SPACEPORT PROSPECTS: Delays in Lockheed Martin's VentureStar reusable space launch vehicle program caused by problems with its X-33 suborbital prototype (DAILY, Jan. 7) have raised problems for the various state spaceports competing to be the launch site for the big new single-stage-to-orbit rocket. One potential beneficiary has been other reusable launch vehicle startups. New Mexico, for example, plans to begin shopping its Las Cruces spaceport site to other companies as VentureStar stalls.
Kaman Corp.'s Aerospace unit reported lower earnings and profits for the fourth quarter and 1999, but anticipates improved results from cost-cutting and efficiency initiatives.
'NOT A HEALTHY SITUATION': If competition is focused obsessively on low prices, it negatively affects quality, independent R&D and workforce, says Philip Odeen of TRW. "As a result, in many cases, we are driving companies out of the defense industrial base," he says at a conference. The Pentagon's acquisition chief, Jacques Gansler, notes at the same conference that in many cases only one, two or three companies are providing the main capability of an entire defense industrial area.
CUBIC DEFENSE SYSTEMS, San Diego, said it has been chosen to supply a $9.6 million CF-18 Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation system for the Canadian Forces. Cubic designed and installed Canada's first ACMI system at Canadian Forces Base Cold Lake, Alberta, and has operated and maintained the system since 1982.
BFGoodrich Aerospace, saying it is anticipating continued success in the aircraft maintenance and modification markets, announced the merger of two divisions to create an integrated unit to optimize productivity and customer service initiatives. The company streamlined and reorganized its Airframe Service Div. and Component Services Div. into a single entity, the Aviation Services Div.
Northrop Grumman has won a second low rate initial production (LRIP) contract for the BAT, or "brilliant" anti-armor submunition. The $128 million award from Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control calls for 609 BATs installed in U.S. Army Tactical Missile System (TACMS) warhead assemblies. It is the second LRIP contract; the first, awarded last July, called for 304 BATs.
British industry stands to make up to 30 billion pounds (over $49 billion) in long-term returns from its 20% partnership in Boeing's JSF One Team, if the X-32-based Joint Strike Fighter submission is selected after the planned fly-off evaluation, a Boeing official said here Thursday.
'STRONG SUPPORT' FOR F-22: The U.S. Air Force/Lockheed Martin F-22 fighter program, as part of a "balanced approach on tactical air," enjoys "strong support," Defense Secretary William Cohen tells reporters. "I do not anticipate the kind of difficulties we had last year with the F-22," he says in a Pentagon session Friday. "I think there is still strong support for developing this technology.
Satellite companies seem to be getting a welcome reception on Wall Street as new opportunities in radio, cable and multimedia services via satellite transmission begin to take off. Globalstar Telecommunications Limited priced its seven million share secondary offering last Wednesday night as expected. Globalstar's shares of common stock were priced at $35, a slight discount to the previous day's close, for total net proceeds of $234 million before the potential exercise of the over-allotment option of more than a million shares.
Almost 40 years after the Soviet Union downed a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft operated in its airspace by the CIA, a research version of the high-altitude plane operated by NASA has overflown the Russian Federation on an ozone-loss experiment "closely coordinated with Russian observers."
ICM CALLOUT: NASA isn't ready to fall back to the Interim Control Module (ICM) under development as a Station contingency at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, despite continued Russian delays getting the critical Zvezda Service Module into orbit. Because of the delays NASA may have to split the next Shuttle mission to Station to perform needed maintenance work out of sequence (DAILY, Jan. 28). But Station PM Holloway says he is "personally confident" Russian space managers have will get Zvezda's Proton launch vehicle flying long before the ICM is needed.
EXTRA WORK: If NASA has to send an extra mission to Station to keep it flying before the Zvezda Service Module arrives, astronauts won't waste time doing the work of one mission in two flights. Space Shuttle Program Manager Ron Dittemore and Holloway, the Station program manager, say the early flight will deliver as much cargo as center-of-gravity and other constraints will allow, and will afford the opportunity for a get-ahead third spacewalk to ease the burden on future Station assembly crews.
JEFFERSON S. HOFGARD, former assistant White House science advisor for aeronautics and space, has been named director, international policy, for Boeing's Space&Communications Group in the company's Washington office. In his new role Hofgard, who left the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy last month (DAILY, Dec. 6, 1999), will be responsible for coordinating export policy and strategies for the Boeing group's international business.
A recycled Minuteman II ICBM with commercial upper stages launched four university satellites and three experiments late Wednesday in the first flight demonstration of the new "Orbital Suborbital Program Space Launch Vehicle." Liftoff of the vehicle, which combines the first two Minuteman stages with stages three and four from the Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus XL air-launched rocket, came at 10:03 p.m. EST from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., according to the Air Force Space&Missile Systems Center.
Defense Secretary William Cohen said the Pentagon's fiscal year 2001 budget, to be sent to Congress Feb. 7, will include an additional Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) aircraft, the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, another squadron of EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft and an increase in the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) program. He also said a report detailing military needs as a result of lessons learned from Kosovo will be filed at about the time he testifies to Congress on the budget, in about a week or ten days.
PERSPECTIVE: Dain Hancock, president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin's Aeronautical Systems sector, added perspective to his company's decision last week to streamline its space and military aircraft units (DAILY, Jan. 28). He said, "We are past the point that we can afford to sustain three separate, full-service aircraft companies...both in terms of infrastructure and production facilities." Lockheed Martin has operated the Aeronautical Systems unit at Marietta, Ga.; the Skunk Works at Palmdale, Calif., and Tactical Aircraft Systems at Fort Worth, Tex.
MIR WORRIES: International Space Station managers at NASA are less concerned about the near-term impact if Russia goes ahead with plans to reactivate the Mir orbital station than about what will happen a bit farther down the road. Tommy Holloway, NASA's Station program manager, tells reporters Russia probably can produce enough Soyuz launchers and capsules and Progress cargo carriers to support both Mir and Station at first.
CHC HELICOPTER CORP. of St. John's, Newfoundland, said its Helikopter Service subsidiary of Norway has entered into an agreement with Eurocopter for repair and overhaul of dynamic components of Super Puma Mk. I and Mk. II helicopters. CHC said the agreement will lead to a license to repair and overhaul the 500 Super Puma Mk. Is and Mk. IIs around the world.
SPANISH AVIATION AUTHORITIES and the FAA have certificated CASA's C-295 military transport. More than 1,300 flight hours have been logged by a prototype and the first production plane. By the end of the year, the Spanish air force plans begin taking delivery of aircraft No. 2 and 3.
Lockheed Martin said it may save more than $300 million in life cycle costs for the Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) program by embracing acquisition reforms of the Dept. of Defense. Using a blend of custom military and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products, Lockheed Martin said, the Low Cost Missile Test Kit (LCMTK) program is the first modernization to begin in the FBM missile subsystem since the Dept. of Defense announced its major acquisition reform initiatives in 1994.
A life-sciences experiment designed by schoolchildren in Beijing is scheduled to fly as a commercial payload on the U.S. Space Shuttle next year under a deal announced yesterday by Spacehab Inc. Under the arrangement China Time Network, a state-authorized Internet company, will sponsor the experiment from the Jingshan School in Beijing under Spacehab's Space Technology and Research Students (S*T*A*R*S) program (DAILY, Dec. 1). Jingshan School was selected from almost 900 proposals submitted by schools across China, including Hong Kong and Macao.
Lockheed Martin said yesterday it will streamline its space and military aircraft units and eliminate 2,800 to 3,000 positions, a move it expects will generate annual savings of $200 million. Most of the estimated savings, it said, will come from consolidating the management ranks, administration functions and engineering and production activities in the Aeronautical Systems business area.
Lockheed Martin, stepping up its lobbying efforts, is pushing the House and Senate to resolve their differences on a bill it needs passed in order to proceed with full acquisition of Comsat, the U.S. signatory to Intelsat. This particular bill has been deadlocked for months, and the House and Senate have failed to reach a consensus on the privatization issues for several years. Nonetheless, Lockheed Martin and Comsat officials said they expect to see action in this session of Congress with a series of conferences expected to kick off next month.
