THE BOEING CO. has opened an office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that the company said would enhance its operations in Southeast Asia. The company already works with aerospace industry organizations, armed forces and leading airlines in Asia, Boeing said.
U.S. military and NASA officials said Oct. 8 they plan to increase their cooperation in aerospace technology development to achieve efficiencies and share know-how. Details are being worked out as part of the Bush Administration's fiscal 2004 budget, scheduled for release in early calendar 2003, but military and NASA officials suggested that development of a space based radar and a successor to the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) are among the possibilities for greater collaboration.
Moog Inc. and Parker Hannifin Corp. were awarded a $113 million contract by Lockheed Martin Corp. to produce the primary flight control system for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter during the aircraft's system development and demonstration phase. Under the contract, the companies will produce the electro-hydrostatic actuation system, which controls the aircraft's major flight surfaces including the flaperons, rudders and horizontal tails. The companies also will produce the controls for the ailerons on the F-35C, the Navy's carrier-borne JSF variant.
NEW DELHI- On Oct. 8, Pakistan fired a Hatf IV medium-range, surface-to-surface ballistic missile, its second missile test in five days. The missile, also called Shaheen-1, is a single-stage, solid-fueled missile with a range of 750 kilometers (466 miles). The Shaheen was developed and produced by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. The Shaheen project is managed by the National Defense Complex, a commission subsidiary. The missile is in serial production.
NEW DELHI - India has agreed to buy ground radars, unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs] and thermal imaging systems from Israel, a senior Indian defense official said. India will buy more than 1,000 portable radar systems, worth $80 million, from El-Op of Israel and deploy them along its border with Pakistan to monitor cross-border infiltration, the official said. El-Op beat out France's Thales and Sagem for the work. However, the official said India still is considering buying sensors from the United States to help detect border incursions.
The Army plans to drop Brilliant Anti-Armor (BAT) submunitions from a Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in two tests scheduled this week. The first test Oct. 9 will feature no warheads, but an Oct. 11 test will use a fully armed BAT simulating an assault on a large moving target. The tests will take place at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. Drops using a simulated BAT submunition took place Sept. 23 at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. Those drops primarily were intended to ensure a clean release from the UAV, according to BAT Program Manager John Miller.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered an icy world half the size of Pluto, according to the aerospace agency. The icy object 2002 LM60, tentatively dubbed "Quaoar" (pronounced "kwa-har") is about four billion miles away from Earth, more than a billion miles further away than Pluto. It is he farthest object in the solar system to be resolved by telescope, NASA said.
A BAE Systems 2.75-inch laser-guided rocket scored a bull's-eye on a target more than three miles away, a key test in the Army's Low Cost Precision Kill [LCPK] program competition, the company said Oct. 7.
LOS ANGELES - Despite the commercial aviation downturn over the last year, landing gear maker Messier-Dowty increased its research and development investment and increased its engineering workforce by 10 percent. The company did it by adopting "lean" principles and doing away with many of the practices considered to be standard in running a business, according to Kenneth Laver, president of Messier-Dowty Inc., based in Toronto.
Flight testing for the Hypersonic Flight (HyFly) missile demonstrator program will be delayed at least a year if a fiscal 2003 budget cut approved by the Senate is enacted into law, the Defense Department says. Current plans call for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Navy to flight test 11 missiles from FY '04 to FY '06.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), a member of the Senate Commerce space subcommittee, is considering introducing a House-passed bill that would establish an awards program for amateur astronomers who discover and track asteroids crossing in a near-Earth orbit, a spokeswoman for the senator said late Oct. 4.
PANAMA CITY, Fla. - The combat effectiveness of the next generation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) lies in applying the expertise of the test and range communities in an operational environment, a U.S. Air Force armament official said.
A House Appropriations subcommittee was scheduled to unveil a fiscal 2003 NASA spending bill late Oct. 7 that would revive the Pluto-Kuiper Belt (PKB) and Europa missions. The Bush Administration canceled both missions as part of an effort to rein in costs, but the House bill would provide $105 million for PKB and $40 million for Europa, a House Appropriations Committee source told The DAILY Oct. 7. The National Research Council, the Planetary Society and other influential groups have urged Congress to reverse the termination of both exploration projects.
Following a recent accident with an Army National Guard CH-47D Chinook helicopter, the Army is requiring more inspections and better lubrication of bearings within the helicopter's swash plate assembly.
PANAMA CITY, Fla. - The Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) has told Congress it will support more rapid technology development and insertion by increasing the testing tempo, a DOD testing official said. That increased tempo will "put pressure on the test and targets communities to keep up with, and be ready to support, the insertion of the new technologies," said Wynn Atterbury, the program manager for Test and Evaluation/Science and Technology in the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation.
Credit analysts with Standard & Poor's have affirmed the credit ratings for the Boeing Co., despite the company's plans to take a $250 million non-cash charge in the third quarter. The charge primarily relates to the value of Boeing's older model commercial jetliners, as well as the company's investment in some debt securities of UAL Corp.'s United Airlines. Although the charges are non-cash, lower aircraft values suggest reduced income from finance and operating leases in the future, according to S&P.
After a lull in Navy-focused programs over the past few years, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) likely will be announcing several major new Navy initiatives in the coming year, according to Director Tony Tether. When he took the reins of DARPA last summer, the number of ongoing programs specifically tailored for the Navy was at a "historic low," according to Tether. He said he discussed the situation with Navy Secretary Gordon England and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark to see how it had come about.
LIFTOFF: Space Shuttle Atlantis successfully launched Oct. 7 at 2:46 p.m. CDT from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., marking the shuttle's return to flight after the repair of cracks in fuel flow lines. Hurricane Lili prompted NASA to delay the launch from its original date of Oct. 2. Atlantis is slated to dock with the International Space Station Oct. 9.
MOSCOW - Holding companies in Russia's defense industry will be able to sell their products directly to foreign customers rather than go through Rosoboronexport, the state-owned arms export company, according to reports from a meeting of the presidential committee on military-technology cooperation held last week. Rosoboronexport, the successor to the earlier Rosvooruzheniye state-owned exporter, controls as much as about 87 percent of the total Russian arms trade, or about $3.2 billion worth of the total $3.67 billion trade in 2001.
SENSOR-SHOOTER: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Director Tony Tether says he is satisfied with the work being done in linking sensors and weapons in the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program. In early September, Tether said he was "uncomfortable" with the apparent pace of sensor-shooter work being conducted by FCS' Boeing-SAIC lead systems integrator (LSI) team (DAILY, Sept. 5). One month later, "I'm pleased with their progress," Tether says.
STABLE REQUIREMENTS: The JSF program differs from past warplane programs because the aircraft's operational requirements were established early in the program, Howe says. "That may seem very simple, but in 20 years of experience I've never seen a better, more well established set of requirements in the operational requirements document." Howe says the contractors were able to demonstrate to the warfighter, from 1996 onward, the costs of adding additional operational requirements to the aircraft. "By going through that process ...
