ITT AEROSPACE/COMMUNICATIONS DIV., Fort Wayne, Ind., received a $145.7 million contract on March 30 from U.S. Army Communications- Electronics Command for Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio Systems (SINCGARS). It received another CECOM award of $28.9 million that day for additional SINCGARS work.
The U.S. Army and Marine Corps ammunition inventory is stocked beyond requirements, but several types are below the services' stated inventory requirements, according to a GAO study revealed Tuesday. The GAO's analyses of Army and Marine Corps munition stockpiles- "Industrial Base: Inventory and Requirements for Artillery Projectiles" (GAO/NSIAD-95-89)-found that the Army is short by 172,059 munitions and the Marine Corps by 407,823 projectiles.
LITTON ELECTRON DEVICES, Tempe, Ariz., has received an additional $10.8 million for 4,000 AN/PVS-7B night vision ground goggles. The contract was awarded March 31 by U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command.
Hughes in coming years will acquire and sell off businesses, focusing on core competencies while at the same time growing its space and telecommunications business to at least one-third of its overall revenues, C. Michael Armstrong, Hughes Electronics Div.'s CEO, said yesterday in Washington. Domestic and international space and telecommunication ventures, such as direct broadcast satellites, could grow enough to equal and possibly surpass the company's efforts in automotive electronics and the defense business, Armstrong told defense writers.
ITT ELECTRO OPTICS PRODUCTS DIV., Roanoke, Va., was awarded $21.5 million more for 6,000 AN/PVS-7B night vision ground goggles. U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command awarded the contract on March 31.
GENERAL DYNAMICS Land Systems Div., Sterling Heights, Mich., on March 31 received a $166.5 million contract from the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Command for 132 M1A1 Abrams tank hardware kits for Egypt. Work under the award will be completed by March 31, 1997, the Dept. of Defense said.
Discussions on the transfer to Canada of four new British conventional submarines are nearly complete. The last of the four "Upholder" class hunter-killer subs, costing around $1.6 billion, entered service with the Royal Navy only last year-but almost immediately joined the others in storage at Barrow-in-Furness because of defense cutbacks.
SBS Engineering Inc. said it plans to sell its flight simulator business to Camber Corp. of Huntsville, Ala. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. SBS said Tuesday that it has entered into a letter of intent with Camber, which, it said, "will complete work on the backlog of existing SBS Engineering flight simulation orders and will assume responsibility for all outstanding customer proposals and quotations."
The Defense Dept.'s bureaucracy, including some of the defense agencies and field activities, must be cut back, Rep. Floyd D. Spence (R- S.C.), chairman of the House National Security Committee said Tuesday.
Pratt&Whitney is looking to increase its overhaul and repair business by 1998, a move that could involve three or four acquisitions, according to Karl Krapek, the company's president. Pratt now generates about $500 million from its overhaul and repair business, Krapek said, but the goal is a $1 billion increase within the next three years.
An Israeli Shavit rocket yesterday launched the OFEQ-3 satellite. Israel Aircraft Industries, which built the satellite, said it is "suitable for various commercial, scientific, and technological payloads, for a variety of applications." The applications are thought to include intelligence functions. The satellite orbits the earth every 90 minutes at an inclination of 37 degrees, IAI said.
AEL Industries said its Aero Div. in East Alton, Ill., is converting three Shorts SD3-60 aircraft from passenger to cargo configuration under a contract from Short Brothers (USA), Arlington, Va. A contract for a similar modification of a fourth aircraft is expected, AEL said yesterday. The first SD3-60 was delivered in December, and work was completed in less than 45 days, AEL said. Two other planes are in work at the Aero Div.'s modification center at the St. Louis Regional Airport.
COMPUTER SCIENCES CORP.'s Applied Technology Div., San Diego, received a sole source U.S. Navy contract March 30 for systems development and life cycle support for the Advanced Combat Direction System (ACDS) program. The contract was awarded by the Naval Command, Control and Ocean Surveillance Center, Research, Development, Test and Evaluation Div., San Diego.
Floating bases with structures up to 4,000 feet long are being eyed by the U.S. Navy as staging sites for aircraft and for storage of pre- positioned equipment. Naval Sea Systems Command said in an April 6 Commerce Business Daily notice that it is "assessing alternative concepts for providing Mobile (or Maritime) Offshore Bases (MOBs) in the future."
Talley Defense Systems, Phoenix, and General Motors' Delphi Interior and Lighting Systems have agreed to develop a new driver-side automotive airbag inflator, Talley said. Talley leveraged its R&D efforts in the propellant business to become a pioneer in the development of the automotive airbag, but sold the business in 1989. The terms under which it made the sale, however, allowed it to re-enter the business after April 21, 1994.
House-Senate negotiators yesterday cut Senate rescissions in half on the AH-64 Apache helicopter and the Joint Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (JT-UAV) programs as they reached agreement on a $3.07 billion fiscal 1995 defense supplemental, congressional sources said. The compromise bill would be offset by $2.26 billion in national security appropriations and $450 million from other defense programs in different appropriations bills, they said.
VITRO CORP., Rockville, Md., will provide engineering services for installation of submarine sonar equipment under a $9.5 million U.S. Navy contract. Vitro, a subsidiary of Tracor Inc., said March 23 that it will conduct feasibility studies for the installation of new equipment, develop installation plans, and monitor submarine construction. It will also review engineering, logistics, and configuration management documentation.
ADVANCED MARINE ENTERPRISES INC., Arlington, Va., has won a $32.4 million contract from U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command for services to support new ship design, ship modification, ship conversion, and ship modernization, in support of Naval Sea Systems Command programs and projects. The Dept. of Defense announced the award on April 4.
The U.S. Army could be flying some of the first AH-64D Longbow Apache helicopters to come of the production line in the brigade level digitization exercise if the scheduled 1997 date slips, an industry source said yesterday. The first production AH-64Ds are expected to come off the line in March 1997, but the Brigade Task Force XXI advanced warfighting exercise (AWE) to test the effect of advanced technology on the battlefield is scheduled February 1997.
Army Lt. Gen. Malcolm R. O'Neill, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, told a House National Security subcommittee Tuesday that a $400 million-$800 million plus-up of the $371 million fiscal 1996 funding for National Missile Defense could cut the development time in half and permit deployment by the year 2000. O'Neill also told the procurement subcommittee that an increase of $300 million in the $2.1 billion Theater Missile Defense funding would fund a robust program.
NEPTUNE SCIENCES INC., Slidell, La., won a four-year, $7.6 million contract from U.S. Naval Research Laboratory for research on littoral systems and models. The Dept. of Defense said March 30 that the contract was competitively procured under a broad agency announcement.
AlliedSignal and Amerigon Inc. have agreed to jointly develop an auto safety radar system based on ultra-wide band radar, the companies said Tuesday. "The project will focus on potential applications of ultra-wide band radar sensors in AlliedSignal safety restraint systems-including predictive sensing of conditions inside the passenger compartment, such as the position of occupants before a collision," they said. Amerigon, of Monrovia, Calif., has rights to the technology, which was originally developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
A total of 1,430 NASA employees have opted to take early retirement in return for cash payments of up to $25,000 each, according to final buyout numbers released yesterday by the space agency. Among those accepting buyouts were 56 senior executive service level NASA officials. Langley Research Center Director Paul Holloway, who was considering the buyout offer (DAILY, March 22, page 430), has elected to remain with NASA.
Raytheon's borrowing to buy E-Systems doesn't preclude the company from buying still more, whether it's another company or Raytheon stock, Raytheon Chairman Dennis J. Picard told The DAILY yesterday. E-Systems will start paying for itself right away, and while much of Raytheon's current capital structure is built around short-term debt, Raytheon expects to wind up putting much of the acquisition debt in intermediate-to-long term instruments.
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS MD-90 carried its first passengers in revenue flight on April 1, the company said yesterday. Launch customer Delta Airlines inaugurated service with the twin-jet airliner from Dallas/Fort Worth at 5:27 p.m., flying passengers to Newark.
