Congress Oct. 17 appointed members of a conference committee charged with working out differences between the House and Senate versions of the fiscal 2002 defense authorization bill.
President Bush will nominate Dale Klein to be assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, the White House announced. Klein is currently the vice chancellor for special engineering programs and professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas. He has served with the University of Texas system since 1977, holding various positions, including head of nuclear programs at the Center for Energy Studies.
House Science space subcommittee Chairman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) urged the Bush Administration Oct. 18 to quickly appoint a successor to NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin, saying the agency needs someone at the helm to make key decisions in the coming months on the future of the International Space Station.
Although plans for an ambitious NATO program to acquire an Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) capability have run into problems over the past several years, a Sept. 18 meeting of NATO allies has paved the way for an acquisition plan to procure the AGS system by 2010, a senior NATO official said.
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization will likely undergo more organizational changes in the not-too-distant future, even though the agency has just undergone a major restructuring, BMDO director Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish said Oct. 18. Just as the U.S. will have to keep refining its missile defense system to respond to evolving threats, BMDO will have to keep fine-tuning its organizational structure to fit changing program activities, Kadish told a Capitol Hill seminar. As a result, the BMDO organization may never be a finished product.
The United Kingdom has expressed interesting in buying 48 Tomahawk Block IIIC Land Attack Missiles (TLAM) from the United States, according to an Oct. 17 statement from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA). The Block III upgrade to the Tomahawk has achieved better accuracy and longer range than its predecessors by incorporating a lighter warhead and a jam-resistant Global Positioning System (GPS) system. The Block IIIC has a unitary warhead, as opposed to the Block IIID, which disperses bomblets.
Groen Brothers Aviation is offering its Hawk 4 gyroplane in a homeland defense role. The Salt Lake City company, which has commercial deposits for 140 of the four-place aircraft, says they could help monitor pipelines, bridges, nuclear power plants, borders, skyscrapers, drinking water sources and government facilities. "Hundreds of government decision makers have been invited to examine our plan and our aircraft," one executive said.
MICROVISION INC. of Bothell, Wash., will supply retinal scanning display technology to Concurrent Technologies Corp. for the Office of Naval Research's Battlespace Information Display Technology program. The BIDT program is developing display technologies for delivering wireless tactical information to warfighters. The contract is worth $1.5 million. CTC will integrate Microvision's technology into display devices that will be used in command, control, communications and intelligence (C4I) operations, according to the company.
Wall Street investors and analysts may be overestimating the affects of the Sept. 11 attacks on military aerospace and defense companies, according to one financial analyst. Jon Kutler, chairman and CEO of Quarterdeck Investment Partners LLC., said during a session of the Aerospace Expo conference here Oct. 17 that investors responded in a "knee-jerk fashion" by buying defense stocks immediately after the attacks.
The launch table for the Boeing Delta IV rocket arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., Boeing announced Oct. 18. The table is a key element in the conversion of a former space shuttle launch pad into a facility for the Delta IV, Boeing's entry for the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program.
Tom Ridge, the director of the White House's new Office of Homeland Security, says he has all the authority and access to the president he needs to do his job. The former Pennsylvania governor's comments were in response to reporters' questions Oct. 18 at his first press conference, which was designed to reassure a nation unsettled by fear of anthrax.
The Bush Administration asked Congress Oct. 17 to approve an additional $7.4 billion in supplemental spending for the Defense Department to help the military respond to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
COMSAT MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS, a business unit of Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications, has received authority from the Federal Communications Commission to provide domestic land mobile, maritime and aeronautical mobile satellite communications through the Inmarsat satellite system. The services can be provided throughout the United States and its territories, the company announced. The FCC noted that the change will give U.S. consumers more communications options.
NASA and Stanford University have teamed up to conduct research into computational biology, an emerging interdisciplinary field that uses computers and specialized software to solve biological problems. NASA's Center for Computational Astrobiology and Fundamental Biology (NCCAFB), based at the Ames Research Center, and Stanford's Center for Biomedical Computation will seek to develop new methods of computational biology and use them to explain how cells function, evolve and are affected by disease, both on Earth and in space.
CROSSBOW TECHNOLOGY INC. has introduced new inertial systems designed for the guidance of unmanned aircraft and remotely piloted vehicles. The San Jose-based company's VG400CB, AHRS400CD and AHRS500CB systems are attitude and heading reference systems that combine the functionality of an inertial measurement unit with vertical and directional gyro capabilities. The AHRS500CB provides the full feature set required for an FAA-approved system, according to the company.
Raytheon Co. and Hughes Electronics Corp. have settled a $1 billion 1997 merger dispute, with Hughes agreeing to pay Raytheon $635.5 million. Under terms of the price adjustment agreement relating to Raytheon's merger with Hughes Defense, Hughes Electronics will reimburse Raytheon $635.5 million of the $9.5 billion purchase price, Raytheon said Oct. 17. Raytheon received $500 million on Oct. 16, with the rest due within six months. Raytheon said it expects to use the amount to pay down debt.
PURDUE UNIVERSITY engineers are using "genetic algorithms" that mimic the evolutionary survival-of-the-fittest model to design innovative constellations of satellites. The algorithms are helpful in designing low-cost constellations that save money by placing a small number of satellites around the Earth at relatively low altitudes, said William Crossley, a faculty member of Purdue's Center for Satellite Engineering.
The Defense Department is not doing enough long-term planning to ensure its maintenance depots will be equipped to handle future weapon systems, according to a new report by the General Accounting Office.
LOGICA, of London, is leading a consortium that has been awarded an initial 2 million euro ($1.8 million) contract by the European Space Agency Operation Centre (ESOC) to enhance its mission control facilities. The Logica consortium's initial tasks include the maintenance and enhancement of existing facilities used to control satellites, including the ERS-2 environmental monitoring satellite and the XMM-Newton, the world's largest X-ray astronomy observatory. Logica's work is aimed at both ensuring smooth operation of the satellites as well as cutting operational costs.
L-3 COMMUNICATIONS CORP. announced that 3931179 Canada Inc., a company owned by L-3, has mailed its previously announced offer to acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Spar Aerospace Ltd., for $15.50 in cash per share. The offer will expire at 7 p.m. on Nov. 22, unless withdrawn or extended.
Northrop Grumman Corp. received a $64.8 million test support delivery order from the U.S. Air Force for the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS), the company announced Oct. 17. The four-year, fixed-price delivery order for the Joint STARS Extended Test Support (JETS) program was awarded to the company's Integrated Systems Sector (ISS).
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control will produce nine Army Tactical Missile System (TACMS) penetrator demonstration missiles under a $16.1 million contract. The company is teaming with Sandia National Laboratories on the integration and demonstration program. The contract was funded by the U.S. Army, and work is expected to be completed by Sept. 2004.
In light of the changing post-Cold War strategic picture, the Air Force should shift its focus away from the current fighter-centric model to a more bomber-centric force, according to a group of defense analysts at a symposium on the future of America's bomber force.
U.S. Army Apache Longbow combat helicopters arrived in South Korea this month, marking the first international deployment of a U.S. Army Longbow battalion. The helicopters were produced by the Boeing Co. in Mesa, Ariz., and arrived in South Korea by ship, where they were reassembled and flown to a U.S. Army facility. The arrival completed the return of the Army Apache unit to South Korea, where it had operated as an AH-64A Apache battalion before the conversion to Apache Longbows began in 1999, according to Boeing.
