Bradley Perrett covered China, Japan, South Korea and Australia. He is a Mandarin-speaking Australian.
Before joining Aviation Week in 2006 he was a macroeconomics, politics and aerospace journalist with Reuters. Perrett holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Macquarie University, Sydney. He left Aviation Week in 2020.
Beijing—The first satellite based on the CAST DFH-5 bus should be launched in 2016 or 2017, addressing the active market for large spacecraft platforms. Development is scheduled for the next five-year economic plan of the Chinese government, covering 2011 to 2015, says Chinese Academy of Space Technology (CAST) President Yang Baohua.
Zhuhai, China—The CALT Long March 7 medium-heavy space launcher will go into production in 2014, according to current plans, completing a new family of Chinese rockets with new fuels and engines. The Chinese rocket, sized between the Long March 5 and 6, will offer up to 720 tons (1,590 lb.) of liftoff thrust from six engines fed by liquid oxygen and kerosene.
The latest upgrade of the CFM56 engine is showing more than the promised 1% improvement in fuel consumption during ground tests. But manufacturer CFM International will not go as far as to say that the engine, the CFM56-7BE, will deliver more than 1% in service because it must await confirmation in flight tests. “I don’t want to be wrong when Boeing flies it on a 737,” says Chaker Chakrour, executive VP. Flight test results sometimes fail to confirm ground test results.
