Advanced Research Projects Agency Director Larry Lynn defended the embattled Technology Reinvestment Project and contended that the Defense Dept. dominates the program selection process and uses military relevance in its choices. "As long as TRP is in the budget and I'm director," Lynn told the House Appropriations national security subcommittee on Thursday, "the military relevance will be the key" in funding programs. TRP is supposed to foster the development of technologies with both military and commercial uses.
The idea of a mixed military airlift fleet of McDonnell Douglas C-17s and off-the-shelf commercial freighters is gaining momentum on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers become more intrigued with the possibilities of using money saved from the C-17 program to pay for other Pentagon programs. Rep.
NASA has set up a panel to investigate a problem on the NOAA-14 weather satellite launched last fall that has shut down its microwave sounding unit, which measures the atmospheric temperature at different altitudes. The unit stopped scanning on March 2, although its motor continued to draw current. When controllers realized the motor was overheating, they shut the unit down to avoid damage, apparently with success. Since then, anomaly controllers have reactivated the unit twice, once on March 15 and again two days later.
Four Titan IV launches are planned in FY '96, three from Cape Canaveral and one from Vandenberg AFB, including the debut flight of the Titan IVB, which will have upgraded solid rocket motors, Kaminsky says.
Kaminski explains the decision to include a low-Earth orbit component in the Air Force's Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) early warning effort. LEO satellites can do a better job of narrowing down missile launch sites, impact points, and booster trajectories, and can provide better mid-course guidance, he says.
Systems being developed by the U.S. Army in its battlefield digitization effort are susceptible to electronic warfare devices now in the U.S inventory and likely to be available to potentially hostile forces in the future, a top Army officer said. Lt. Col. Steven Kostek, the Army's Information and Electronic Warfare (IEW) program executive officer (PEO), said that current Army capabilities to intercept and disrupt digitized communications will be available to potential enemies by the next century.
Pentagon acquisition chief Paul Kaminski believes DOD's plans to finish out the Titan IV heavy lift program at 47 rockets will sufficiently accommodate payload demands until a new heavy-lift EELV comes on line after 2005. The Pentagon had originally planned a total of 65 Titan IVs but trimmed that number last year. Kaminski tells the House Appropriations national security subcommittee that he plans to review the acquisition strategy for the Titan IV follow-on buy, vehicles 42 through 47, later this year. The Air Force will issue an RFP in fiscal 1996, he says.
NASA took a $150 million hit Friday as the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up the fiscal 1995 rescission bill, with the National Transonic Facility at Langley Research Center suffering the deepest cut. Panel members cut $42 million from FY '95 funds allocated to upgrades at the Langley wind tunnel designed to increase productivity, citing plans to build a high-productivity transonic tunnel as part of the proposed $2.3 billion National Wind Tunnel Complex (NWTC).
NASA's investigation into an "altercation" between two senior managers in the headquarters gymnasium has been put on hold, according to an agency spokeswoman. With disciplinary action a possible outcome, one of the participants wants more time to prepare for questioning, she said. Sources have said Wesley L. Harris, associate administrator for aeronautics, and Michael B.
The Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday approved a $1.935 billion supplemental funding bill for the Defense Dept., offset by $1.963 billion in rescissions, by a vote of 28-0. But senators refused to go along with the House's high-profile funding rescissions for the SR-71, NASA wind tunnels and EF-111A improvements, instead launching rescissions of their own from McDonnell Douglas' AH-64 Apache helicopter program and the Joint Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle program.
GEN. MERRILL MCPEAK, former chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been elected to the board of directors of Tektronix Inc., Wilsonville, Ore. Jerome J. Meyer, Tektronix chairman and CEO, said yesterday that "the worldwide perspective [McPeak] gained while running the Air Force will aid us as we work to become more global as a company."
Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) faulted the U.S. Air Force yesterday for canceling the Tri-Service Standoff Attack Missile (TSSAM) without having an alternative, and suggested that a replacement may wind up being more costly. Nunn, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, zeroed in on TSSAM during a hearing on the fiscal year 1996 Air Force budget. In his opening statement, he said he was concerned that neither the Defense Dept.
The Pentagon's latest mobility study concludes that more than 75% of the cargo that must be airlifted within the first two weeks of combat is oversized and outsized-loads that could be difficult or impossible for an off-the-shelf commercial freighter to haul, a top U.S. Air Force official confirmed. Gen. Robert Rutherford, Air Mobility Command chief and U.S. Transportation Command commander-in-chief, told reporters in Orlando Feb.
JAPAN'S SPACE COMMUNICATIONS CORP. has picked Hughes Space and Communications International to build its next Superbird communications platform, the first in the series that will be built by the Hughes unit. The two companies signed an agreement in Los Angeles yesterday for the satellite, a Hughes HS 601 that will be delivered early in 1997. No launch provider has been selected for the platform, which will be built at Hughes facilities in El Segundo, Calif. Designated Superbird C, it will be the third in the series and the first to be built by Hughes.
Although it probably wasn't planned that way, the Clinton Administration's policy initiative to permit sales of offensive weapons to 10 former Warsaw bloc nations is winning friends and influencing some key Republicans on Capitol Hill. Rep. Sonny Callahan (R-Ala.), the new chairman of the House Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, told The DAILY that "whatever we do, we want to enhance the capability of our own industry to compete in the global economy. We don't want to handicap" industry.
MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING to jointly pursue a U.S. Air Force program to upgrade the avionics of the T-38 trainer was signed by McDonnell Douglas and Israel Aircraft Industries. John Capellupo, president of McDonnell Douglas Aerospace, and Moshe Keret, president of IAI, were present at the signing in St. Louis. Under the agreement, MDA will serve as prime contractor and the LAHAV Div. of IAI will be the major subcontractor. The T-38 upgrade program calls for the modification of 425 aircraft and procurement of 16 new aircrew trianing devices.
Seven astronauts blasted off aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour yesterday on a two-week astronomy mission to survey the universe in the ultraviolet wavelengths. Liftoff on STS-67 came at 1:38 a.m. EST, one minute and 13 seconds late because controllers had to shift to a backup heater on the flash evaporator system that cools the orbiter during ascent. Overcast skies that had threatened the launch earlier cleared as the countdown neared its end. With a scheduled duration of 15 days, 13 hours and 32 minutes, STS-67 could be the longest Space Shuttle mission ever.
TRACOR AEROSPACE INC., Austin, Tex., said it will provide the U.S. Air Force with about 400 AN/ALE-47 countermeasures dispenser systems under a $27 million contract modification. Tracor said Wednesday that this is the third production lot to be awarded under a previously announced contract valued at more than $100 million. The company recently completed delivery of 285 systems under lot one, and is delivering over 400 systems under lot two.
It doesn't seem that long ago. In 1987, a huge, indoor city-state called Air Force Plant Four-the former General Dynamics fighter works-was cranking out 25 F-16s every month, sometimes more, off a production line that's literally a mile long. By 1989, the Fort Worth, Tex., facility had 31,000 on the payroll and was a $3 billion-a-year business for its owners. Today, 12,500 will spend the next few months building perhaps a single F-16 once a week, using only a fraction of the mile available to them.
Senate rejection of the balanced budget amendment yesterday eased fears raised by Administration defense and space officials since the November 1994 elections put the Republicans in power on Capitol Hill, but the manner of its killing and GOP determination to cut spending don't mean a return to business as usual.
Top U.S. Air Force officials appear to be having a change of heart toward McDonnell Douglas' C-17 airlifter, calling the once-troubled program a "real success story" and saying it has "turned the corner." "I'm very big on the C-17," AF Secretary Sheila Widnall told a packed Air Force Association audience here on Feb. 24. "I'm just in love with that airplane....The more we learn about the C-17, the more we are impressed with its reliability and maintainability.
Senate Appropriations Committee members yesterday rejected House action eliminating $400 million for two state-of-the-art wind tunnels, recommending the funds be spared for continued design study by an industry team. "If we are to maintain our strong position in aerospace, it is clear we must make the investment needed to ensure that American companies will remain the industry leaders in innovation and technology," said Rep. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations VA, HUD and independent agencies subcommittee, in arguing for the funds.
After months of uncertainty, the U.S. Departments of Defense and Transportation have reached an agreement on civil use of corrected Global Positioning System signals. The deal, which follows two days of meetings this week in Washington, frees FAA to award up to $500 million in WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) development contracts. DOD will have up to a year to develop a technique to jam GPS L-1 signals-the basic frequency of GPS satellite transmissions and the frequency that will carry the WAAS corrections-on a local-theater basis.
The Clinton Administration is proposing a new set of procurement reforms designed to build on last year's Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (FASA). The proposed legislation is specifically aimed at extending streamlining to large-scale procurements, which weren't dealt with adequately in FASA, while seeking to reduce frivolous protests, Steven Kelman, administrator for federal procurement policy at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), told a House panel Tuesday.
Loral Vought Systems has received a $7 million contract from the U.S. Army Missile Command to design and test a guidance control package for Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) rockets. The Army is planning to fabricate five MLRS rockets for flight testing at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. The Loral Vought packages will be installed to increase accuracy. Loral Vought said one of its guidance system concepts would include adding small canards to the nose of the rocket, a low-cost inertial measurement unit (IMU) and a guidance processor.
