The U.S. Army's RAH-66 Comanche may get a Pentium processing chip to replace its current military-unique C-1 chip, also designed by Intel, according to Comanche program manager Brig. Gen. James Snider. "We want to lock in on a commercial chip," Snider says, adding that engineers think the Pentium will work. "What we want is to evolve with the commercial industry." Snider isn't worried about getting early models of the Pentium, which were flawed, joking, "I don't think we need it to do that kind of complicated long division."
GENERAL ELECTRIC handed over the first two F414 fighter turbofans for Navy F/A-18E/F flight tests in ceremonies Friday in Lynn, Mass. With the hand- over, the F414 development program is now 70% complete, and the seven engines built so far have racked up more than 4,300 test hours, including more than 1,800 hours of accelerated simulated mission testing, or ASMET, on five engines. "We are within 3% to 4% of our original budget that was set over four years ago," GE program chief Kevin Field told The DAILY.
Russian Space Forces have launched a classified satellite from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, apparently to replenish Russia's constellation of early warning satellites. The Cosmos 2313 spacecraft was launched by a Molniya-M booster on May 24, lifting off from Site 16 of the First State Test Cosmodrome at 4:10 p.m. EDT. The spacecraft appears to be an early warning satellite intended to monitor U.S. ICBM bases from a highly elliptical semisynchronous orbit.
Among munitions projects slated for a closer look, says Kaminski, are small bomb programs. They are "going to be key," he says. For one thing, they're particularly important during early stages of a campaign because weapons will have to be carried internally to preserve the low radar cross sections of stealthy aircraft. Among areas of concentration, says Kaminski, will be accuracy and penetration of hardened structures, fuzing and explosives.
The Corona spy satellite program, which revolutionized U.S. intelligence when it sent back its first space-based images of the Soviet Union in 1960, probably couldn't survive in today's budget-conscious environment, says Richard Helms, director of central intelligence in the Vietnam era. Getting Corona up and running required "patience over quite a lengthy period" and "a lot of your taxpayers' money," he tells a CIA-sponsored symposium on Corona.
Congress is growing uneasy that Boeing hasn't finished negotiating all of its Space Station subcontracts, and NASA hasn't missed the cue. When the issue came up at a Senate space subcommittee meeting last week, Station Program Manager Randy Brinkley said that work is on schedule across the program even if the papers aren't all signed.
House National Security Committee authorization actions on 25 major Pentagon programs are listed in the following table, released by the committee last week (DAILY, May 26, page 314). The actions were taken in the committee's markup of the Defense Dept.'s fiscal year 1996 request. FY 96 Budget Request R&D Qty. Proc. Milcon Total SSN 23 1 1507.48 1507.48
Lockheed Martin and Belfast's Shorts Missile Systems will work together to build and sell air-to-air Starstreak missiles in the U.S. under an agreement signed Thursday in Washington. Under the deal, Shorts would develop and build missile components in Belfast and ship them to Lockheed Martin's new missile assembly plant in Troy, Ala., to service any U.S. order.
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Director Jeffrey Harris paid tribute last Wednesday to several aerospace firms involved in the recently declassified Corona spy satellite effort. In ceremonies at CIA headquarters and the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, Harris thanked Lockheed Martin Missiles&Space Co., Itek, General Electric's Aerospace Div., now Lockheed Martin Astro Space, and Eastman Kodak for their contributions to the revolutionary program.
Thailand's interest in buying McDonnell Douglas' F/A-18C/D would alone not suffice to keep the aircraft's production line open, a MDC spokesman says. The Bangkok government is said to be looking at acquiring eight Hornets. Production would take place sometime between this year and 2000, he adds. That means MDC will require additional customers to keep the F/A-18C/D production line open after the year 2000, when production of Switzerland's Hornets is set to expire.
McDonnell Douglas and Northrop Grumman are expected to reveal during the Paris air show their design for the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program. Instead of choosing one of the two designs developed, the proposal will merge the two concepts (DAILY, May 8, page 201). The most visible sign of the merger will be tails and canards, one industry source says. One of the previous designs had canards but no tails, the other tails but no canards, the source says. He also says the tails will be short, with virtually no radar cross section.
Wall Streeters are starting to get more interested in the stock of Hughes Electronics, but for non-defense reasons. "The move to deregulate the cable television industry may benefit Hughes Electronics' DirecTV," points out Merrill Lynch's Byron Callan. "If cable operators raise prices without offering major improvements in quality and service, DBS systems may be a more attractive alternative in some areas of the country."
Roles and Missions Commission Chairman John White's appointment to be the deputy defense secretary shouldn't invalidate the independent commission's findings, which were issued last week, says retired Gen. Larry Welch, member of the Roles and Missions Commission and former Air Force Chief of Staff. No one should be "misled into thinking it was a group of log-rolling insiders," he says.
Defense and aerospace stocks, long the dogs of the securities market, are suddenly star performers. Merrill Lynch points out that nearly a dozen well-known players have all hit new record-high stock prices in recent days, including Alliant Techsystems, Loral, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Litton and others. Every company's story is different, but broadly, analysts agree that defense stocks are rising because defense is no longer the bill-payer for other U.S.
NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery is set to embark on the 100th U.S. human spaceflight next month, testing an upgrade of the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) and a new ground control center as it delivers a communications satellite to orbit. The five-person flight, STS-70, was advanced in the launch lineup ahead of the first Shuttle docking mission with Russia's Mir space station and will have only a few chances to get aloft before it begins to conflict with the later flight (DAILY, May 15, page 241; May 23, page 290).
U.S. Army Missile Command has released a draft of the operational requirements document for the MLRS Smart Tactical Rocket (MSTAR). "MSTAR will be a tactical rocket for MLRS [Multiple Launch Rocket System] with a robust warhead carrying smart, general purpose submunitions which are effective against a wide variety of high value targets to include counterfire, air defense, and maneuver," MICOM said in a May 25 Commerce Business Daily notice.
Aerospace firms probably won't be getting direct assistance anytime soon from U.S. intelligence to take on foreign competitors. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has said the idea should be considered to level the playing field with foreign firms who receive direct assistance from their espionage agencies (DAILY, Jan. 12, page 54). But new Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch tells the Corona symposium he doesn't plan to help specific U.S. firms in specific markets.
Outgoing Army aviation program executive officer Maj. Gen. Dewitt "T" Irby, who fears for a dwindling of RAH-66 Comanche and overall aviation support in the Army after Chief of Staff Gordon Sullivan retires next month, says he "still has some apprehensions." But he tells The DAILY that the new chief, Gen. Dennis Reimer, should be given a chance to get perspective on his forces, saying, "Let's not judge him now.
As the House National Security Committee cut $50 million from the $331 million fiscal 1996 Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) request, the Pentagon's top acquisition official said "the department will work vigorously to defend this program." He added that he personally felt "very strongly about the JAST program." Paul Kaminski also said aircraft coming out of JAST could fill an electronic warfare role.
Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Wash.) said congressional supporters of additional B-2 stealth bombers will ultimately have to make their case to President Clinton and Vice President Gore. Dicks, a senior Democrat on the House Appropriations national security subcommittee and the most outspoken House backer of the B-2, told a breakfast seminar on Capitol Hill last Thursday that "it's one of those things we're going to have to go down and talk to the President and Vice President about."
Industrial base concerns don't apply to the nuclear carrier fleet as they do to nuclear submarines, Kaminski says. Arguing for preserving two shipyards capable of building nuclear subs, he says that if one supplier closes down, it would be a long road back to two. But he isn't willing to make the same case for aircraft carriers because he's not sure whether future flat tops will be nuclear powered. DOD will be looking "carefully at nuclear carriers," Kaminsky says.
Former DCI Helms agrees with Deutch that U.S. intelligence should not directly target foreign firms. "Just as sure as shooting somebody's going to get caught with his hand in the cookie jar and there's going to be an eruption," he says. "....So don't worry about how much economic intelligence the government's aware of. It's a hell of a lot."
The U.S. Air Force's Aeronautical Systems Center, Eglin AFB, Fla., is requesting information from industry on boosted penetrator warheads for application to air-to-ground missiles. The International Programs Office of ASC said in a May 25 Commerce Business Daily notice that it wants information "on off-the-shelf warheads in the 1,500 to 2,000 pound class capable of penetrating deeply buried targets."
Local television reporters at the Comanche rollout wanted to know what kind of commercial spin-offs there are to the RAH-66, forcing Boeing-Sikorsky program manager James Morris to dryly respond, "Well...there aren't a lot of civilian uses for an armed reconnaissance helicopter." But, he said, the aircraft's electronic technologies can be used in other helicopters and the Kaiser helmet-mounted display, which gives pilots night vision, could be used by law enforcement officials and surgeons.
New kinds of military missions and information warfare will evolve from a host of cultural and economic changes now sweeping the globe, quite apart from the cliched notion that the major change for the defense establishment comes from the end of the Cold War, a top Lockheed Martin executive argues.
