U.S. defense contractors must help Congress identify economies in defense spending as the fiscal 1996 Defense Appropriations Bill works its way through Congress if pro-defense lawmakers are to be able to "freeze" the Pentagon budget instead of letting it shrink as the Administration desires, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee said yesterday.
GERMANY'S space agency, DARA, will place a higher priority on efforts that yield back near-to-medium term economic benefit, DARA Director General Jan-Baldem Mennicken told an AIAA audience. That means increasing concentration on areas such as remote sensing, navigation, and telecommunications-at the expense of some scientific research, he says.
The U.S. Air Force Standard Systems Group, Maxwell AFB, Ala., selected a Loral unit to provide the Defense Dept. with a new electronic messaging system which the company hopes will also appeal to the intelligence community and other customers. Manassas, Va.-based Loral Federal Systems will provide integration services, software, hardware, maintenance, training, installation and data as part of the Defense Message System-Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile (GOSIP) contract.
An Airbus A320 twinjet testbed just finished a series of flight tests that will pave the way for full investigation of laminar-flow systems beginning in 1997, Airbus Industrie reported. The plane completed 10 hours of testing in five flights to check and validate instrumentation installed on the aircraft's tail that will detect airflows around the tail and fuselage. Researchers examined normal airflows around the aircraft in great detail during the tests, which began in March, and will use that data as a baseline during the second phase.
Boeing Co. and Rockwell International have received additional funding for work on the E-6A TACAMO aircraft program. Both contracts were awarded May 1 by Naval Air Systems Command. Boeing Defense and Space Group, Seattle, got $5.6 million to continue its effort on an automatic autothrottle flight control system for the E-6A. Rockwell's Command and Control Systems Div., Richardson, Tex., got $26.5 million for a high-power transmit set for the plane.
Proposals to add up to $47.9 billion in budget authority and $46 billion in outlays over the Clinton Administration budget for fiscal 1996- 2000 were revealed yesterday by the Senate Budget Committee. The panel starts its markup of the budget for '96-'00 today, and the House Budget Committee will begin its markup tomorrow.
The Defense Dept. is rewriting its rules for purchasing items but will likely hold off activating the new regulations until the new fiscal year starts October 1, says Colleen Preston, DOD's acquisition reform deputy under secretary. But new small purchase procedures will be released at the beginning of next month, she says, and are slated to take effect July 1.
The White House is working on a draft Presidential Review Directive on information warfare to fill-in the lack of any national policy on the subject, says James P. McCarthy, co-chairman of the Defense Science Board task force on information for the battlefield. The lack of national guidance has hampered efforts to systemize IW developments in defense and commercial sectors, he tells a group of experts on the defense information infrastructure in Washington.
The Army's digitization program is facing a problem with the ballooning of requirements for data transmission throughput, says Lt. Col. Steven Kostek, Information and Electronic Warfare PEO. Kostek predicted that the trend of commanders requesting increasing amounts of imagery will continue, resulting in the need to substantially increase data transmission bandwidth.
Revolutionary advancements in technology are underpinning the U.S. Air Force's plans to maintain its "dominance" of the skies, but budget constraints will mean that an increasing amount of that technology must be pulled from the commercial sector, Defense Secretary William Perry said last week.
While Loral chief Bernard Schwartz last week repeated his worry that the consolidation process could create huge, vertically integrated contractors that will squeeze out second-tier suppliers and major subcontractors (DAILY, March 17, page 406), his counterpart at Northrop Grumman, Kent Kresa, isn't sure it's happening that way. "We're all going away from vertical integration," he says.
TECHNOLOGY, MANAGEMENT AND ANALYSIS CORP., Arlington, Va., beat out two other competitors for a $5.4 million award from U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command for technical and engineering services in support of DDG 51-class Aegis destroyers. The contract was awarded on April 26.
Despite published reports that Senate Armed Services ranking Democrat Sen. Sam Nunn (Ga.) is considering not running for re- election, Nunn gives no signs of phasing out from the Senate. He shows up for lesser subcommittee meetings, participates actively in hearings of the full committee and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, rushes to roll calls and meets constituent groups. For the record, Nunn says he will make a decision on running for re-election in late summer or early fall.
The 16 megabyte applique computers being delivered to the U.S. Army for its digitization effort are going to be stretched to capacity as early as next year, says Bennet Hart, the Army's command and control deputy program executive officer. He said during a recent conference in Arlington, Va. By the time the Warrior Focus exercise comes around, he said, warfighters will require systems with 32 megabytes.
Japanese officials take every chance they can to prod the U.S. to prop up the sagging dollar. The head of the Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies, Naomi Anesaki, tells a Washington aerospace conference that "I must urge monetary authorities to make more serious efforts" to support the dollar. A quick look at history illustrates the problem-in 1985, when Japan became involved in the FS-X fighter, cooperative space programs, and Boeing's 767, a dollar bought 250 yen. Ten years later, a dollar is good for barely 80 yen.
Boeing's plan to launch Ukrainian/Russian Zenit boosters from Norwegian sea platforms is up and running, and should be orbiting satellites from equatorial anchorages in about three years. Top officials from Boeing, Ukraine's NPO Yuzhnoye, Russia's RSC Energia and Norway's Kvaerner A.S signed a definitive agreement in Seattle last Wednesday, formalizing the Sea Launch venture first announced last month (DAILY, April 4, page 12).
Space launch preparation mishaps claimed two lives at Europe's Kourou Space Center in French Guiana last week, while a hydrazine fire slightly damaged the Space Shuttle Endeavour at Kennedy Space Center. Two French technicians were killed Friday while inspecting the Ariane 5 launch pad at Kourou. The European Space Agency said Luc Celle and Jean- Claude Dhainaut were asphyxiated after inhaling an inert gas, and emergency teams were unable to revive them.
A Defense Dept. report on development of a directed architecture for tactical communications has been drafted and should be delivered to Capitol Hill this week or next, Dickman tells Glenn. Congress last year directed DOD to deliver the report by March 31, 1995.
The mix between commercial off-the-shelf, ruggedized and mil- standard applique computers used by the Army's digitized forces during the Task Force XXI exercise in 1997 will be largely cost driven, Hart said. The current mix "will change over time as we have architecture meetings."
BOOZ, ALLEN&HAMILTON INC., McLean, Va., received a $21.8 million contract April 27 from the U.S. Naval Regional Contracting Center, Charleston, S.C., to provide training, education, engineering, technical and management support services for Royal Saudi Naval Forces, under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.
House National Security Committee sets the schedule for its markup of the fiscal 1996 defense authorization. Subcommittee markups start Thursday, with the procurement and research and development subcommittees likely to mark up just before the full committee markup on May 23. Committee sources say House floor action is tentatively set for June 12. The Senate Armed Services Committee is set to mark up its authorization by the end of June, sources say.
FLEET SUPPORT CENTER, Chesapeake, Va., on April 26 received a $12 million contract from the U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center Div., Newport, R.I., to analyze surface ship anti-submarine warfare (ASW) systems.
Consolidation savings should help boost margins at newly combined Lockheed Martin by a full percentage point, to 10%, by 1997, management told financial analysts last week. Merrill Lynch's Byron Callan said that Lockheed Martin believes the consolidation is on track, and "the majority" of the consolidation expenses should hit the company's balance sheet before the end of June, although "there could be an additional, minor charge by year-end 1995."
