The C-17 flunked only one of 12 key test areas during last month's Reliability, Maintainability and Availability Evaluation, and that failure- false indications from the built-in-test system-was expected and is covered under existing warranties, preliminary RM&AE data show.
Dow-United Technologies Composite Products Inc., Wallingford, Conn., has been awarded $30 million in subcontracts to build a wide range of structural components for the U.S. Air Force's F-22 next-generation fighter. Dow-United's parts will be used for the first nine F-22s being built under the program's engineering, manufacturing and development stage. Its components will become part of the forward fuselage, vertical and horizontal tails, edges, and the wings.
An inadequate organization and outdated doctrine, not technological deficiencies, caused most the Defense Dept.'s inability to react efficiently to information warfare waged against the U.S. during a recent war gaming exercise. About 500 people from across the services, Congress, and industry- including the major telecommunications companies-participated in the joint war game set in 2003. In the scenario, North Korea attacked South Korea on very short warning and then, several weeks later, Iraq invaded Saudi Arabia.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency's Sharpshooter missile guidance program promises to benefit munitions beyond the Joint Direct Attack Munition, but congressional language could impede this broader application, says an ARPA official.
The Russian government has ordered the Ministry of Defense to develop a new list of spacecraft landing sites so as to move recoveries of Russian spacecraft from Kazakhstan onto Russian territory. Until now the principal landing sites for recoverable spacecraft (piloted, reconnaissance, remote sensing) were concentrated in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, with some back-up sites in Russia. A new government decree shifts primary landing sites for unmanned Russian spacecraft to Russian territory.
Along with information warfare, theater ballistic missile defense and biological and chemical warfare also played a role for the first time during this year's Global game series, Naval War College President Rear Adm. James Stark told The DAILY. During the July exercise, which was set in 2003, U.S. forces used the Theater High Altitude Area Defense System, the Patriot Advanced Capability, or PAC-3, and a Navy upper-tier BMD system that Stark said he believed was derived from THAAD.
Managements at Pratt&Whitney and Rolls-Royce insisted yesterday that rumors of a pending merger of their engine businesses are the product of City financial analysts, and nothing more. London's Sunday Times newspaper quoted P&W President Karl Krapek as saying that P&W wanted to merge its commercial aircraft engine business with Rolls' civil business. But the paper never talked to Krapek, despite attributing the merger remark to him as a direct quote.
The U.S. Army's missile command is upgrading the calibration kit for the Apache helicopter's navigation, targeting, and weapon systems under an approximately $5.1 million contract to Photronics Corp. Hauppauge, N.Y.-based Photronics will provide an electro-optical upgrade to 150 Captive Boresight Harmonization Kits (CBHKs), a ground support device that is designed to provide accuracy to the AH-64's fire control system, Photonics parent company Diagnostic/Retrieval Systems said Friday in a statement.
Israel Aircraft Industries has agreed to a joint venture with Israel- based Electronic Associates Technology, or EATI, to develop and market commercial spin-offs from IAI research and development projects. The joint holding company has the "exclusive right of first review of its [IAI's] eligible technology applications," and first shot at selecting projects likely to be successful commercially, a statement released Thursday by West Long Beach, N.J.-based Electronic Associates, the majority owner of EATI, said.
Improperly installed wiring probably led to a fire that caused the crash in California last Dec. 14 of a Learjet flying under contract to the U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The plane crashed while attempting to land on a street in Fresno, killing both civilian pilots, injuring 21 persons on the ground and destroying 12 apartment units in two buildings.
NASA MANAGERS WILL WAIT until they see how work is progressing on repairs to solid rocket nozzle rings before setting a new launch date for the Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-69. Officials decided late Friday to use a vacuum technique to replace Room Temperature Vulcanizing (RTV) material that has allowed hot gases to scorch the critical o-rings on the past two flights, relying on complete replacement at one joint where non-destructive evaluation (NDE) is not possible, and on another using NDE to determine where there are air voids that need repair (DAILY, Aug.
NASA HAS SIGNED a memorandum of understanding with the state of North Carolina under which the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., will work with North Carolina State University's Industrial Extension Service to promote the transfer of aerospace technologies and innovations developed by NASA and its contractors to schools and businesses. Research facilities at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., and Stennis Space Center, Miss., are also included under the memorandum.
Engineers have begun work at TRW's Space Park facility on the first satellites ever jointly developed by U.S. and Korean aerospace companies. Engineering offices housing more than 100 engineers opened last week in Redondo Beach, Calif., as part of a $75 million contract TRW received earlier this year to participate in the Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite (KOMSAT) program. TRW received a 52-month contract in March from the Korean Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) to build two ready-to-launch satellites.
The U.S. Air Force has completed its Project Strike demonstration, in which mission updates were sent by satellite to a B-1B bomber and an F-15E fighter. Immediately after takeoff-the B-1B from Ellsworth AFB, S.D., and the F-15E from Eglin AFB, Fla.-the aircraft began receiving information "for a simulated forward edge of the battle area penetration at Nellis [AFB, Nev.]," said Maj. Gregory (Guido) Hawkes, Project Strike program manager.
Pentagon rules covering when and how to pay some of industry's merger costs don't comply with the requirements set down by Congress last year, the General Accounting Office concluded. The Defense Dept. distinguishes between internal and external restructuring activities, a practice that winds up excluding certain costs from the certification requirements laid down in Section 818 last summer, when conferees decided to formalize procedures that had been used to justify paying merger costs on a case-by-case basis (DAILY, Aug. 12, 1994, page 239).
The U.S. Air Force's Air Combat Command has awarded an $86 million contract to a unit of Loral Corp. to continue operations and maintenance of electronic combat systems at a Nevada training range.
Nearly seven years into the U.S.-Japan FS-X fighter co-development effort, Japanese officials remain reluctant to share certain technologies with the U.S., even though technology exchange is one of the key agreements underpinning the entire program, the General Accounting Office reported.
Hughes plans to announce tomorrow the kickoff of a venture aimed at offering real-time wire service news to the desktop level via satellite. The service will allow subscribers to pay for only the information they use. Hughes Network Systems is teamed in the venture with Wave Systems Corp. and Verity, Inc.
TRW has more in mind than building staff. When it's done hiring, management says it's ready to think about a "major acquisition," but no targets are in sight. Analysts think it would be in the multi-billion dollar range.
Raytheon and Northrop Grumman will offer a low-cost derivative of the Tri-Service Standoff Attack Missile in the upcoming Joint Air-to- Surface Standoff Missile competition, a Raytheon spokeswoman says. "Raytheon and Northrop Grumman have concluded a cooperative agreement and have entered into negotiations to develop an exclusive business arrangement in order to jointly bid" JASSM, she said. Raytheon will be the prime, with NG serving as principal subcontractor.
The planned September launch of the second Milstar satellite has been pushed back until November because of problems with the Titan IV rocket, a source said. The problem, which involves a second stage nozzle, has also delayed a Titan IV that had been scheduled to launch a classified payload on Aug. 20 from Vandenberg AFB. Calif., putting that launch on hold for several months.
The Air National Guard is considering acquiring Enhanced Positional Location Reporting Systems (EPLRS) for its F-16 and A-10 fleet, a move the U.S. Air Force is also considering. "I would say we would consider an order for our entire F-16C fleet and our A-10 fleet," Lt. Col. Dave Brubaker, power project branch chief for ANG acquisition, said Friday in an interview. "We're testing the system and we're very excited about it," he said, but he added that "I wouldn't say we've made a final decision yet."
Good news for southern California's skilled aerospace workers-TRW has already hired 400 aerospace engineers this year, and needs to hire another 400 before 1995 is up. Defense revenues jumped to a record $3.2 billion last year at TRW, which claims that its financial recovery has come not only from expanding commercial business but from new defense work as well.
