SAN FRANCISCO It was a problem anticipated, addressed and answered. Like the rest of the world, aerospace sailed past midnight to start 2000 with rarely a glitch in its computer systems. Working for years in advance, reviewing millions of lines of code at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, the industry entered the New Year’s holiday period confident its computer systems could handle the rollover to “00” in dates without confusing them with 1900.

WASHINGTON A hodgepodge of computers dating back to the 1970s is to blame for the New Year’s Eve blackout of National Reconnaissance Office satellite imagery in the Pentagon’s most significant Y2K-related failure. The software failure at an NRO ground facility in Northern Virginia that receives and processes data from classified imagery satellites occurred while the U.S. Defense Dept. was on global alert for terrorist activities.

VANDENBERG AFB, CALIF. The operational debut of Space Launch Complex-3E here for the Atlas IIAS at the Western Test Range signals the start of a new era of smaller, more capable satellites fulfilling multiple missions for the National Reconnaissance Office.

WASHINGTON As the Administration readies its Fiscal 2001 budget request, the Pentagon is being pressed to step up grants to prevent the proliferation of Russia’s mammoth germ and gas warfare capabilities, the world’s largest. Grants to counter chemical warfare proliferation should be at least tripled to $6.2 million annually, and to avert biological diversion at least doubled to $12.4 million, recommends the Henry L. Stimson Center, a public policy research organization here.