EUTELSAT HAS PICKED France's Alcatel space to build the Hot Bird 6 television broadcast and multimedia satellite, Alcatel reported. The Spacebus 3000B platform will carry 28 Ku-band transponders and four Ka-band transponders for television and multimedia services over Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Alcatel will build the 3,800-kilogram (8,360-pound) platform at Cannes and Toulouse, with a projected 12-year service life.
Flight tests of the first Northrop Grumman Litening II Precision Attack Targeting System began on Sept. 29 at Edwards AFB, Calif., the company reported. The tracking capability of the targeting pod's optical and laser sensors were verified during tests aboard a U.S. Air Force F-16. Northrop Grumman's Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector delivered the first pods to Edwards on Sept. 13 for qualification tests and evaluation. Initial operational capability of the system is scheduled for the first quarter of 2000.
Klaus Naumann, former chairman of NATO's military committee, has been named managing director for Europe by Teledesic LLC, responsible for developing the broadband low Earth orbit satellite startup's presence there. Paul Thompson, a longtime British satellite communications executive, was appointed director of European technical regulatory affairs. Thompson will be based in London, and Naumann in Munich.
TRW has delivered the pointer-tracker subsystem of the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) to White Sands Missile Range, N.M., moving a step closer to demonstrating the short-range air defense system under development for the U.S. Army and Israel's Ministry of Defense.
BOEING won a $450 million U.S. Air Force contract to provide depot level repair of inertial navigation systems on various aircraft, the Advanced Cruise Missile, the Navy Dual Miniature Navigation System, the Minuteman and Peacekeeper missile systems and other electronic systems. The contract runs through September 2004.
OLOF LUNDBERG, executive chairman of ICO Global Communications (Holdings) Ltd., has stepped down in the wake of the company's petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after it failed to secure adequate financing.
The U.S. Army has notified Boeing and Lockheed Martin that a conditional agreement for Prime Vendor Support for the Apache helicopter could not be executed, an Army spokesman said yesterday.
The U.S. homeland will be threatened in the next 25 years by ballistic missiles and chemical and biological weapons, and its military superiority may not be a deterrent, Congress was told yesterday. Former senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, co-chairmen of a commission charged with trying to define the future national security environment for the U.S., told the House Armed Services Committee that "America will become increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on our homeland, and our military superiority will not necessarily protect us."
GenCorp completed the spin-off of its Performance Chemicals and Decorative&Building Products businesses and has moved its headquarters from Fairlawn, Ohio, to Sacramento, Calif., next to its principal aerospace and defense segment, Aerojet.
NASA has room in its Space Shuttle manifest to mount a mission to rescue the stranded Orion 3 communications satellite within the two years the satellite can survive at its present low orbit, but many more questions must be answered before a rescue mission is launched.
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION prime contractor Boeing has hired a unit of New York-based L-3 Communications to set up and maintain a depot for repairing and upgrading orbital replacement units (ORUs) for the orbiting facility. L-3's Communications Systems-East division, based in Camden, N.J., will also deliver 30 ORUs for the Station's Ku- and S-band communications subsystems and for its external video subsystem, L-3 announced. NASA plans to use the Ku-band subsystem to deliver video and experiment data from the Station to Earth.
Orbital Sciences Corp. and NASA plan to tow-test the first of three X-34 reusable launch vehicle prototypes to see how it handles in ground maneuvers before taking it aloft on Orbital's L-1011 ferry aircraft for FAA certification and free-flight drop tests.
Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardozo has moved to restart his country's participation in the International Space Station project, releasing funds to pay for Brazil's contribution of a pallet for exposed payloads, the Brazilian Space Agency announced over the weekend.
President Clinton signed the fiscal year 2000 defense authorization act yesterday, ending a 15-year decline in U.S. military modernization spending. The legislation also enacts the largest pay raise for U.S. military personnel in a generation and creates a semi-autonomous agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration, which will be responsible for nuclear weapons research and production. The head of the agency will report to the Energy Secretary, but budget approval will come directly from Congress.
DHL International said yesterday it is buying 44 757s that Boeing is converting into freighters in a deal valued at $1.3 billion. Boeing is purchasing 34 of the jets from British Airways, which is replacing them with new 100-seat aircraft. Boeing also will finance the purchase and maintain the aircraft, DHL said. Rolls-Royce, whose engines power the aircraft, is bidding on a contract to maintain them for DHL.
British Aerospace Defense Systems has won a contract worth over $160 million to supply its Sampson radar as part of the air defense system for the Royal Navy's new Type 45 destroyers.
ORBITAL SCIENCES CORP. named J.R. Thompson its president and chief operating officer, a newly created position, the company reported yesterday. A former deputy NASA administrator and director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Thompson had been executive vice president and general manager of Orbital's Launch Systems Group. He will be replaced in that job by Ronald J. Grabe, a former NASA astronaut who had been Thompson's deputy.
House members have adopted a measure that would extend U.S. government indemnification for launch service providers for five more years, while requiring the Transportation Dept. to study alternate ways to share the risk of space launches. On a voice vote Monday the House adopted H.R. 2607, the "Commercial Space Transportation Act of 1999 introduced by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), chair of the House Science space and aeronautics subcommittee.
General Electric Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, is being awarded a $12,000,000 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to provide an early risk-reduced demonstration of key Phase III turbofan technologies under the Joint Air Force/Navy Technology Demonstrator Engine Program. Work will be performed in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is expected to be completed by October 2001. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
Boeing reorganized and consolidated its product financing activities into a newly restructured subsidiary, Boeing Capital Corp. (BCC), the company reported yesterday.
Allied Signal Inc., Tempe, Ariz., is being awarded a $62,100,000 firm-fixed-price contract, F41608-99-D-0544, to provide for FY2000-2004 repair services for the Airframe Mounted Accessory Drive applicable to the F-15 aircraft. There were five firms solicited and two proposals received. Solicitation issue date was March 26, 1999. Negotiation completion date was Sept. 3, 1999. San Antonio Air Logistics Center, Kelly AFB, Texas, is the contracting activity.
NASA'S Perseus B remotely piloted long-duration research aircraft crashed onto Interstate 40 near Barstow, Calif., "moderately" damaging the propeller-driven instrument platform built by Aurora Flight Sciences Inc. of Manassas, Va. No payloads were aboard at the time of the accident on Friday, NASA said. The crash into the highway's westbound lane came after the craft had been aloft for about two hours and 15 minutes, under "guidance" mission controllers from Aurora. There was no damage or injury on the ground.
General Electric Co., Lynn, Mass., is being awarded a $6,544,227 firm-fixed-price delivery order contract for eleven 701C engine installs for Apache program managers. Work will be performed in Lynn, Mass., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2003. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This is a sole source contract initiated on June 20, 1997. The U.S. Army Aviation&Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (DAAJ09-97-D-0196).
