Weak leadership by the Joint Staff continues to hobble efforts to train U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen to work and fight together, despite a string of attempts since the mid-1970s to strengthen the Joint Staff's oversight, the General Accounting Office concluded.
Secretary of Defense William Perry's decision late Friday to allow Airborne Self-Protection Jammers to be integrated into F/A-18s flying over Bosnia-Herzegovina raises the possibility of foreign sales. "This is a temporary modification based upon the current threat in the Bosnia operational area and the Joint Staff's concurrence with the operational need," a DOD statement explaining Perry's decision said. "This approval should not be interpreted as an approval of the AN/ALQ-165 [ASPJ] as a long-term solution without further formal review."
-- ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY LABORATORIES, Camden, N.J., is working under a $3 million contract to develop technologies for automation of ship systems. Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Div., awarded the contract June 15.
Pratt&Whitney has taken delivery of the first RD-120 rocket engine shipped as part of its agreement with Russia's NPO Energomash to market the engine as a small-booster power plant. The Russian/Ukrainian-built engine was delivered to P&W's Government Engines&Space Propulsion (GESP) test facility in West Palm Beach, Fla., the company said. Pratt said it was the first flight-qualified production rocket engine delivered to the U.S. from Russia, and will be used for design studies and two hot-fire tests.
The U.S. Army Research Laboratory has developed a process that it says could substantially reduce the cost of composite structures in weapon systems like the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter. Two separate systems were developed, one in the process control arena and one in processing itself, ARL Director John W. Lyons said during a recent presentation at the Pentagon.
DON H. DAVIS was named president and chief operating office of Rockwell International Corp. yesterday, the company reported. He was previously executive vice president and COO, with primary responsibility for Rockwell's automation, automotive and telecommunications businesses. Kent M. Black, executive vice president and a COO with primary responsibility for aerospace, defense, avionics and graphics business, will retire early next year, the company said.
-- ALLIANCE For Competitive International Satellite Service is taking another swipe at Inmarsat-P. The group of U.S. satellite telecommunications firms asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny Comsat's application to invest in the I-CO Global Communications satellite venture, a spinoff of Inmarsat that is commonly known as Inmarsat-P. The group said the involvement of Comsat, the U.S. signatory to Inmarsat, "will only enhance the anti-competitive aspects of the Inmarsat-P" venture.
-- ANALYSIS&TECHNOLOGY INC., North Stonington, Conn., is supplying engineering support services for current and future submarines, surface combatants and advanced naval vehicles under a $14 million contract awarded June 22 by the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, Bethesda, Md.
-- MICROLITHICS INC., Golden, Colo., was awarded a $20.4 million contract by the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, Va., for AN/UYK- 44(V) Militarized Reconfigurable Processor (MPR) Standard Electronic Modules (SEMs). The modules are installed in militarized reconfigurable computer systems. The contract was awarded on June 26.
-- U.S. COMMERCE DEPT. has extended the Landsat system contract until the demise of Landsats 4 and 5. Under the extension, EOSAT will continue its role as the system operator and exclusive marketer of Landsat data.
-- SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL CORP. (SAIC), San Diego, received an $8.1 million contract June 21 from the Naval Coastal Command and Ocean Systems Center for C4I open systems engineering and technical support.
The House panel that funds NASA is ordering the space agency to draw up plans that would essentially close three of its centers-Goddard Space Flight Center, Marshall Space Flight Center and Langley Research Center-by the fall of 1998.
The House Appropriations national security subcommittee will begin its three-day markup of defense appropriations today with a budget allocation of $244.1 billion in fiscal 1996 budget authority. The Appropriations Committee allocated the subcommittee $244.1 billion in budget authority (B.A.) and $244.3 billion in outlays as its share of national security funding.
The Societe Europeenne des Satellites (SES) has exercised an option to order a sixth satellite from Hughes Space and Communications International, Hughes announced. The new satellite, designated Astra 1H, is identical to a high-powered Hughes HS-601 ordered by SES in January and will act as an in-orbit spare in the Astra constellation. SES plans to launch the satellite in 1998, Hughes said.
Army Research Laboratory is in the process of evaluating proposals to award five technology partnership contracts to support the Army's battlefield digitization initiative. Technology partnership contracts worth a total of $31 million will be awarded in the areas of telecommunications, advanced displays, software and intelligent systems, advanced distributed simulation and advanced sensors, ARL director John Lyons reported.
The Airbus A330 powered by Pratt&Whitney's PW4168 engine has received 180-minute extended twin operations (ETOPS) following the successful completion of over 20,000 hours of revenue service, the engine company said yesterday. The propulsion system completed what Pratt called a "rigorous 2,000 cycles of accelerated endurance testing" to win the 180- minute rating from the Joint Airworthiness Authorities of Europe. The engine was granted 90-minute ETOPS approval last Nov. 10. It entered service seven months ago with Thai International and currently powers 16 A330s.
-- SECHAN ELECTRONICS INC., Littiz, Pa., will supply 2,100 Mk. 39 Expendable Mobile ASW Training Targets (EMATTs) under an $8 million contract awarded June 28 by Naval Sea Systems Command.
-- WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORP.'S Naval Systems Div., Cleveland, received a $6.4 million contract from Naval Sea Systems Command on June 30 for five Mk. 48 Torpedo ADCAP MODS Guidance and Control (G&C) kits, 32 Mk. 48 ADCAP MODS G&C sections, five Mk. 48 MODS Torpedo Propulsion Upgrade (TPU) kits, 32 Mk. 48 ADCAP MODS TPU afterbody/tailcone sections, 37 exercise fuel tank upgrade kits, 100 warfare electronic systems, as well as proofing and installation support, and associated engineering and technical services.
Robert Lach, deputy director for requirements at Air Force Materiel Command, will head the Air Force's newly created centralized support team responsible for streamlining all requests for proposal, contract options and contract modifications over $10 million. The team, established as a result of acting AF acquisition chief Darleen Druyun's acquisition reform plan (DAILY, June 12, page 397; June 1, page 337), will review documents for about 120 USAF actions covering the first six months of this fiscal year.
Boeing confirmed yesterday that it and its Super Jumbo study partners have reached a conclusion telegraphed more than a year ago-a very large commercial transport, or VLCT, would be a lot easier to build than to sell. Even though the second phase of the joint study involving Boeing, British Aerospace, Aerospatiale, CASA and Daimler-Benz Aerospace "confirmed the technical feasibility of an aircraft to carry up to 800 passengers," Boeing said that "market studies do not indicate sufficient volumes to justify the launch of the program today."
-- OFFICE OF NAVAL RESEARCH is soliciting industry for advanced notional war fighting concepts which could be employed by the fleet by about 2015. The concepts will be used in the Technology Initiatives Game (TIG-95), to be conducted Sept. 18-22. TIG-95, ONR said in a June 29 Commerce Business Daily notice, "will assess the potential impact of [new] concepts on the Navy's future war fighting capability."
-- SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL CORP. (SAIC), San Diego, on June 27 received a $15.5 million contract for services in the areas of systems performance analysis, acoustic and environmental modeling, data collection and analysis in support of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Environmental and Tactical Support Systems Department, New London, Conn. Ninety-two proposals were solicited and one was received.
The U.S. Navy is putting the newest version of its Tactical Aircraft Mission Planning System (TAMPS) through final testing and expects to field the system "at the end of August," a program official said Friday. The testing of TAMPS version 6.03, which is in line to replace version 5.0, is scheduled to be completed at the end of this month. A final report will be issued sometime in August, clearing the way for installation of the new software, Brian M. Riely, the Navy's TAMPS program manager said during an interview at his office in Arlington, Va.
A range scheduling conflict has forced Lockheed Martin Missiles&Space to reschedule its planned first flight of the new Lockheed Launch Vehicle (LLV), the company reported. The new launch date will be July 25, with LLV-1 scheduled to fly from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., instead of on July 18 as originally scheduled (DAILY, July 6, page 12) on one of two separate launch windows. Lockheed Martin said the slip was forced solely by range scheduling, and stressed that its launch vehicle would have been ready to fly on the 18th as originally planned.
Dazed after recording its first-ever post-war loss, Germany's Daimler-Benz thinks Europe's enginemakers should band together to form a single company, and on-again off-again talks between Daimler's engine leadership and the BMW/Rolls-Royce venture took on new urgency last week thanks to the financial results. Daimler's vision is to combine its own enginemaker, MTU, with rival BMW/Rolls-a prospect MTU partner Pratt&Whitney doesn't like, and one that BMW/Rolls' biggest customer, Gulfstream Aircraft, finds uncomfortable.
