COMSAT CORP. has established a joint venture in Turkey to provide VSAT services over the Turksat satellite network. The venture, Comsat Digital Services, is 51% owned by Comsat, while Koc-Unisys, part of Turkey's Koc Group conglomerate, and Japan's Sumitomo Corp. each own 24.5% of the venture. Initial customers include two of Turkey's largest banks. The VSAT network will use 1.2-meter antennas supplied by NEC Corp. of Japan.
The Navy's controversial plan to award General Dynamics' Electric Boat construction of the lead ship in the new attack submarine (NSSN) program without competition, and to build the third Seawolf sub as a bridge to NSSN construction starting in fiscal 1998, appeared Tuesday to be on shaky ground in the Senate Armed Services seapower subcommittee. "This will be a floor issue," Sen. John W. Warner (Va.), a senior Republican on the subcommittee and full committee, told The DAILY.
The U.S. Air Force has exercised a $22.3 million option for TRW to build a fifth Space Test Experiment Platform (STEP) lightweight satellite, the company announced. The STEP Mission 4 satellite is expected to be launched in mid-1997 carrying two scientific experiments from the Air Force's Phillips Laboratory and one from the Naval Research Laboratory, the company said. The spacecraft will weigh 890 pounds and will be designed to operate for two years in low-Earth orbit.
Cosmonauts aboard Russia's Mir space station will perform an unscheduled extravehicular activity (EVA) Monday after they failed yesterday to complete the transfer of a solar array to make room for a new pressurized module set for launch on Saturday.
INTELSAT 705 spacecraft, launched March 22, has commenced full operations at its 310 degrees East location over the Atlantic Ocean. The satellite provides C- and Ku-band services to customers in Latin America.
A new Defense Dept. strategy on Middle East security is advising Middle Eastern countries not to overextend themselves to acquire weapons systems but otherwise breaks no new ground. The new strategy, released by DOD yesterday, states the nations in the Persian Gulf "must avoid over committing themselves financially or buying forces they cannot maintain and operate."
Boeing formally delivered its first 777 widebody twin to launch customer United Airlines, nearly two years after rival Airbus delivered its first competing A330, but it's a gap that Boeing President Phil Condit said yesterday won't hurt the program. Both Airbus Industrie and the European financial community have made much of the jetliner consortium's early entry into the big twin market, but Condit told reporters here that "a program is not made or broken in a year or two."
The Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Div., China Lake, Calif., has rescheduled its annual industry briefing on classified and unclassified technology transfer projects from late May to October 17-19, according to a May 15 Commerce Business Daily notice.
House National Security Committee Chairman Floyd Spence's mark in the fiscal 1996 defense authorization that the committee will act on next week will provide $500 million in long-lead funding for a buy of three additional B-2 stealth bombers, congressional sources said yesterday. The three would be the first installment in a buy of 20 B-2s that the Administration doesn't want. The U.S. Air Force estimates that a buy of 20 additional B-2s would cost $18 billion in fiscal 1996 dollars.
LOCKHEED MARTIN SERVICES GROUP has won a contract from the U.S. Commerce Dept.'s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to provide primary support of Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES) and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES). The contract runs for one year with four additional one-year options and is valued at $8 million.
NASA LAUNCHED a Super Loki-Dart sounding rocket with a payload built and managed entirely by junior and senior high school students on Friday. Four Florida schools took part in the launch, which used low-cost optical sensors to study atmospheric pollution from an altitude of 45 miles above Wallops Island, Va.
The U.S. Air Force wants to increase the readiness and sustainability of the E-3 AWACS aircraft under a five-year, $640 million contract to be awarded this month. The service's Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom AFB, Mass., is trying to "buy back availability" of the plane, according to Col. James McTighe, ESC's contracting officer for the effort. The objective is boost availability by shortening depot time.
INTELSAT 706 spacecraft was successfully launched aboard an Ariane 44 LP launch vehicle on Wednesday at 2:34 a.m. EDT. The first of three new Intelsat VII-A model spacecraft, the 706 is designed to offer increased beam coverage and power in both C- and Ku-band. It will provide direct-to- home and video distribution services for broadcasters in Argentina, VSAT (very small aperture terminal) services for other Argentinean customers, and expanded rural network services for Guatemala.
A CHILEAN SATELLITE is scheduled for launch on a Russian rocket from the Plesetsk site in Russia on July 15, according to European press reports. The $5 million Fasat-Alfa satellite is designed to transmit meteorological data and measure the ozone layer.
A British Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft crashed in the North Sea off Scotland's northeast coast on Tuesday, but all aboard were rescued. The plane went down at 11:29 GMT about two nautical miles north of Lossiemouth, a U.K. defense ministry spokesman said. At least one of the aircraft's engines and possibly one of the wings are reported to have been on fire before the crash.
A delegation of senior officials from Hughes Space and Communications Co. will be heading back to China to try to iron out differences on the cause of a launch explosion that destroyed a Chinese Long March rocket and the Hughes-built satellite it was carrying. The high-level meeting will take place in Beijing "within a week's time," a Chinese official familiar with the talks said yesterday.
The time when rogue nations can strike Europe, Japan and even outlying portions of the United States with their ballistic missiles is fast approaching, former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) R. James Woolsey warned. Nations in the Middle East such as Iran may be able to reach Europe with ballistic missiles in five years, while North Korea's ballistic missile program is on track to acquire the capability to strike Alaska and Hawaii "sometime in early in the 21st century," Woolsey said Tuesday in a breakfast address on Capitol Hill.
O'GARA SATELLITE NETWORKS, Deer Park, N.Y., has teamed up with Morsviazsputnik, Russia's signatory to Intelsat, and MVS-USA, a marketer of Inmarsat satellite services in the U.S., to form a new satellite communications company known as OGM Communications, Ltd. Orbital Sciences Corp.'s recently-acquired Magellan Systems unit will take a major role in marketing OGM products and services internationally under a strategic alliance.
Russia is "still the country most dangerous to the United States," former Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey said yesterday. While Russian strategic programs and military production have been "radically cut," Moscow is "still keeping enough of the design bureaus going with respect to ballistic missile development" to allow "a healthy program," he told an audience on Capitol Hill.
Charles H. (Nick) Ide was appointed president of United Technologies Microelectronics Center (UTMC). He succeeds Cal Ransom, who retired after 17 years of service.
U.S. NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND will make changes in the basic requirement for the Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (IDECM) program, according to a notice in the May 16 issue of Commerce Business Daily. NavAir also said it will "modify the requirement for the high powered fiber optic decoy, and add requirements for F-15 and B-1 integration." It added that the date for IDECM "has been extended until 10 July 1995." The effort is aimed at reducing the effectiveness of RF and IR threats to tactical aircraft.
David E. Baldwin, associate director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has joined General Atomics in San Diego, Calif., as senior vice president of General Atomics' Fusion Group.
