May 24, 1995 United Technologies Corporation, West Palm Beach, Florida, is being awarded a $14,596,059 Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contract for three F100-PW-229 spare engines applicable to the F-15E aircraft. Contract is expected to be completed September 1995. Contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. One firm was solicited and one proposal was received. Negotiations were complete February 1995. Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio is the contracting activity (F33657-94/D-2001, Order 0009).
ORBITAL SCIENCES CORP. AND GRC INTERNATIONAL will develop, produce and market hand-held devices to detect airborne chemical warfare agents. The two companies said yesterday that under a new agreement, Orbital will provide the engineering and marketing expertise, while GRCI will apply its capabilities in chemical detection, signal processing, information display and R&D.
TELEVISION BROADCASTS LIMITED (TVB), the world's largest producer and distributor of Chinese-language TV programming, will use a high-powered Ku-band PanAmSat satellite to increase its reach in Asia. Hong Kong-based TVB will use PanAmsat's Pacific Ocean region PAS-2 satellite for coverage of Taiwan and other countries in northeast Asia.
U.S. airworthiness authorities yesterday cleared Boeing's new 777 widebody twin, powered by Pratt&Whitney PW4084 turbofans and flown by launch customer United, for full three-hour Extended Twin Operations, or ETOPS, from entry-into-service next month. The clearance was expected-FAA's top certification official, Tony Broderick, telegraphed that the approval was in-hand barring the unforeseen (DAILY, April 5, page 22)-but it's still an important hurdle for the program to have cleared.
Johnson Space Center managers responsible for the safety of human subjects in medical tests failed to correct safety shortcomings identified in the wake of an incident in which a test subject's heart stopped briefly, and so were saddled with the same shortcomings six months later when astronaut Bonnie Dunbar suffered a life-threatening allergic reaction during an experiment.
May 22, 1995 TRW, Incorporated, Space and Electronics, Redondo Beach, California, is being awarded an $89,248,823 face value increase to a Fixed Price Incentive contract for a three year extension of launch support services for Defense Support Program Satellites 18-22. Contract is expected to be completed September 2000. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California is the contracting activity (F04701-86/C-0022, P00085).
AIRTOUCH COMMUNICATIONS, San Francisco, has formed a joint venture with Malaysian conglomerate Sime Darby to act as the exclusive provider of Globalstar mobile satellite services in Malaysia. AirTouch will provide technical and marketing services while Sime Darby will provide general and financial management. AirTouch has formed a similar joint venture with Itochu Corp., a major Japanese trading company, to market Globalstar services in Japan.
McDonnell Douglas has identified a number of "low cost capability enhancements" for its F/A-18C/D Hornet that are intended to increase the aircraft's appeal to international customers and also intrigue its main user, the U.S. Navy. "There are some near term technology upgrades on the C/D that we would like to pursue to enhance the capability of the airplane," said Darryl Stephenson, a senior MDC spokesman. These upgrades could all be done "reasonably affordably," he said.
AMERICAN MOBILE SATELLITE CORP. has experienced a problem with its on-orbit AMSC-1 (formerly MSAT 1) mobile communications satellite. During on-orbit testing, a transmission was sent to the satellite that caused certain components in the communication payload to overheat, damaging one of eight output hybrid matrix ports that serve the spot beams covering the eastern and central U.S. AMSC said adjustments in the operation of the satellite can be made to compensate for the power loss, and believes and life span of the satellite-the first U.S.
LOCKHEED MARTIN COMMERCIAL LAUNCH SERVICES said yesterday it has signed a contract to launch the Indonesia Palapa C communications satellite on an Atlas IIAS rocket in January 1996 from Cape Canaveral Air Station. The company said the contract was signed with PT. Satelit Palapa Indonesia (SATELINDO) and PT. Pasifik Satelit Nusantara (PSN) in Jakarta on May 12. The two companies are joint owners of the Palapa C. Lockheed said this will be the first launch of the Palapa C series.
The Defense Dept.'s senior leadership has failed to provide the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program manager with the necessary support to make difficult choices, and instead of rationalizing competing requirements the current approach seeks to accommodate all the diverse, unaffordable and unnecessary requirements of all the services, the House National Security Committee has contended.
May 26, 1995 McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems, Mesa, Arizona, is being awarded a $71,400,000 modification to a firm fixed price contract for 12 Apache Helicopters and Manufacturing/Standard Program Support for Egypt. Work will be performed in Mesa, Arizona, and is expected to be completed by August 30, 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current year. This is a sole source contract solicited on May 1, 1995. The contracting activity is the U.S. Army Aviation and Troop Command, St. Louis, Missouri (DAAJ09-92-C-A001).
Russia has inaugurated its first satellite-based business data relay system, with an AT&T subsidiary specializing in very small aperture terminal (VSAT) technology working under contract to Russia's largest retail bank. The Sbercom system, developed for Russia's state Savings Bank (Sberbank) by AT&T Tridom and the Pilot Design Bureau of the Moscow Energy Institute (OKB MEI), went on line May 19 under an agreement that was signed in October 1994 (DAILY, Nov. 22, 1994, page 272).
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine over the Black Sea Fleet of the former Soviet Union is preventing the presidents of the two countries from signing an agreement on space cooperation that has already been completed. The agreement must be signed by Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma in Kiev, but at the Commonwealth of Independent States summit in Minsk on May 26 Yeltsin said that "until we agree [on the Black Sea Fleet] there can not even be talk about me coming to Kiev."
The U.S. has boosted its air presence near the Adriatic in response to the escalating events in Bosnia over the past few days, a Defense Dept. spokesman told reporters yesterday. Six EF-111 tactical jamming planes temporarily assigned to Aviano AB, Italy, will not return to the U.S. but stay at Aviano indefinitely. Two AC- 130 gunships on recall at Brindisi AB, Italy, have now been assigned with two other AC-130s to Operation Deny Flight. Also, five more KC-135 tankers have been added to an existing 10 at Pisa, Italy, and Istres, France.
The House National Security Committee, taking up the recommendation of its research and development subcommittee, has restricted how the Navy can spend fiscal 1996 funds for the Stand-off Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response (SLAM-ER). The committee also called on the Defense Dept. to immediately establish a Navy/Air Force program for the accelerated development of a joint air-to-surface stand-off missile (JASSM) system as a near-term replacement for the Tri-Service Stand-off Attack Missile.
Lockheed and Boeing on Friday received a $9.5 million, two-year Air Force contract to study derivatives of the F-22 air superiority fighter, while Pratt&Whitney received a separate $500,000 AF contract to pursue improved performance of the F-22's F119 engine. Under the long-awaited contract, Lockheed-Boeing will look at how the F-22 could meet AF requirements in strategic attack/interdiction, lethal and non-lethal suppression of enemy air defenses, reconnaissance and surveillance.
Upcoming mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery will carry a five-member crew, even though the primary job of the five- or eight-day mission will be to deploy a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS). The 19-ton satellite will be pushed out of the cargo bay on the first flight day, leaving the crew plenty of time to make observations and conduct microgravity experiments in the middeck, including a National Institutes of Health rodent experiment that is the only reason for keeping the Shuttle aloft for eight days.
Defense Dept. procurement and RDT&E funding will reach a steady state after 2001 if DOD can realize its 47% increase for modernization in the future years defense plan (FYDP), DOD's top acquisition official Paul Kaminski tells reporters. Measured in 1996 dollars, procurement funding will be around $80 billion or $90 billion, he says, while RDT&E will come in around $35 billion to $40 billion.
