The U.S. space agency awarded both Boeing and Lockheed Martin $1 million contracts to study using liquid fly-back boosters (LFBBs) on the Space Shuttle. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., wants the two companies to provide data and configuration studies for both the booster and its engine - probably a high-bypass turbofan - focusing on the LFBB concept, including analysis, evaluation, models and wind-tunnel testing.
Hughes Training Inc., Arlington, Tex., won a $17.3 million fixed-price contract for the first year production phase of the U.S. Army's Fire Support Combined Arms Tactical Trainer (FSCATT) program, the company announced. The contract, from the Army's Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command, Orlando, Fla., calls for Hughes to deliver howitzer training crews, howitzer strap-on trainers, collective training control subsystems and howitzer strap-on trainer instructor/operator stations during the next year.
The U.S. Air Force's VISTA F-16 flying testbed made its first flight with a larger, modular common inlet duct (MCID) mated to a Pratt&Whitney F100-PW-229 turbofan on May 28, in preparation for making the aircraft a full-time thrust-vectoring experimental vehicle. The wider, high-airflow inlet is standard on F-16s powered by General Electric F110 series turbofans.
Taiwan's state-run Aerospace Industry Development Corp. will make a range of spare parts and components for General Electric CT7-6D and -8 turboshafts powering Sikorsky S-92 helicopters under an agreement signed last week. AIDC will handle 11 different components, including turbine disks and cooling plates, under the revenue-sharing agreement with GE Aircraft Engines that gives the Taiwan company a 7% revenue stake in the CT7 program.
LIONEL JOSPIN, new premier of France, named his cabinet Wednesday. Alain Richard, a finance specialist for the Socialists, was chosen as defense minister. Jospin will announce his policies June 17 in a speech to the National Assembly.
The world's regional-aircraft builders will deliver 7,856 aircraft during the next 20 years, more than twice the number that will be retired in the 1997-2026 period, forecasts Allison Engine Co. strategic planner Ken Roberts. Both turboprops and small turbofans will benefit, but the share of growth for each will be determined by the always-unpredictable swing factor of fuel prices. A doubling of fuel prices, for example, would work in favor of high-speed turboprops against the so-far burgeoning growth of regional jets.
The GOES-10 weather satellite was placed in a stable attitude after losing its ability to maintain lock on the sun, NASA announced. Engineers at Goddard Space Flight Center, supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Space Systems/Loral, are working on troubleshooting plans. GOES-10 has now stopped tracking the sun on three occasions. The first two times, it went back to normal after a few minutes. On May 27, however, the stopped and didn't recover.
The Pentagon's just released vision of future operations details new stealth technologies and identifies them as key to warfare around the year 2010. The document lays out the future path for stealth technologies.
Dragonair and Cathay Pacific, both stung by a string of inflight engine shutdowns involving Rolls-Royce Trent 700-powered Airbus A330 twins, started returning aircraft to service yesterday after a voluntary 11-day grounding that cost both carriers millions of dollars a day. Cathay's A330 service resumed with Flight 506 from Hong Kong to Osaka, and the carrier expects all 11 A330s to be operational within a week, " but it could happen sooner," says spokeswoman Diana Fung.
Four subcommittees of the Senate Armed Services Committee will mark up their portions of the fiscal 1998 defense authorization on Tuesday. The airland forces subcommittee will mark up at 10:30 a.m.; the strategic forces subcommittee at 2:30 p.m.; the seapower subcommittee at 4 p.m., and the acquisition and technology subcommittee at 6 p.m. The full committee will mark up Wednesday and Thursday.
The head of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Lt. Gen. Lester Lyles, says he supports a plan to conduct two tests of the U.S. Army's Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system with an interim configuration, and then use a final configuration for the remaining four tests of the concept demonstration program.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS has been awarded a $12.4 million contract for design and development support of an unguided flight test of a hybrid tail/reaction jet control on an Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile, a program also known as Air Superiority Missile Technology. The contract was announced yesterday by the Dept. of Defense and awarded by Air Force's Wright Laboratories.
A year after identifying heavy fuel engines for tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (T-UAVs) as an area where industry should try to make progress, Navy Capt. Ted Ferriter, who oversees UAV programs for the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office, is disappointed at the lack of progress.
Delays in meeting various milestones have prompted FAA officials to advocate shifting software development in the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS) program to "high risk status."
The Interturbine Group of Companies, Dallas, has consolidated four business units into a new organization it calls Interturbine U.S. Flight Repair Operations. The new unit combines the company's Dallas-based casings, airfoil and coating businesses with Interturbine TEAM, a component trading, sales and asset management business.
The U.S. Navy Upper Tier, or Theater Wide, missile defense system is about five years away from initial deployment - assuming increased funding and a policy decision to deploy, Rear Adm. Rod Rempt, Navy theater air defense program executive officer, said yesterday.
Congressional appropriators, in a report accompanying an $8.4 billion emergency supplemental package, have directed the Pentagon's Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) to study the future role of the military services in the development and deployment of a national missile defense (NMD) system. The $1.9 billion defense portion of the package was completed by conferees last month (DAILY, May 22). It covers the costs of U.S. operations in Bosnia and Southwest Asia.
The Space Shuttle Columbia, which had its April mission cut short by a faulty fuel cell, was moved from the Orbiter Processing Facility at Kenneday Space Center to the Vehicle Assembly Building there, NASA said. Columbia is scheduled to roll out of the VAB on June 11, and remains on track for a July 1 launch for reflight of the Microgravity Science Laboratory mission - the first reflight of the same payload and crew.
Competition officials of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission will meet today in Washington to review their assessments to date of Boeing Co.'s proposed acquisition of McDonnell Douglas Corp., Alexander Schaub, EC director-general for competition, said yesterday. Speaking in Washington at a European Institute breakfast for news media and business people, Schaub said national security will be a factor in EC reviews of European aerospace consolidation - an approach Boeing has advocated for its own deal.
The Pentagon's demonstration of vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial vehicles is likely to include two to four systems, Rear Adm. Bart Strong, program executive officer for cruise missiles and UAVs, said yesterday.
Hughes Aircraft Co., Mahwah, N.J., won a contract from the Royal Netherlands Army Materiel Directorate for additional Stinger Night Sights for use with the Netherlands Stinger Manportable Air Defense System, Hughes announced. The company will make 55 sights for the Dutch air force, with options for more systems for the army. The new order brings the total value of the program to about $3.5 million. The country procured 60 sights in 1995.
With the Alliant Techsystems Outrider unmanned aerial vehicle facing another important top-level Pentagon program review next Monday, Rear Adm. Bart Strong, who oversees the program, said he's "quite optimistic" it will continue. Outrider yesterday flew for the fourth time, as Alliant Techsystems completed another flight before Monday's review involving acting Pentagon acquisition chief Noel Longuemare. The flight, at Hondo, Tex., lasted about six minutes. It was cut short when engineers didn't like the sound of the engine. Telemetry indicated no problem.
Aloysius Rauen, Daimler-Benz Aerospace's top Eurofighter executive, upped the ante on DASA's participation in the program by threatening yesterday to pull his group out of the project unless the Bonn government authorized long-awaited funding for production.
The National Reconnaissance Office said yesterday that David E. Kier has been named deputy director, and that the appointment was effective May 30. In addition to the NRO post, Kier will serve as the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force (space). He succeeds Jimmie D. Hill, who was ousted last year along with Director Jeffrey Harris in the wake of congressional criticism of NRO budget management. Harris was succeeded by Keith R. Hall.
