Major advances in information technologies are spurring the U.S. Air Force to "mainstream" information warfare into its operations, starting by incorporating IW into its doctrine, according to Lt. Gen. Joseph Ralston, the AF deputy chief of staff for plans and operations. "The information age has forced us to reexamine the environment of conflict," Ralston said Tuesday at an Arlington, Va., seminar sponsored by the Air Force Association.
A former U.S. Air Force general tapped by Unisys Corp. to spearhead its charge into the C4I marketplace is hoping the AF's new Theater Battle Management Core System (TBMCS) will be his first big win. Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney (USAF-ret.) joined Unisys in November as vice president of command and control for the company's Electronic Systems business unit-a new position-after retiring in July as assistant vice chief of staff of the Air Force.
The House Appropriations defense subcommittee will likely receive a larger allocation this year that will have to be paid for by the other appropriations subcommittees, the new chairman of the panel that funds NASA says. VA, HUD and independent agencies subcommittee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R- Calif.) said the non-defense appropriations committees have benefited in the past from reduced defense spending. But that will likely reverse this year, he said in a statement prepared for his panel's bipartisan organizational meeting Tuesday.
Two days after the loss of the Express satellite (DAILY, Jan. 18, page 79), the future of the program is unclear. On Monday, Dr. Nevil Byrne, the director of space infrastructure at the Australian Space Office said that due to budgetary pressures he wasn't "counting on any further missions in this particular series" and he described the mission's failure as "a disaster for the program."
Worldwide spacecraft launches in the fourth quarter of 1994 are listed in the following table. A total of 37 spacecraft were launched by 28 launch vehicles, of which one failed to orbit. Russia launched 24 spacecraft (in 17 launches); seven were launched by the U.S. (in six launches); four by Arianespace in three launches (including one failure), and one each by India and China.
Cosmonauts aboard the Mir space station will wait until May to move the first of two solar arrays from the Kristall to the Kvant module to ensure adequate power in the maneuver fails. Originally, the Mission Control Center-Moscow had scheduled the shift for March in an effort to boost the power available in the orbiting laboratory. With the Kristall array relocated to Kvant there will be less mutual shadowing by the various arrays, allowing them to generate more power.
SBIR CONSTELLATION Four geostationary (GEO) satellites, first delivery in 2002 Two highly elliptical orbit (HEO), first delivery in 2002 Low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, deployment decision in 2000, first delivery in 2006. THE LATEST TIMELINE Feb.14: RFP release June: Two 15-month "pre-EMD" awards not to exceed $80 million per contractor 1996: Down-select to single contractor, DSP-18 launched 1997: DSP-19 launched
The U.S. Air Force plans to issue a request for proposal on its Space Based Infrared (SBIR) early warning system on Feb. 14, and will pick two winners in June for initial 15-month contracts of as much as $80 million each.
While cautiously predicting better times this year than in 1994 for the commercial aircraft segment, McDonnell Douglas Chief Financial Officer Herb Lanese warns that the next six months are crucial to whether things will continue to go well in 1996-and whether the company's strategy for Douglas Aircraft will have to change.
Armed with the healthiest balance sheet it has ever had since merging to become McDonnell Douglas some 35 years ago, MDC is predicting it will see record earnings, strong cash flow, gains in the long-suffering commercial aircraft business and continued strength in military aircraft in 1995.
Poor performance by Russia's military in Chechnya will have a psychological effect on Russian leaders, leading them to "cling more to nuclear weapons to hold onto their superpower status," Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr. told Congress Tuesday. Clapper was responding to a question from ranking Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on worldwide threats.
The Republican majority on the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday urged Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) to write a fiscal 1996 budget resolution that would freeze defense budget authority and outlays at the FY 1995 levels, adjusted for inflation. They specifically proposed budget authority of $270 billion and spending of $273 billion-$13 billion more in BA and $10 billion more in spending than the Clinton Administration is planning for fiscal '96.
NASA managers yesterday set Feb. 2 as the launch date for the Space Shuttle Discovery on the first U.S. Shuttle mission to Russia's Mir space station, provided the changeout of a leaking attitude control thruster does not impinge on other launch preparations, the space agency reported.
A day of reckoning looms for McDonnell Douglas' missile plant in Titusville, Fla., thanks to rival Hughes' win of the Tomahawk missile buyout, and prospects for keeping it open look grim, says MDC's top financial executive, Herb Lanese. "It's heartbreaking, looking at the prospects to shut this facility down," Lanese told reporters yesterday during a conference call detailing 1994's financial results. "It's just a super facility, with a great workforce and a low-cost location."
The Denver area may get a boost from the merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta if some moves being considered by the two companies are approved. Lockheed and Martin are currently looking at consolidating all their launch operations at Martin's under-used complex in Denver after the pending merger is completed, a Lockheed spokeswoman confirmed.
A story on NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin's testimony before the House Science Committee (DAILY, Jan. 9, page 31) slightly misquoted Goldin. The quote should have read: "We don't need 1,000 people or 500 people out at JPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] watching a spacecraft that goes between Earth and the planet Saturn."
Silicon Graphics, Incorporated, Silver Spring, Maryland, is being awarded a $6,387,942 increment as part of a $9,953,849 firm fixed price contract for Distributed Virtual Memory Development, a research effort designed to enhance utilization of existing computer capacity. Work will be performed in Mountain View, California (95%) and Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland (5%), and is expected to be completed by January 9, 1997. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a broad agency announcement on June 30, 1993, and one bid was received.
The Defense Dept. has decided to merge the Air Force/Navy Advanced Missile Warning System (AMWS) program with the Army's Advanced Threat Infrared Countermeasure (ATIRCM) program. The ATIRCM is an airborne self protection system designed to detect missile threats to helicopters, and to defeat them with directed infrared countermeasures and dispensed expendables. The AMWS is a common missile warning system for existing Air Force and Navy tactical aircraft.
GLOBESAT CORP., Reston, Va., has unveiled a new compact version of its executive briefcase telephone. The GlobeSat Backpack Telephone transmits and receives unrestricted from any point on Earth on Inmarsat frequencies.
IRAN'S PARLIAMENT has endorsed a bill outlawing private satellite dishes, the Associated Press reported. The ban allows only government broadcasting and telecommunications authorities to monitor satellite programming.
Orbital Science Corp. is set to launch a Pegasus XL air-launched space booster with an Air Force payload in April, using new flight control software prepared in the wake of last summer's failure on the first attempt to fly the uprated Pegasus launch vehicle.
Full-scale models of at least two, and probably all three, JAST competitors will be wind-tunnel tested at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and NASA expects the tests to start sometime in the late summer. An exact start date isn't known because noise from the tests-thanks to the inclusion of full-up, running engines in the aircraft models in addition to the wind tunnel's own fans-means Ames has to prepare an environmental impact statement, or EIS, for the tests.
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said yesterday that the Clinton Administration is delaying sending to Congress the $2.6 billion defense supplemental in part because of "controversial rescissions" of earlier funding, "particularly in theater missile defense."
Lockheed Sanders Incorporated/AEL Industries, Incorporated, a joint venture, Nashua, New Hampshire, was awarded on January 5, 1995, a delivery order amount of $24,893,0000 as part of a $55,449,649 (potential cumulative total) firm fixed price, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract for six communications, intercept and direction finding TACJAM-A (AN/MSR- 3). Work will be performed in Nashua, New Hampshire (74%) and Lansdale, Pennsylvania (26%), and delivery order 1 is expected to be completed by March 31, 1996.
All three variants of Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) aircraft-most likely to be single-seat, single-engine vehicles-will be built on the same production line by one industry team, according to JAST program manager Brig. Gen. George Muellner.
