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.
DAEJEON, South Korea — China is laying the groundwork to land astronauts on the moon, which would follow an ambitious lunar robotic precursor program that also could pave the way for the country’s first unmanned probe to Mars. Dong Nengli of the China Manned Space Engineering Program says his organization — which developed the Shenzhou human spacecraft and is planning an unpiloted orbital rendezvous and docking experiment in 2011 — is already looking beyond the planned deployment of a 60-ton Chinese space station in 2020.
Avic Aircraft has swooped on Austrian aerospace manufacturer FACC in the first case of a Chinese manufacturer buying a first-tier Western supplier to Airbus and Boeing.
The dam holding back Chinese business aviation is breaking, raising manufacturers’ hopes of selling large volumes of aircraft in a market that has always had great potential but little immediate value. Chinese authorities are now accepting flight plans three hours before takeoff, whereas previously they often wanted them the day before.
