Jul 2 1970
From The Space Library
In letter to Dr. Thomas O. Paine, NASA Administrator, Elmer B. Staats, U.S. Comptroller General, recommended that award of ATSF and ATS-G contract to General Electric Co. be reconsidered be cause of ambiguity in NASA's instruction to competitors and one week extension granted GE to submit its revised proposal. "It is our [GAO's] opinion that the established award selection procedures were not followed and that the procedures which were followed were defective." Within two hours of receipt of GAO recommendation, Dr. Paine issued statement: "On April 9 I requested the GAO to conduct a review of the events leading to the selection of the General Electric Co. rather than the Fairchild Hiller Corp. to build two Applications Technology Satellites. "The General Accounting Office as reported to me that the Fairchild Hiller Corp. may not have been accorded an equal opportunity to submit a winning bid because of a one-week extension granted to General Electric who turned in the lower bid. "At the time the award was made, this time disparity was not known to the selecting officials. "NASA will therefore reopen the bidding to Fairchild Hiller and General Electric in strict accordance with our procurement regulations." (CR, 7/9/70, S10975-7; NASA Release 70-119; Text)
Daniel J. Fink, Vice President and General Manager of General Electric Co. Space Div., issued statement in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, Pa. Conclusion of GAO report "seems to rest on the single detail that Fairchild's proposal was submitted one week earlier than ours. . . :both parties had the opportunity to inform NASA when they could submit their proposal and both parties responded accordingly. The Fairchild implication that this difference in time could have been used unfairly by General Electric by our learning our competitor's price and changing ours is a shocking allegation. No such 'leak' occurred, and the GAO report specifically states that there is no evidence to support that allegation." Fink said facts were "that both parties competed hard for this important space program which has the potential of contributing greatly to our well being in this country and in several foreign countries where this communications satellite will be used." (Text)
President Nixon approved H. R. 16516, $3.411-billion FY 1971 NASA Authorization Act. Bill became P. L. 91-303. (PD, 7/13/70, 931)
Aerobee 150MII sounding rocket, launched by NASA from WSMR by VAM-20 booster, carried Univ. of Wisconsin payload to 168.3-km (104.6-mi) altitude to measure UV flux from three stars in constellations Lyra, Cygnus, and Ursa Major to provide check on prelaunch calibration of Wisconsin OAO payload. Rocket functioned satisfactorily, but program stars were not acquired and experiment collected no data. (NASA Rpt SRL)
MSC announced award of $600 000, fixed-price contract to Sperry Rand Corp. Univac Div. for lease and maintenance of four Univac 1108 computer systems used in management, administration, analysis of test data, mission support, and trajectory analysis. Contract covered April 1 through June 30, with two one-year options. (MSC Release 70-78)
UCLA nuclear physicist Dr. Darrell J. Dickey said the four members of his team for scientific exchange program with U.S.S.R. to study peaceful uses of atom had been tentatively selected. Under U.S. U.S.S.R. agreement, Dr. Dickey and team would be based at Serpukhov, south of Moscow, site of world's largest nuclear particle accelerator with 78-bev power rating. Two Soviet physicists already were studying at Batavia, Ill., where U.S. was building even larger nuclear accelerator. (AP, W Post, 7/3/70, A6)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
