Members of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) sharply criticized NASA's practice of granting waivers on possible hazards during a meeting in Washington Dec. 3, citing their involvement in all three of the fatal human space flight accidents in the agency's history. NAC member and former astronaut John Glenn said waivers were involved in the 1967 Apollo 1 fire and the losses of shuttles Challenger and Columbia.
WHAT'S IN A NAME: Lockheed Martin U.K., Rolls-Royce and VT Group on Dec. 3 announced the name of their consortium team bidding for the U.K. Ministry of Defence's Military Flying Training System (MFTS) program. The team will be known as Ascent, Lockheed Martin said.
BVR SYSTEMS, Rosh Ha'ayin, Israel Aviv Tzidon has been appointed chairman of the board, replacing Yuval Yanai, who has resigned as the company prepares to accept a buyout offer from Chun Holdings Ltd. Tzidon controls Chun Holdings, along with Aeronautics Defense Systems and iTS Technologies PTE. Ilan Gillies has been named CEO. FLIGHTSAFETY INTERNATIONAL, La Guardia Airport, N.Y. Bruce N. Whitman has been appointed president. LMS INTERNATIONAL, Leuven, Belgium
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) will produce solid propulsion systems for all three stages of the U.S. Navy's Trident II D5 Fleet Ballistic Missile, the company said Dec. 3. The work will be done under contracts from Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., totaling $71.5 million, ATK said. ATK Thiokol Propulsion of Promontory, Utah, will perform the work through 2007 at its facilities in Promontory, Clearfield and Magna, Utah.
DRS TECHNOLOGIES INC. has won two contracts worth $521 million to support infrared sighting systems on the U.S. Army's OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter. The $7 million, three-month bridge contract and a $514 million, five-year master contract cover electro-mechanical components, spares, support and depot repair services for the helicopter's Mast Mounted Sight (MMS). The work will be performed at DRS Optics in Melbourne, Fla. The U.S.
The Defense Department plans to launch its experimental TacSat-1 micro-satellite in March 2004, a DOD official said Dec. 3. The initiative, sponsored by DOD's Office of Force Transformation, aims to develop, build and launch a small satellite for the relatively low cost of about $15 million, said Ret. Navy Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, director of the transformation office. The experiment also seeks to go "from scratch to orbit" in less than a year to be "within the planning timelines of a major contingency for the nation."
Northrop Grumman Corp. has won the competition to be the prime contractor for the Missile Defense Agency's ground- and sea-based Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) program, the Defense Department announced late Dec. 3. Northrop Grumman, which is teamed with Raytheon Co., has been awarded an eight-year, $4.5 billion contract to develop and test the terrestrial interceptor missile, which is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles in their boost phase of flight.
NEW DELHI - India and Brazil agreed to strengthen their defense ties during the visit of Brazilian defense minister Jose Viegas Filho here this week. An Indian defense ministry official told The DAILY that India and Brazil have agreed to cooperate in aeronautics, particularly on defense surveillance systems. The countries have set up a joint working group to propose collaborations. The official did not give details, but said Brazil could meet India's air surveillance platform needs.
The price of launching Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs) may be renegotiated higher, in the view of one analyst. Boeing Co. bid $75 million for each of the 19 EELV launches it got in the initial Air Force contract, said Paul Nisbet of JSA Research. The Air Force took away seven of those launches and gave them to the other EELV competitor, Lockheed Martin, for what the service said was unethical conduct on Boeing's part during the development phase of the program (DAILY, July 25).
NASA is gearing up for the planned January landings of its twin Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), the agency's first attempts to land on Mars since 1999. Since the launch of "Spirit" in June and "Opportunity" in July, the rovers have been flying tucked inside folded-up landers. Each lander is wrapped in deflated airbags, cocooned within a protective aeroshell and attached to a cruise stage that provides solar panels, antennas and steering.
Boeing's X-50A Dragonfly unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) completed its first hover flight at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., on Dec. 3, kicking off the hybrid helicopter's long-awaited flight test program. A joint effort by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Boeing, the Dragonfly has an unusually wide rotor that can be slowed down and stopped in flight, allowing the UAV to fly as a fixed-wing jet (DAILY, April 12, 2002). The concept is known as Canard Rotor/Wing (CRW).
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Seventeen Czech aerospace companies have formed a consortium to produce a new twin-engined turboprop aircraft in a bid to stimulate the country's aerospace industry. The consortium, led by aircraft designer Evektor Aerotechnik, is hoping to launch the EV-55 nine- to 15-seat passenger aircraft within three years.
NASA must provide Congress several reports outlining the costs of various programs, according to the conference report on the omnibus appropriations bill which is awaiting House and Senate approval. By Dec. 31, NASA is to provide the first quarterly report on program milestones and cost estimates for its Project Prometheus, which is intended to develop nuclear propulsion and power systems.
Boeing's tanker woes could spread beyond the Pentagon to the United Kingdom, two analysts said. Airbus and Boeing are in a close competition for the U.K. Ministry of Defence's Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) program, and Boeing's offer two weeks ago of a $2 billion industrial offset package appeared to give it the upper hand, according to Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va.
SYSTRAN BUY: Curtiss-Wright Corp. has acquired Systran Corp. of Dayton, Ohio, for about $18 million. Systran supplies communications systems for the aerospace and defense markets, and will operate as a subsidiary of Curtiss-Wright Controls Inc. Among its products are data acquisition systems for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The acquisition will improve Curtiss-Wright's position "in the rugged commercial-off-the-shelf embedded systems marketplace," Chairman and CEO Martin Benante said in a Dec. 2 statement.
Lockheed Martin and Israel's Elbit Systems Ltd. will team to pursue helicopter modernization work in Bulgaria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, the companies said Dec. 2. Bulgaria plans to upgrade its Mi-17 and Mi-24 helicopters to meet NATO standards, and in the short term the companies will seek that work. Bulgaria plans to incorporate modern avionics and mission systems and extend the life of the helicopters, and update the arms systems of the Mi-24s.
TOMAHAWK: The U.S. Navy has approved the Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile to enter an operational evaluation (OPEVAL) this month. OPEVAL will include a series of end-to-end weapon system simulations as well as missile flight tests conducted from the Navy's western test range in southern California.
A House-Senate conference committee has agreed to put $17 million in a fiscal 2004 appropriations package to supply the Colombian National Police (CNP) with aircraft and related assistance. The money is included in the FY '04 foreign operations appropriations conference report, which has been incorporated into the multi-bill FY '04 omnibus appropriations conference report.
