November 18, 1998 Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services, Littleton, Colo., is being awarded a $10,888,326 face value increase to a firm-fixed-price contract to provide for East Coast Launch Operations in support of a November 1999 National Reconnaissance Organization launch mission, 1999 non-commercial program management, and launch and post-launch third party liability insurance. Expected contract completion date is November 1999. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles, Calif., is the contracting activity (F04701-96-C-0002-P00022).
Flight and mission system testing have been completed by the third and fourth 767 AWACS aircraft, Boeing said yesterday. It said the tests determined whether the planes' systems performed as designed. Japan has ordered four 767 AWACS. Two were delivered in March 1998; the second two will be delivered early next year.
NASA and Lockheed Martin Skunk Works have scrapped plans for a hot-fire flight test of a scale-model linear aerospike rocket engine atop an SR-71 research plane because of persistent liquid oxygen leaks in the test rig, the U.S. space agency announced. Originally planned to characterize the way the linear aerospike's expandable rocket plume would interact with the lifting-body X-33 single-stage-to-orbit prototype, the Linear Aerospace SR-71 Experiment (LASRE) was repeatedly delayed by hardware problems.
After three engine-firings the first element of the International Space Station was approaching its final orbit yesterday with only a few anomalies in its systems, U.S. and Russian flight controllers reported.
The boards of directors of BFGoodrich Co. and Coltec Industries have approved a $2.2 billion merger that the two companies said yesterday would create a company with strengths in aerospace, specialty chemicals and engineered industrial products. BFGoodrich, based in Richfield, Ohio, provides aircraft systems and services, and manufactures performance materials; Coltec, of Charlotte, N.C., makes aerospace and industrial products.
Three new altitude and payload records have been set by a U-2S of the U.S. Air Force and an ER-2 of NASA, according to Lockheed Martin, which builds the aircraft. The U-2S, flying from Palmdale, Calif., on Nov. 18, set two of the records in a single flight. It carried a 3,300-pound payload to an altitude of 15,000 meters (49,000 feet), breaking the previous 15,000-meter record, set by a Russian MiG-29 in 1995. By continuing to climb with the payload to its normal cruising altitude of more than 65,000 feet, the U-2S set a second record.
The U.S. Air Force's F-22 flight test program yesterday hit the 183 flight-test hour mark, satisfying a congressional demand and all but clearing the way for a production go-ahead next month. Raptor 4002 flew for more than two hours yesterday at Edwards AFB, Calif., bringing to 184.4 hours the total number of hours completed in the flight test program so far.
November 19, 1998 Lockheed Martin Federal Systems, Inc., Manassas, Va., is being awarded a $22,802,120 modification to previously awarded contract N00019-98-C-0012 to exercise an option for the installation of new simulation software into six existing SH-60B flight weapons tactics trainers. Work will be performed in Manassas, Va., and is expected to be completed by September 2002. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
Boeing delivered the first two Boeing Business Jets, one to partner General Electric and one to an undisclosed customer. The BBJ order book stands at 46, with nine committed to the Boeing NetJets fractional-ownership program.
A Boeing Delta II launch vehicle orbited a Hughes HS 376 HP spacecraft Sunday that is scheduled to become the first U.S.-built communications satellite serving Russia. Ordered by Moscow's Media Most company, Bonum-1 is the first privately owned Russian satellite and reportedly will not be subject to government or military control. From an orbital slot at 36 degrees East longitude it will provide direct-to-home television services in Western Russia through Media Most's NTV-Plus network.
Lockheed Martin has sold an A2100 satellite to Japan's Space Communications Corp. (SCC) for Ku-band telecommunications services to Japan that will be provided both by SCC and Japan Satellite Systems Inc. (JSAT). Mitsubishi Electric Corp. will supply some payload components for the "N-SAT-110" spacecraft, Lockheed Martin said. Under the contract signed in Tokyo on Friday, the satellite is scheduled for launch during the third quarter of 2000. It will provide direct broadcast and fixed services, including data and telephony, to the Japanese islands.
A PROWLER II unmanned aerial vehicle flew last week for the first time under the control of a Tactical Control Station, according to General Atomics, builder of the UAV. The Pentagon is designing the TCS to control most of its UAVs.
November 18, 1998 Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, Texas, was awarded on Nov. 17, 1998, a $30,533,722 cost-plus-incentive-fee contract to provide for development of the Tape 6 Operational Flight Program software applicable to the Blocks 40/42 F-16 aircraft. Expected contract completion date is Oct. 31, 2001. Solicitation issue date was July 14, 1997. Negotiation completion date was Oct. 16, 1998. Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-98-C-2057).
The proposed 80-satellite SkyBridge low Earth orbit system remains on track, with satellite construction set to start at the beginning of 1999, according to the head of SkyBridge LP. Pascale Sourisse, Skybridge's president and chief executive officer, told reporters in Washington Friday that the system remains on schedule to begin operation in 2001 with a partial constellation of 40 satellites. Signing of service provider agreements is expected to begin in 1999.
The weapon that meets requirements of the Marine Corps' Joint Advanced Weapon System (JAWS) initiative and the Army's Modernized Hellfire effort may also go into the Air Force inventory, via the Joint Strike Fighter. The Marines want to launch the future weapon from helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, including JSF, which will also be used by the Navy and AF. An analysis-of-alternatives is underway to decide which weapons JSF will carry.
The U.S. Navy has decided to evaluate a British-made aircraft oxygen generation system largely because it could be used on aircraft of one, two and four seats. The USN evaluation of the Molecular Sieve Oxygen Generator (MSOG), made by Normalair-Garrett, is one of only a couple of new Foreign Comparative Test (FCT) programs the Pentagon is sponsoring this year. The Navy is leading the effort, which is being conducted with the Air Force Research Laboratory, according to John Hollingsworth, the Naval Air Systems command official overseeing the activity.
The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS), which will make the 2.75-inch rocket smart by giving it a seeker and a guidance system, could also benefit the 5-inch Zuni rocket, according to a DOD official, who says there is interest in using the modification on both weapons. He says both would be ideal for targets in an urban environment, where collateral damage must be kept to a minimum.
