TRW Wins $340.5-Million Star Wars Design Contract
TRW Space & Technology Group was awarded a $340.5-million contract Friday to design the “Brilliant Pebbles” program, a space-based interceptor that is a key feature of the Strategic Defense Initiative.
The Redondo Beach group, a part of Cleveland-based TRW Inc., said the 50-month “Star Wars” project to design Brilliant Pebbles will employ more than 300 people, primarily in Southern California.
Martin Marietta Corp. was also awarded a contract for $318 million to design a competing version of the interceptor.
“I don’t want to imply that this means TRW together with our team members are going out and hiring 300 people,” a TRW spokeswoman said. But the program will help reduce the effect of defense cutbacks on the region’s aerospace industry, she said.
Brilliant Pebbles would consist of clusters of small missiles orbiting permanently in space that, with their own sensors and guidance systems, would track and destroy enemy missiles.
The political debate over Star Wars makes it questionable how much business the design contracts could ultimately produce.
Last week, the House of Representatives voted to reduce SDI spending in the 1992 budget year beginning Oct. 1--and to eliminate spending for Brilliant Pebbles. The Senate has not acted on its version of the defense spending bill.
“I guess it means we’ll have to wait and see,” the TRW spokeswoman said. Winning the design contracts could give TRW and Martin Marietta an edge in bidding for production of Brilliant Pebbles.
TRW’s team members in the Brilliant Pebbles project are Hughes Missile Systems Group of Canoga Park, SPARTA of Laguna Hills, Photon Research Associates of La Jolla, Mission Research Corp. of Costa Mesa and Defense Systems Inc. of McLean, Va.
Separately, Timothy W. Hannemann was named executive vice president and general manager of TRW’s Space & Defense Sector, based in Redondo Beach. TRW Space & Technology Group is one of four groups that make up the Space & Defense Sector.
Hannemann, 48, replaces Edsel D. Dunford, who recently was named TRW’s president and chief operating officer. Hannemann is an engineer “with technical and management responsibilities on some of the nation’s most important space and defense programs over the past 22 years,” the company said.
The space and defense business recorded sales of more than $3 billion in 1990 and has boosted profits in recent years despite reduced federal spending for space and defense programs.
