House National Security Chairman Rep. Floyd Spence (R-S.C.) said the most important contribution of the Congressional Budget Office report of a $47 billion shortfall in fiscal 1995-99 is that the agency "has correctly identified an ominous modernization 'bow-wave' that could threaten the viability of our military forces after the turn of the century." Spence said Tuesday that the Clinton Administration is "sacrificing future modernization to pay for its short-term underfunding problems across the entire budget."
AEROFLEX INC., Plainview, N.J., said it has acquired assets of Lintek Inc. for about $1.3 million. Lintek, based near Columbus, Ohio, concentrates on instrumentation radars and ultra high speed data acquisition and analysis for both commercial and military applications. Products include radar cross section and antenna pattern measurement systems, and surface penetrating radars. Aeroflex designs and manufactures electronics systems and components, including microelectronics, instrument products, and electro-optical devices.
The Pentagon's roles and missions commission, trying to figure out how to provide more efficient management in aviation, is considering putting a joint commander or a defense agency in charge of the entire military aviation infrastructure, one of the panel's members said yesterday. Gen. Larry Welch, former Air Force chief of staff and president of the Institute for Defense Analyses, said the White Commission is considering options that would call on a single organization to "take care of" the aviation infrastructure.
TRW'S SYSTEMS INTEGRATION GROUP, Carson, Calif., has won a $40.8 million contract to develop and install a computerized management information system for the state of California's Department of Corrections. The Correctional Management Information System (CMIS), the company said, is intended to help the department manage its growing inmate population. TRW uses similar client/server distributed database architectures in its aerospace and defense work. It said, for example, that it has developed systems technically similar to CMIS, such as the U.S.
Japan has rescheduled the next launch of its H-II booster for Feb. 22, following repair of a leaking Reaction Control System pipe, Japan's National Space Development Agency (NASDA) reported. Liftoff will come between 5:10 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. local time at the launch center on Tanegashima Island in southern Japan, NASDA said. If the Feb. 22 date is missed, the space agency will have until Feb. 28 to try again before the semiannual launch window allowed in an agreement with local fishermen closes until the fall.
Advanced technology to support expeditionary warfare is the focus of an Office of Naval Research effort. ONR said in a Jan. 11 Commerce Business Daily notice that it wants white papers from industry on the technologies, and that funding is projected for fiscal year 1996. "Special attention will be given to exploiting mature technologies capable of being demonstrated within two or three years," the notice said. ONR wants pre-proposals by Feb. 28. Specific areas of interest, it said, are:
Any reinvigorated missile defense program growing out of the Republican "Contract With America" should take into account the threat of land-attack cruise missiles, the authors of a study highlighting the dangers of cruise missile proliferation urged yesterday.
Returning to the Appropriations defense subcommittee will be the new chairman, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), and Sens. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), and Christopher Bond (R-Mo.), the full appropriations committee announced. Joining the defense panel this year, it said, are Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Connie Mack (R-Fla.), and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).
The Senate Armed Services Committee created a seapower subcommittee and realigned other subcommittees slightly in its first organizational meeting of the new Congress yesterday. The strategic forces subcommittee replaced the nuclear deterrence, arms control and defense intelligence subcommittee. The readiness subcommittee was substituted for the old military readiness and defense infrastructure panel.
CONTROL DATA SYSTEMS INC., Arden Hills, Minn., will integrate an electronic mail system to link various NASA centers under a multi-year, multi-million dollar subcontract from Computer Sciences Corp. Control Data said it will install and integrate a comprehensive solution of hardware, software and networks allowing NASA systems to communicate through electronic mail and fax transmission.
Carco Electronics, Menlo Park, Calif., and Contraves Inc. of Pittsburgh have agreed to proceed with discussions on the possible merger of Contraves' Inertial Guidance and Test Systems (IGTS) into Carco. Carco, which manufactures precision flight motion simulators used to test and develop aerospace guidance and control systems, said yesterday that if the talks are successful, the intent of both companies is to enter a definitive agreement by Feb. 15. Terms of a transaction have yet to be negotiated.
Teledyne sold its Electronic Systems business to Litton Industries in an all-cash deal, Litton reported yesterday, but terms weren't disclosed. Three Teledyne units in Northridge, Newbury Park and San Diego, Calif., are involved in the transaction, which has been in the works since last summer (DAILY, Aug. 19, 1994, page 281). Electronic Systems' Lewisburg, Tenn., operations were excluded, as was any real estate.
EDO CORP., College Point, N.Y., has won a $500,000 contract from the aerospace business of Daimler Benz for production and delivery of vacuum waste tanks for Airbus A300-600 and A310 aircraft. The tanks will be produced at EDO's Salt Lake City-based Fiber Science manufacturing unit. Deliveries scheduled to begin this month. Last month, EDO announced receipt of a contract from Boeing Co., valued at approximately $4.5 million, for development and production of advanced waste tanks for the 737-700 aircraft.
NASA, General Electric Aircraft Engines and Pratt&Whitney plan follow-on tests of two "promising" engine concepts for the U.S.'s hoped-for Concorde SST successor during the next two years which should reach NASA's emissions index goal of 5 grams of nitrogen oxides, or NOx, for every kilogram of fuel burned.
The Navy has reassigned two officers that oversee the Seawolf submarine program and restructured the program to cut bureaucracy and speed up the decision-making process. Navy Acquisition Secretary Nora Slatkin has replaced Rear Adm. John F. Shipway, deputy PEO for submarines, with Rear Adm. Robert E. Frick, a Navy spokesman said. Shipway will assume Frick's position as deputy commander for submarines, Naval Sea Systems Command. Seawolf Program Manager Osie Combs will also be reassigned. The changes took effect Friday, the spokesman said.
BRENT SCOWCROFT has been elected to the board of directors of Qualcomm Inc. of San Diego, a developer and manufacturer of digital wireless communications systems. Scowcroft was President Bush's national security advisor. Irwin Mark Jacobs, chairman and chief executive officer of QUALCOMM, said Scowcroft's "knowledge and experience, especially in international and governmental arenas, will contribute greatly to our ability to meet our strategic objectives."
DAIMLER-BENZ AEROSPACE of Germany and Northern Telecom of Canada said yesterday they will jointly address telecommunications market opportunities in Germany. They said their joint venture company will supply telecommunications service providers and corporations in Germany and Eastern Europe with a range of service capabilities, systems, and products for advanced telecommunications networks. Northern Telecom will hold 50% of the shares of the joint venture; the remaining 50% will be held by Daimler- Benz Aerospace together with its subsidiary, Dornier.
LITTON'S Ingalls Shipbuilding Div., Pascagoula, Miss., has received a $738 million U.S. Navy contract for two Arleigh Burke class DDG-51 guided missile destroyers. The contract funds construction of the second and third ships in a plan announced by the Navy last July to divide construction of six Aegis ships between Ingalls and Bath Iron Works. The plan provided one ship to Ingalls last year and two to Bath. This year, Ingalls gets the funding for the two ships, with one to Bath. The Navy has now ordered 32 ships of the class.
Republicans have appointed 13 members to seats on the House Science Committee's space and aeronautics subcommittee and have left one additional Republican slot vacant on the panel, which authorizes NASA spending, according to a list released by the full committee. Returning to the space and aeronautics panel will be the new chairman, Wisconsin Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner (DAILY, Jan. 10, page 39), and Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Ken Calvert (R-Calif.).
COURT-MARTIAL for the AWACS crewmember charged in the shootdown of Black Hawk helicopters last April in Iraq will begin Feb. 14 at Tinker AFB, Okla., the U.S. Air Force said. Capt. Jim Wang was charged with five specifications of dereliction on Aug. 31, 1994. On Dec. 16, three of the specifications were referred to trial.
DOCUMENTUM INC., Pleasanton, Calif., said it has been chosen by Boeing Co. to help write, manage and assemble some of the manuals for the 777 airliner. "Our selection of Documentum for our manual development process was driven by the need to automate all aspects of document production," said Peter Morton, direct of Boeing Customer Training. The manuals, from 400 to 10,000 pages, are used to train pilots, flight operations and maintenance personnel. The information is updated and revised throughout the life cycle of the airplane.
The Republican House leadership has asked President Clinton to hold off on any actions bearing on the 1972 ABM Treaty. Seventeen top House members, including Speaker Newt Gingrich (D-Ga.), wrote to Clinton Jan. 4, saying that "further negotiations on either the demarcation or multilaterilization efforts, or any other efforts that bear on the viability of the ABM Treaty, [should] be suspended until the new Congress has had an opportunity to examine [such] questions with care."
The staff of the House National Security Committee has been cut by 25%-not the one-third that has been imposed by the House Republican leadership on other committees. Asked if he felt he had sufficient resources to mount a stiff challenge the Clinton Administration's fiscal year 1996 Pentagon budget, Chairman Floyd Spence (R-S.C.) said yesterday that "we felt [the 25% cut] was a lot better than one-third," and that he "didn't want to push my luck too much."
An Atlas IIAS booster lifted the Intelsat 704 telecommunications platform to its geostationary transfer orbit early yesterday, and the international satellite consortium reported the platform operating nominally late in the day. Liftoff of the Martin Marietta booster, with its four Castor IVA strap-on solid boosters, came from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., at 1:18 a.m. EST, the first Atlas launch of 1995
The Republican leadership in Congress plans to seek an increase to President Clinton's proposed defense budget but has not yet decided whether to push for a real increase in defense spending, House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R-Ohio) said. But Republican support for defense doesn't mean the Pentagon shouldn't be reformed, Kasich said in an interview on CNN's "Evans&Novak" show. The program aired Saturday.
