A U.S. Air Force-sponsored wargame set in the year 2010 highlighted the importance of coalitions and missile defenses, said Maj. Gen. Tom Case, the AF's head of modeling and simulation.
Scientists at the Pentagon yesterday confirmed two-year old reports that the Defense Dept.'s Clementine lunar mapper has detected ice on the moon (DAILY, April 13, 1994), opening the door for scientists to speculate about its possible exploitation for space travel or to support humans on the moon.
EATON CORP., Deer Park, N.Y., won a $5.9 million U.S. Air Force contract for three Enhanced Automated Special Test Equipment (EASTE) sets applicable to the electronic warfare systems for the B-2 aircraft. Defense Dept., announcing the award on Nov. 25, said the work will be performed at AIL/Technical Services Operations, Inc., Lancaster, Calif. The contract was awarded by San Antonio Air Logistics Center, Kelly AFB, Tex.
BRUSSELS-BASED VIRGIN EXPRESS is considering the purchase of as many as 25 narrowbody jetliners worth more than $1 billion, tripling the fleet of 12 Boeing 737s the airline currently operates, the company said. Company officials said the airline, formed this spring with Richard Branson's purchase of Eurobelgian Airlines, is favoring the 128-148-passenger 737- 700. However, McDonnell Douglas and Airbus Industrie jets also are being considered, as are used planes. Fluctuating leasing costs for 737s may be a factor in Virgin's decision to buy.
A U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND AC-130 gunship has joined two U.S. Navy P-3 aircraft monitoring the movement of refugees between Zaire and Rwanda. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said yesterday that the AC-130 was sent because of its infrared surveillance capability. A P-3 was fired upon last month as it flew over Goma, Zaire (DAILY, Nov. 22). All three planes are operating from Entebbe, Uganda.
The U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research wants to move ahead on the two-year old Advanced Multifunction Radio Frequency System (AMRFS) program and begin developing a system concept and a demonstration system testbed, according to a Dec. 2 Commerce Business Daily notice.
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) emerged yesterday as the front runner for a Republican opening on the Senate Armed Services Committee as the number of GOP vacancies grew from one to two with the departure from the panel of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), Senate sources said.
A congressional opponent of the C-17 airlifter is considering legislation to undo McDonnell Douglas' multiyear procurement contract for the plane unless it can execute the U.S. Army's brigade airdrop mission. Rep. Elizabeth Furse (D-Ore.) would take advantage of an escape clause that permits the government to terminate the contract by Sept. 30, 1998, without paying cancellation costs. This would end the buy before peak production begins in fiscal 1999.
ALLIEDSIGNAL will supply systems for Lockheed Martin's entry in the Joint Strike Fighter competition, the company announced yesterday, meaning AlliedSignal now works with both teams in the competition. It has already been listed among Boeing's subcontractors.
Senate Republican and Democratic leaders tentatively agreed yesterday to shrink the size of the Senate Armed Services Committee from the present 21 seats to 18 in the new Congress, Senate sources said. The party ratio would be 10 Republicans to 8 Democrats, an alignment that could affect the battle over the new attack submarine development program between General Dynamics' Electric Boat and Tenneco's Newport News Shipbuilding, since the smaller membership might keep Sen.-elect Jack Reed (D-R.I.) off the committee.
AFTER CONSIDERING SEVERAL WAYS to remove U.S. troops from the Japanese island of Okinawa, the U.S. and Japanese governments have agreed to shift U.S. Marine forces from Futenma Air Base to a floating off-shore facility. Defense Secretary William Perry announced the decision during a visit to Japan. Details of the off-shore base still remain to be worked out, but it will have to be in place in five to seven years, a DOD spokesman said yesterday. The exact location and design have not yet been determined.
The first production JAS-39B, the two-seat variant of the Gripen, completed its inaugural flight in Sweden on Nov. 22, Saab Military Aircraft reported. The flight lasted about 56 minutes and took place at Saab's headquarters and flight facility in Linkoping. First flight of the prototype two-seater took place in April.
As Fokker's talks with South Korea's Samsung Aerospace failed last week, Dutch authorities considered participating in the Airbus program in an attempt to maintain an aircraft manufacturing activity in The Netherlands.
Any big shifts in defense spending or policy probably won't happen until at least fiscal year 1999, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), new ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, predicted yesterday. Levin, who will move into the retired Sen. Sam Nunn's (Ga.) shoes as ranking Democrat on SASC in the 105th Congress, told reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday he thinks the first year of the next Congress will be relatively quiet on the defense front.
Northrop Grumman is suing the U.S. government to recover losses it incurred when the AGM-137 Tri-Service Standoff Attack Missile was canceled, ending what was a $2.9 billion development contract Northrop won in April 1986. Defense Secretary William Perry killed the program "for convenience" in December 1994 after a Pentagon modernization review, saying the system "had significant development difficulties" and that cost growth had made it unaffordable.
NASA ABANDONED plans for two spacewalks from the Space Shuttle Columbia Saturday after spacesuited astronauts were unable to open the hatch leading from the airlock into the cargo bay. Engineers on the ground feared the crew would damage the latching mechanism if they forced it, making it difficult or impossible to repressurize the airlock. They hoped to identify the source of the problem when the Shuttle returns to Earth. The extravehicular activity was planned to test assembly techniques developed for the International Space Station (DAILY, Nov. 20).
Russian space officials have drafted an intense launch plan for the last month of the year and for operations of the Mir station throughout 1997, despite continuing difficulty financing national space projects and a short supply of basic hardware. The approved launch manifest for December features six launches, even though Russia has conducted only 24 launches in the first 11 months of 1996. The December plans indicates a strong desire by the military Space Forces to make up a shortfall of military launches during the year.
