Russia's aging constellation of Glonass global positioning system satellites got a long-awaited replenishment with the launch of three fresh satellites Dec. 30. The three Glonass satellites, officially designated Cosmos 2362, Cosmos 2363 and Cosmos 2364, were sent aloft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Proton launch vehicle.
While lawmakers agreed that President's Clinton pledge to bolster U.S. defense spending is a step in the right direction, they remained skeptical the money will be spent in the right place. Most Republican and Democrat members of Congress yesterday applauded Clinton's announcement over the weekend to seek a $12 billion boost in the Pentagon's fiscal year 2000 budget submission for military readiness and modernization. Some Republicans don't think it's enough, and some Democrats would rather see any budget increases go to other areas.
The U.S. Air Force last week awarded Lockheed Martin and Pratt&Whitney contracts for the first two production F-22 fighters and engines after Defense Secretary William Cohen told Congress that awarding the contracts was an "acceptable risk" and that the program is "meeting its objectives." Lockheed Martin got a $456 million contract to build the two Production Representative Test Vehicles to be used in Initial Operational Test and Evaluation. Pratt&Whitney won $93 million for six F119 engines.
Europe's impending consolidation holds the attention of the global aerospace industry heading into 1999, but further consolidation of U.S. second tier companies is also expected in the new year. "The first quarter will set the pace," Brett Lambert, vice president of DFI International, Washington, D.C., said in an interview. The biggest story remains European companies' flirtation with a continent-wide aerospace and defense company. A long list of events in 1998 seemed to push them toward their goal.
Predicting the course civilian spacefaring will take in the 21st century's first decade should be a lot more straightforward by the end of 1999, a transition year that dawns with major questions looming across the spectrum of human activity beyond the atmosphere.
Boeing Commercial Airplane Co. delivered a record 550 jetliners in 1998, setting "the stage for even higher production in 1999," the company said. The 550th delivery was made on Dec. 29.
The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization faces a number of obstacles in 1999 inherited from 1998 - unexpected cost growth, a slew of technical problems, and delayed test schedules on practically all of its major programs. Last year, BMDO, in conjunction with the military services, had a jam-packed agenda with rigorous schedules to test a number of systems in what many thought would be a make or break effort to determine if the overall U.S. missile defense development program was headed in the right direction.
National security and defense spending issues certainly won't be the first thing on lawmakers' minds when the 106th Congress convenes Wednesday, but despite the focus on the presidential impeachment issue, they must resolve a number of budget and policy issues.
The new year will be marked by European aerospace industry consolidation, a strong commercial satellite and business jet markets, construction of the International Space Station and concern about Iraq and North Korea. Battles in Congress over missile defense and satellite exports will also be a theme, as will troubles at Boeing and shakeouts in the second and third tiers of the U.S. industry.
Readiness will be the key word as the Pentagon executes its plans this year. With the White House and Congress increasingly aware of readiness problems in the Defense Dept., any major initiative being pitched by the Pentagon or industry is likely to be wrapped in the mantle of "readiness."
U.S. Navy and Air Force program officials have completed the design review for the CV-22 special operations tiltrotor aircraft by focusing on the aspects of the aircraft that distinguish the special ops aircraft from the Marine Corps MV-22.
Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems, Fort Worth, Tex., has received contract authorization for the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the next major upgrade to the U.S. Air Force's Block 40/42 F-16C/Ds, the company reported Monday. The software portion of the upgrade, Tape 40T6, scheduled to be released to the field in June 2001, is the sixth version since the Block 40 was introduced in 1989.
AVIONICS SPECIALTIES INC. (ASI), Charlottesville, Va., and Honeywell Sensor and Guidance Products, Minneapolis, Minn., formed a joint program to develop and market an integrated Multifunction Probe/Air Data Sensor. ASI will combine its multifunction probe sensor with Honeywell's air data transducers.
EG&G Inc., Wellesley, Mass., will adopt Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 131, "Disclosures about Segments of an Enterprise and Related Information," in the fourth quarter of 1998. EG&G will report its fourth quarter and year-end 1998 financial results based on five operating segments - Life Sciences, Opto-electronics, Instruments, Engineered Products, and Technical Services. The segments are the equivalent of EG&G's five Strategic Business Units, with the company created when it reorganized its operations earlier this year.
General Atomics has been able to demonstrate a direct link between its Predator unmanned aerial vehicle and air traffic controllers. The unmanned aircraft was equipped with an ARC-210 radio that allowed ground communication with air traffic controllers in real time, the company said Monday. UAV manufacturers and air traffic regulators are trying to devise means that will allow the unmanned aircraft to operate in the same air space as manned, civil aircraft.
Iridium LLC reached an agreement to buy Claircom Communications Group Inc., an in-flight telephone services company, from AT&T and Rogers Cantel for $65 million in cash and debt, Iridium executives said yesterday. "We believe that Iridium having a presence in the airline industry is of critical importance to us globally," Leo Mondale, Iridium senior vice president, told reporters in a telephone press conference yesterday.
The U.S. Air Force is stretching out its space-based laser program to capture more advanced technology, even as top members of Congress have been pushing the AF to accelerate the program. The AF's Scientific Advisory Board recently recommended the service back off its plans for a SBL Readiness Demonstration program because the technology for an SBL is too immature. Yesterday, acting AF Secretary F. Whitten Peters said that "I intend to follow [the advice] fairly closely."
NASA has renamed the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) for Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who conducted theoretical work on the structure and evolution of stars, and has set a launch date for the oft-delayed "great observatory" no earlier than April 8, 1999.
