coltec.
WATKINS-JOHNSON CO., Palo Alto, Calif., has received a $16 million contract from Hughes Aircraft Co.'s Missile Systems Group to continue production of electronic subsystems for Lot 9 of the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air- to-Air Missile (AMRAAM).
Wilcox Electric yesterday was named winner of a $475 million FAA contract to supply the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), a network of ground reference stations and communication satellites to enhance the accuracy, integrity and availability of GPS signals. Sources said earlier this year that the FAA had decided to negotiate only with Wilcox, which is teamed with Hughes and TRW.
HUGHES GEORGIA, LaGrange, Ga., on June 30 received a $6.3 million award under a potential $30.2 million U.S. Army Missile Command contract for 100 cost-improved electronic receivers/thermal receiver units for the M1A2 Abrams tank.
ALLIEDSIGNAL AEROSPACE will provide flight control systems for the U.S. Army's Brilliant Anti-Tank submunition under a contract from Northrop Grumman Corp. AlliedSignal's Government Electronic Systems business unit in Teterboro, N.J., will provide inertial measurement units and technical support. "This selection reinforces our position as a leader in inertial sensor products technologies," said David Tawfik, president of Government Electronic Systems.
The U.S. Defense Dept. plans to deploy at least four more electronic combat aircraft-two EA-6B Prowlers and two EC-130H Compass Calls-for use over Bosnia-Herzegovina within the next few weeks, Pentagon officials said Tuesday. DOD is in the process of moving two Compass Call communications jammers from Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz., to Aviano AB, Italy, a department spokesman told reporters during a regular DOD press briefing. "I can't tell you exactly when they'll go, but perhaps this week or next," he said. "It will be soon."
A TRW/MAGNAVOX TEAM demonstrated that the U.S. Army's Battlefield Combat Identification System (BCIS) can be configured to send, receive and display secure, digital information about other BCIS-equipped units on the battlefield, TRW said yesterday. It said this new digital data link (DDL) was implemented using current BCIS hardware and one new piece of software.
E-Hunter, a derivative of the TRW/Israel Aircraft Industries-built short range Hunter Joint Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, completed its first flight July 25 at a test site in Israel, the companies said this week.
Democrats yesterday opposed a Clinton Administration proposal to strengthen the defense contracting process. Administration officials wanted to strengthen a House Government Reform Committee bill that would screen out all but the most serious offerors in the first of two stages, but Democrat John M. Spratt Jr. (D- S.C.) warned that the change could turn contracting into "an old boys' club." He said the two-stage process proposal could lead to government contracting becoming "too much of a closed circuit."
Boeing denied published reports in Japan that the rise of the yen prompted the company to pull out of studies for the YS-X next-generation small passenger plane. Both Boeing and Japan want to come up with a new, 100-passenger commuter and regional jet, which is why the two have been working together on fleshing out what would be needed to pull off the project.
HUGHES TECHNICAL SERVICES CO., Long Beach, Calif., will continue to repair and rebuild 792 components of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle's missile system under an additional $6.9 million awarded June 30 by U.S. Army Missile Command. The sole source contract was initiated in February 1995.
As the Senate began consideration of the $264.7 billion fiscal 1996 national security authorization yesterday, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) succeeded in earmarking $35 million for the U.S. Army's Corps SAM theater missile defense system. The Senate Armed Services Committee, on which Nunn is the ranking Democrat, had zeroed the $30.4 million request for Corps SAM in its markup of the bill. Yesterday, the Senate endorsed Nunn's amendment by a vote of 98 to 1.
A CZECH FIRM has been cleared to sell a passive counter-stealth detection system to the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan, the Czech Republic's Industry and Trade Ministry said in Prague yesterday, according to wire reports. In its initial announcement that a $20 million Tamara system would be sold abroad by HTT Tesla Pardubice, the Czech government identified the buyer only as a "trustworthy and politically stable" former Soviet state (DAILY, July 31, page 152).
LORAL VOUGHT has received $155.2 million from the Army to modify the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to carry the Brilliant Anti-Tank submunition. The four-year contract to build the Block II missile also includes two options, worth an additional $24.98 million, that would extend the contract to the year 2000. ATACMS will be able to carry 13 BAT submunitions to targets as far as 140 kilometers away. The Block I ATACMS has been operational for four years and Block IA, with about twice the range as the Block I, is in engineering development.
