The Defense Dept. Friday said it incorrectly reported the amount of a U.S. Air Force contract to McDonnell Douglas for C-17 work. It said the amount wasn't $1 billion (DAILY, July 14, page 59), but $12.6 million.
"Frustrated" Advanced Research Projects Agency Director Larry Lynn plans an agency off-site meeting in September to figure out how to reorganize ARPA, which he feels has gotten too big, industry sources say. A former deputy ARPA director, Lynn is "upset about how things have grown," one source said. The off-site will include an evaluation of ARPA's approach to unmanned aerial vehicles, another source said.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle program offices are "lobbying like hell to go" to Bosnia along with the Tier II Predator, which arrived in the theater last week, a Pentagon source tells The DAILY. A UAV spokesman confirms that top defense officials are considering sending the Hunter joint tactical UAV and the Pioneer as a fallback to the Tier II. Hunter and Pioneer "don't give the range or the coverage, but at least they're something," the spokesman says. The final decision will be made by the joint staff.
Raytheon Aircraft Co. and newly acquired E-Systems helped Raytheon report record second-quarter sales and earnings last Thursday, underscoring the success of the company's diversification strategy. Earnings rose a little less than 2%, to $195.5 million, on $2.8 billion in sales, which were some $300 million ahead of last year's pace.
Debut commercial flight, the launch of the Astra satellite, is expected around the first quarter of 1996. The satellite was built by Hughes for Luxembourg-based SES.
Launch of PAS-4, which will complete PanAmSat's global constellation, is scheduled for Aug. 1 from Kourou, French Guiana. The satellite was built by Hughes.
NASA'S TDRS-G tracking and data relay satellite reached geosynchronous orbit as planned following its launch Thursday aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. An agency spokesman said Friday the satellite, which rode to GEO atop a Boeing Inertial Upper Stage, was "fine" and was being moved to its checkout position at 150 degrees West longitude, a process that will take about two weeks. Discovery was to remain in orbit to conduct a number of middeck experiments before landing July 27 (DAILY, July 14, page 59).
Orbital Sciences Corp. said its two on-orbit Orbcomm satellites have completed on-orbit tests, a major step in the company's plans to bring the communications system on line later this year. The two satellites are the first of 36 planned for the Orbcomm constellation, the first low-Earth orbit satellite system to provide two way commercial communications services. The system will transmit non-voice messages.
Alphonso V. Diaz, NASA's deputy associate administrator for space science, will head planning for the "science institutes" at agency field centers Administrator Daniel S. Goldin has proposed as a cost-saving measure.
NASA eliminated one of Lockheed Martin's two bids for the Earth Observing System (EOS) common satellite bus program from consideration last week, trimming to three the number of competitors for the last major new initiative on the space agency's horizon. Agency procurement officials dropped the bid by Lockheed Martin Missiles&Space in a July 12 downselect because they felt its cost estimates were unrealistic, an agency spokesman said. Lockheed Martin Astro Space, TRW and Hughes survived the cut.
-- STERLING SOFTWARE INC., Dallas, has signed a $40 million, ten-year contract with the U.S. Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center to design, develop and support a major weather depiction and forecast system and an associated central database system for Air Force Global Weather Central at Offutt AFB, Neb. Work under the Cloud Depiction and Forecast System II contract will be carried out by Sterling's Information Technology Div.
Hughes Aircraft Co. has won a $51 million engineering and manufacturing development contract to design, develop and test the U.S. Army's Land Warrior System for the soldier. With partners Motorola and Honeywell, Hughes beat out Litton Industries for the contract. Motorola is the prime contractor for the next- generation 21st Century Land Warrior program. Under Land Warrior, Hughes will integrate existing technology for quick fielding.
The Inmarsat-P mobile satellite project is expected to announce next week that it has tapped Hughes Aircraft Co. to build the 12 satellites for its medium-Earth orbit constellation. Inmarsat-P said earlier this week that is has signed a deal worth more than $1.3 billion with an American company that is "one of the world's leading satellite manufacturers."
The U.S. Patent Office is nearing release of revised versions of two patents TRW has applied for to cover its Odyssey satellite system, sources said yesterday. The office is hoping to release patents next week that will contain "more restrictive" language that was negotiated between the office and TRW, a source said. TRW had no comment yesterday.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS yesterday received $1 billion U.S. Air Force contract for initial follow-on flight testing and affordability program support for the C-17 airlifter.
Astronauts deployed a new Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-G) yesterday, about six hours after the Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off with an upgraded Space Shuttle Main Engine riding in its No. 1 engine slot. NASA said both the launch and the satellite deployment went well, setting TDRS-G up for a boost to its final geosynchronous orbit atop an Inertial Upper Stage (IUS). Once operational as TDRS-7, the satellite will be positioned over the Pacific Ocean at 171 degrees West longitude as a "schedulable spare" used to support Shuttle missions.
U.K. MINISTRY OF DEFENCE has officially selected conventionally armed Tomahawk cruise missiles for its submarine fleet, a Pentagon spokesman said yesterday. The Royal Navy's subs will carry up to 200 Block 3 Tomahawks, each with a 750-pound high-explosive warhead.
The Senate Armed Services Committee has called for establishment of a Senate select committee to review "the continuing value and validity" of the ABM Treaty, and during its one-year review wants all efforts to modify or clarify the Treaty to cease.
-- BOEING DEFENSE&SPACE GROUP has begun fabrication of composite wing-skin panels for the first F-22 fighter. Boeing said it is using a contour tape-laying machine to apply layers of composite resin-impregnated tape to form the supper wing-skin panel of the left wing. "This is an important milestone in the manufacturing phase of the F-22," said Frank Statkus, Boeing F-22 vice president and program manager. "It's exciting to see our designs taking shape as hardware."
GKN's Westland will build McDonnell Douglas AH-64D Apache attack helicopters for Britain's army air corps, new Defense Secretary Michael Portillo confirmed yesterday, announcing a program to build 24 fewer helicopters than planned but for 500 million pounds more than originally proposed.
-- AAR CORP., Elk Grove, Ill., said it has received contracts valued at more than $9 million, including options, for overhaul of engine and airframe components for the U.S. Air Force as well as rapid deployment support products for the U.S. Army.
SASC subcommittee actions on BMDO Actions by the strategic subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Defense Dept.'s fiscal year 1996 request for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization are listed in the following table. Request Change Recommendation Program $ M $ M $ M Patriot System* 666.869 666.869
On its final test flight earlier this month, the McDonnell Douglas DC- X "Delta Clipper" soared 8,200 feet straight above the gypsum dust of White Sands Missile Range, then heeled over until its blunt nose pointed 10 degrees below the horizon before swinging back for a base-first landing using its four throttlable RL-10 rocket engines as brakes.
The outcome of a launch agreement currently being negotiated between the U.S. and Ukraine will likely set a precedent on how the U.S. government deals with the increasingly complex internationalization of the commercial launch business. Sources say U.S. officials are still debating whether or not quotas in the agreement will cover a Boeing-led venture that plans to use Ukrainian rockets but will assemble and launch them outside Ukraine.
