AirAsia X expects to issue its initial public offering next year, rather than in 2011 in part owing to continued weakness in the IPO market. But airline CEO Azran Osman-Rani notes that if markets recover, the procedure could be accelerated. Meanwhile, AirAsia X says it will switch its long-haul destination in London to Gatwick from Stansted starting Oct. 24. The move is expected to boost yields and will be followed, next year, by replacement of Airbus A340-300s with more fuel-efficient A330-300s to improve profitability.
The Australian government is including airlines in its new carbon emission tax plan, and carriers say this would cause a fare rise of more than AU$3 ($3.21) per domestic flight sector. Under the government proposal, which is slated to come into effect in July 2012, the largest Australian companies would pay an annual carbon fee of AU$23 per metric ton. This would apply to Australian domestic carriers such as Qantas and Virgin Australia, although not to their international services.
A leading aerospace and defense executive is calling on the U.S. industry to lobby Washington in favor of starting new A&D programs and to keep alive engineering teams within major prime contractors. In the final speech of the National Aeronautic Association's 2010-11 luncheon series on July 13, Jim Albaugh, president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, also sounded ominous warnings over the future of U.S. A&D leadership if major cuts to projected defense spending come to fruition while U.S.
The U.S. Defense Department says it is partnering with its so-called defense industrial base (DIB), the public, and private organizations and corporations that support the Pentagon, to increase the protection of sensitive information. To address growing cyberthreats to the department and DIB, the department launched the Defense Industrial Base Cyber Security and Information Assurance program in 2007.
The British government expects to face a bill of at least £140 million ($226.8 million) to replenish weapons expended during military operations over Libya. The figure is based on current consumption rates and could increase depending on the duration of the engagement.
NASA does not have a strong history of canceling contracts, but that may change in a big way soon, congressional auditors warn in a new report. “NASA contract terminations—the complete or partial cancellation of work under a contract before the contract's period of performance ends—are rare but could become more common in the future,” Government Accountability Office auditors told key science authorizers in Congress. Federal spending pressures will force difficult choices, but there is scant evidence the agency can do so.
A House panel gives the sternest possible rebuke it could to the troubled James Webb Space Telescope—a near death experience. The subcommittee in charge of funding the Hubble successor cut the entire budget request for the Northrop Grumman-led program in a $16.8 billion bill to fund NASA, but as the full panel moved the bill ahead, committee leaders agreed to find a way to keep the program going. But Rep.
Globalstar controllers are operating the company's latest batch of six second-generation, low-Earth-orbit communications satellites, which were lofted July 13 by a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The launch was conducted on behalf of Europe's Arianespace by its Starsem affiliate. The rocket's Fregat upper stage performed two engine firings and injected the six Globalstar-2s into their targeted orbit 1 hr. 38 min. after liftoff. Originally scheduled for July 11, the launch was postponed for two days as a result of a pad-equipment malfunction.
NASA has selected a Space Florida-led team called the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis) to manage commercial, industrial and other non-NASA uses of the U.S. National Laboratory portion of the International Space Station (ISS). Partners in the project, which initially will be worth up to $15 million a year, include Boeing, Bionetics and Dynamic Corp. Space Florida is a state-backed economic development board focused on building and diversifying Florida's aerospace businesses.
NASA's Dawn spacecraft collected this image of the asteroid Vesta on July 9 from a range of 26,000 mi., using its German-made framing camera as it closed in for orbital insertion. Designed to be the first spacecraft to orbit a main-belt asteroid, Dawn was expected to be captured by the protoplanet's gravity as it drew near to it early on July 16, instead of firing thrusters to slow itself into orbit.
A cancellation pegged by analysts to Dubai Aerospace Enterprises (DAE) has reduced Boeing's net 737 orderbook by 35 aircraft, meaning its hot-selling 777s are on a net order par with its single-aisle family. Counting 94 cancellations thus far, the 2011 net orderbook for all model types stands at 138, compared to 640 for Airbus, which has seen a great reception for the A320NEO (new engine option).
Oregon's Precision Castparts (PCC), a powerhouse as a supplier of investment castings, forgings and fasteners for aerospace, is making a $900 million move to broaden its product line with the purchase of another specialist in highly engineered aluminum, titanium and composite parts and assemblies from the Northwest, Primus International.
American Airlines is becoming the first carrier to install automatic identification technology (AIT) on civilian aircraft by attaching contact memory buttons to replaceable structural components, such as doors, stabilizers, rudders and elevators (lower photo). Doing this will allow the carrier to monitor the components' individual histories more efficiently because the high-memory-capacity buttons—which are about the size of a dime—enable automated data collection, which can save labor costs and improve data accuracy.
Astronomers may get a chance to make hands-on observations from above the atmosphere if a new deal between Planetary Science Institute (PSI) and XCOR Aerospace bears fruit.
A space-exposure experiment on the International Space Station is producing promising evidence that commercial off-the-shelf components can be used in high-radiation space environments for nuclear-treaty monitoring. An experiment developed by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has proved “very resistant” to a severe space radiation environment, providing a revolutionary level of performance, reduced costs and greater flexibility for NNSA's treaty-monitoring mission, according to the monitoring agency.
One of the troubles in turning human spaceflight into a business is that one of the biggest potential customers can just as easily turn around and become a formidable competitor. That mercurial partner is NASA, of course.
Boeing's tanker program still has a major thorn in its side: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). His inquiries helped knock down Boeing's pitch to lease tankers to the Air Force early in 2004. Now he is complaining about the cost overruns on the KC-46A that are unfolding (AW&ST July 11, p. 26). After news reports indicated that taxpayers will be on the hook for 60%, or $600 million, in cost overruns on the program that was billed as fixed-price, McCain fumes that Boeing expected to exceed its cost targets all along.
While aircraft carriers are always a target in budget crunches, this year it looks like the chatter is moving out of the realm of the theoretical. Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the Pentagon is considering delaying deliveries of the proposed next-generation Ford-class carriers or canceling one of those being built and reducing the number of larger nuclear-powered carriers in the U.S. fleet from the current 11.
U.S. airlines may have to detail 19 different types of “ancillary revenue” under a new reporting standard proposed by the Transportation Department, which says industry's growing reliance on charges for items beyond the basic air fares has reduced the transparency of air travel costs.
An unidentified U.S. weapon system under development may have to undergo a redesign following a cyberexploit in March. More than 24,000 files containing an unspecified but large amount of data were copied from a defense contractor's internal databases, according to Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, speaking as he unveiled the Defense Department's new cyberwarfare strategy. Lynn did not say whether investigations pointed to a specific nation, but he says a “foreign intelligence service” was involved.
For more than a century, surface warships have been struggling to survive against mines, submarines, aircraft and, more recently, cruise missiles. Now China's rapid development of a sophisticated anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) raises the threat to a new level.
A push by French legislators to encourage France to do more in the realm of ballistic missile defense is very much threat-driven. But they are not concerned as much about Iranian missile proliferation as they are about France falling technologically behind its strategic rivals. In particular, French politicians want to make sure that the U.S. does not dominate Europe's missile defense spending and that Paris's nuclear deterrent is not undermined in the long term.
Details are starting to emerge regarding Iran's latest step to bolster its ballistic missile inventory. The Iranian military has test-fired the Sejil-2 and Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missiles into the Indian Ocean, exercising for the first time the weapons' full range of 1,900 km (1,180 mi.).
The Indian military, which is seeking to close a gap in its short-range surface-to-surface missile inventory, plans to test a new 150-km (90-mi.) battlefield weapon.
NASA and Capitol Hill are in showdown mode over the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) that Congress wants flying by 2016. Agency managers are working with outside consultants to find a way to cover the cost of developing a new government-owned human-rated rocket, while impatient lawmakers are pressing for a faster start to the project and looking to trim the NASA budget at the same time.
