LOCKHEED AERONAUTICAL SYSTEMS CO. will supply the Navy with 76 Auxiliary Switching Matrix (ASM) units for P-3C aircraft. "The ASM is being designed in conjunction with the P-3C Communications Improvement Program (CIP) and will be a common box with the Global Positioning System (GPS) installation," U.S. Naval Air Systems Command said in a May 18 Commerce Business Daily notice. "These 76 units are being procured to support the October 1995 start of GPS installations into P-3C aircraft."
NASA headquarters has given life sciences officials at Johnson Space Center until mid-June to develop a plan for tightening controls over research involving human subjects in the wake of an incident last fall in which astronaut Bonnie Dunbar suffered a severe allergic reaction to a test chemical.
Rear Adm. Brent Bennitt, the U.S. Navy's air warfare director, says the service is working to keep a number of sustainability issues in the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program high on the agenda. Vulnerable to being pushed back, he tells The DAILY at an Association of Naval Aviation conference in Alexandria, Va., are such issues as sustaining the plane in a sea air environment-special attention is required here-and ensuring that JAST is maintainable with tools now aboard Navy carriers.
NASA is relying on industry to provide about half of the savings it believes it has found with its zero-base review, adopting a "crawl before you walk" approach to privatizing the Space Shuttle and other functions, Administrator Daniel S. Goldin told reporters Friday.
Massive networking makes the U.S. "the world's most vulnerable target for information warfare," Adm. William O. Studeman, deputy director of central intelligence, tells a National Security Industrial Association symposium in Washington. "As an essentially open information giant, we have much more to lose in information warfare than most of our enemies-and anyone can be the target of an attack," he says. U.S.
The U.S. Air Force still has no preference on whether its Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) aircraft is turboprop- or turbofan-powered, says acting AF acquisition chief Darleen A. Druyun, and will make its choice from among six competitors around June 21 based on "best-value." Druyun insists before the House Appropriations National Security subcommittee that a single airplane characteristic won't drive the service's decision. The Beechcraft/Pilatus and Northrop/Embraer entries are turboprop powered, while the other four have turbofans.
Raytheon Co. has received a $35.9 million U.S. Army contract for the Enhanced Fiber Optic Guided Missile (EFOG-M) demonstration program. The company said Friday that the contract includes options for an additional $100 million. The total value of the program could ultimately exceed hundreds of millions of dollars, Raytheon said.
Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations national security subcommittee, says he doesn't see the funds to keep the B-2 bomber line open and also upgrade the B-1 bomber force. The answer for the time being is to go with the B-1, he says. "I'd like to see the B-2 continue, and I'm saying in the short run the B-1 has to be fixed up," he says at a subcommittee hearing.
NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY, Raleigh, N.C., will fabricate and support large scale (about 1/5 actual size) remotely piloted vehicles for use in flight simulations by the Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Div., Patuxent River, Md. "The anticipated period of performance is for a base year with four one year options," NAWC-AD said in a May 18 Commerce Business Daily notice.
LAV-25 TRAINER sought by the U.S. Marine Corps "should be portable, appended, high fidelity, full crew, and designed to support gunnery and crew communication/coordination training contained in FMFM 6-32 Light Armored Vehicle Gunnery Employment," according to a May 18 Commerce Business Daily notice from the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Div., Orlando, Fla.
The House yesterday approved the House Budget Committee's plan to balance the federal budget by 2002 while increasing defense budget authority by $69 billion over the Administration's plan through the year 2000. Approval came on a 238-193 vote that largely followed party lines, with the Republican majority prevailing. The vote came after alternative plans were defeated.
The General Accounting Office urged the U.S. Army yesterday to finish operational testing on the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter before making production decisions on the program, citing the risk of committing to low- rate production nearly a year before testing even begins. Typically programs that have gone into low-rate initial production before operational testing was finished, such as the T-45 trainer and C-17 airlifter, have had troubled histories, requiring extensive-and expensive- modification to fix problems uncovered in tests.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jeremy Boorda said yesterday that he is more confident about the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program that he was a few months ago, but that the Navy will continue to watch it closely. "JAST has to produce...we're not looking for anything else," he said.
The crash Wednesday of a U.S. Navy F/A-18D in northwest New Mexico claimed the lives of the commander of the USS Carl Vinson carrier battle group, Rear Adm. James G. Prout III, and his pilot, Cdr. Joseph G. Kleefisch, commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 25, based at NAS Lemoore, Calif.
Eurofighter DA.2 made its first flight in nearly a year Wednesday night, kicking off an intensive flight-testing phase which Eurofighter executives hope will clear the plane for Paris Air Show demonstrations next month and make up for time lost while the Eurofighter prototypes were grounded for flight control system work. The second prototype, built by Eurofighter partner British Aerospace, was supposed to return to flying status last weekend (DAILY, May 15, page 243) but further delays, mostly due to weather, forced BAe to wait.
ECC INTERNATIONAL CORP., Wayne, Pa., said its ECC Simulation Ltd. subsidiary in the U.K. has received a $12.1 million follow-on contract from Vickers Defense Systems to support training on the British Army's Challenger II main battle tank.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS AEROSPACE, St. Louis, will supply an F/A-18 Weapon Systems Training Device to the Kuwait Air Force under terms of a Foreign Military Sales contract. U.S. Naval Air Systems Command said in a May 15 Commerce Business Daily notice that MDC is the only known firm capable of carrying out the work in the time required.
One of NASA's SR-71 Blackbirds is scheduled to return to the Skunk Works for modifications that will allow it to test a scaled-down version of an aerospike engine intended for use on the Lockheed Martin X-33 Reusable Launch Vehicle. Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works, formerly Lockheed Advanced Development Co., will change the structure of the SR-71 to allow it to carry the engine, a spokesman at the Palmdale, Calif., facility said. The modification will add "a small platform" to the aircraft, he said.
Work on the International Space Station is gathering steam under its new management structure, according to program managers at prime contractor Boeing and its major subcontractors, who say morale and enthusiasm among the 4,200 contractor personnel on the project grows with each additional pound of metal bent.
NASA's plan to restructure itself may not reach the $5 billion in savings that was its five-year target, and could fall short by as much as $600 million even as it trims almost 20,000 jobs from space agency and contractor payrolls.
PULAU ELECTRONICS CORP., Orlando, Fla., is in line for a contract from the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division to "provide Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and several OCONUS sites with operational and training support for the Brigade/Battalion Battle Simulation (BBS), Corps Battle Simulation (CBS), and JANUS Battle Focus Trainer," according to a May 15 Commerce Business Daily notice. "This support will be required from 30 Sept. 1995 through 30 Sept. 1996," it said.
NASA managers have decided to accept an independent panel's recommendation to contract out Space Shuttle operations in a cost-saving move that could be the first step toward privatizing the reusable launch vehicle entirely.
Unisys Corp. will fit out some U.S. Navy P-3 patrol planes to fire the Maverick missile. U.S. Naval Air Systems Command announced in a May 17 Commerce Business Daily notice that it intends to procure supplies and services from Unisys to equip 22 Orions to launch the Hughes Aircraft air-to-surface missile. It didn't say why the work was being carried out, but it did say the P-3Cs will be pre-AIP, or Anti-Surface Warfare Improvement Program planes.
The U.S. Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center yesterday released a request for proposals for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. The RFP release began early yesterday evening after Defense Secretary William Perry signed off on a policy regarding the use of foreign technology in the EELV program. The RFP had been slated for release last Friday or on Monday, but was held up until Perry approved the policy. Details of the final draft were not immediately available.
The House Budget Committee would pump about $6 billion of its proposed $9.7 billion increase in fiscal 1996 defense budget authority into procurement. In its report released yesterday, the committee said its resolution would provide for a national defense budget authority function of $267.3 billion and "would equate to approximately $45 billion in budget authority for procurement so as to reverse the long-term decline in that account." The Administration's procurement request is $39.4 billion.
