Russian Space Agency Roscosmos plans to complete deployment of the Glonass national satellite navigation system by mid-year, with the launch of four more spacecraft. Roscosmos head Anatoly Perminov—who received a presidential reprimand after the loss of three Glonass satellites in a Dec. 5 Proton launch mishap—says the agency will orbit three more Glonass-M satellites by May-June to replace the units destroyed. One is already assembled and in ground testing. Roscosmos is now looking at options to speed up production of the two others and identify a booster to launch them.
Juergen Siebenrock has been named vice president-Americas at Lufthansa German Airlines , succeeding Jens Bischof, who will become a member of Lufthansa’s board. Siebenrock was vice president-sales and marketing in Germany for Lufthansa Cargo.
“The fiscal challenges that governments around the world are having to face must be considered as national security issues,” says the British permanent undersecretary of defense, Ursula Brennan. “For this reason the new U.K. coalition government has made reducing the national deficit its top priority,” she said Feb. 1 about the U.K. Strategic Defense and Security Review in Washington.
Kim Hammonds is Boeing ’s new chief information officer and vice president-information technology. She was director of Americas manufacturing operations at Dell.
Boeing’s third 787 test aircraft, ZA003, resumed test flights on Jan. 29, completing the return-to-flight process for the six-member fleet following its grounding in November in the wake of an electrical fire on ZA002. Work with ZA003, which is focused on interiors and cabin tests, resumed with certification tasks connected with the Halon fire extinguisher system. Together with other missions set for the fleet, these tests pushed the overall tally past the 900-flight milestone as test hours climbed beyond 2,700.
Analysis of far-infrared data collected during the Hubble Space Telescope’s Ultra Deep Field observations has turned up what scientists believe to be the earliest galaxy ever spotted, pointing the way for more discoveries with the planned James Webb Space Telescope. The compact galaxy of blue stars—only 0.01 the size of the Milky Way—existed 480 million years after the Big Bang. Light from the object—too distant to resolve the individual stars—traveled for 13.2 billion years to reach the orbiting observatory.
A new Indian navy unmanned aircraft unit is addressing critical surveillance gaps over the Arabian Sea that were exposed during the November 2008 terror attack in Mumbai as the service looks to greatly increase the types of unmanned aircraft it operates.
The Pentagon is planning in the fiscal 2012 budget to boost the number of Enhanced Medium-Range Surveillance systems (Emarss) for the Army to 18 from 12 aircraft in low-rate, initial production, according to a defense official. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin/Sierra Nevada has joined its fellow Emarss competition losers, Northrop Grumman and L-3 Communications, in protesting the Army’s selection of Boeing for the $323 million contract.
The value of forward-traded European Union emissions allowance (EUA) contracts for December 2011 delivery regained some of their strength in January 2011 after a tepid end to 2010 and despite several incidents of theft of the credits from user accounts during the month. After finishing December 2010 at €14.23 ($19.64) per metric ton, the 2011 EUAs hit €14.68 Jan. 6 and then went to a high for the month of €14.91 by Jan. 25, after several weeks of trading in the range of €14.23-14.62.
NASA is ramping up preparations to install Ad Astra Rocket Co.’s prototype 200-kw variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket (Vasimr) engine on the International Space Station’s Z1 truss in 2014. About 100 NASA employees, primarily from the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Office, have been assigned to work with the Houston-based company, and an agreement for additional engineering support from the Johnson Space Center is pending, says CEO Franklin Chang-Diaz, a physicist and seven-time space shuttle astronaut.
Airport authorities and directors hoping a passenger facility charge (PFC) increase will make its way into the fiscal 2011 FAA reauthorization bill to pay for improvements at their facilities, received a dose of fiscal reality last week. Jim Coon, staff director of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told a meeting of the execs, “With this new Congress, it is going to be extremely difficult to have any legislation that even remotely appears to be, or can be construed as, a tax increase.”
While the Tejas fighter has advanced India’s combat-aircraft development skills, satisfaction of the country’s military ambitions demands large purchases of foreign aircraft. For this decade, at least, India will need not only the fighter that will fill the MMRCA requirement, but huge numbers of helicopters, unmanned aircraft, trainers, transports and miscellaneous types such as airborne early warning aircraft to operate from aircraft carriers. The army’s ambitions to take control of all battlefield aircraft could result in expanded orders in that area, too.
Jean Medina has been appointed vice president-communications of the Air Transport Association , succeeding David Castelvetter, who is leaving after five years. Medina joins ATA from United Airlines.
Zhigang Wang has become senior process development engineer at the Makino Mason Titanium Process Research and Development Group . A researcher and author, Wang has written extensively on the titanium machining process used in aircraft manufacture.
The Australian government will attempt to make defense department officials accountable for their seemingly endless run of program foul-ups, the latest centered on the NH90 helicopter. Separately, Canberra will conduct a detailed review of the effort to field its NH90 transport version, the MRH90, putting it one step away from the “project of concern” classification that would officially label it as going off the rails.
USMC Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been chosen to receive the Stellar Award for Service to Government from the Society of Satellite Professionals International . Cartwright’s selection is based on his work to reshape the communications and informations systems of the Defense Department.
At a crucial European Space Agency meeting in March, France and Germany will offer a common agenda for launch system price support and International Space Station use, removing a big unknown from the docket.
The recent slew of fourth-quarter results produced some illuminating profits for U.S. operators, and the plaudits and platitudes that followed were mostly deserved. However, some on Wall Street remain wary that the capacity discipline that aided this recovery may be under pressure, despite some of the country’s biggest players indicating there is no need for concern.
When the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) hosts its annual state of the industry gathering in Washington on Feb. 22, the tally of 2010 deliveries is likely to be a disappointing number. Again.
Madhu Unnikrishnan’s Market Focus column, with its concise analysis of future oil prices in 2011 and their effect on airline bottom lines, covers all the bases except for one (AW&ST Jan. 10, p. 12). He overlooks an important patch of geography—the black hole where all oil price planning could disappear—the Strait of Hormuz. If it were to be closed to oil tanker traffic in 2011, then the resulting panicky scramble to secure supply by energy consumers will make $100-per-barrel oil forecasts evaporate.
All Nippon Airways has taken delivery of the 1,000th 767 and the last to receive final body join in the 40-24 bay at Boeing’s Everett, Wash., factory. The delivery allows the 767 to join the ranks of the 707, 727, 737, 747, 757 and 777 as having passed 1,000 deliveries. A win in the U.S. Air Force KC-X tanker competition will keep the line open well into the new decade, but should Boeing lose, it holds orders for only 49 undelivered commercial 767s.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) is acquiescing to a moratorium on congressional spending earmarks for fiscal 2011 and 2012, despite his own support for what he and supporters term a constitutional prerogative. “The handwriting is clearly on the wall,” Inouye says. “The president has stated unequivocally that he will veto any legislation containing earmarks, and the House will not pass any bills that contain them.
Orbital Sciences Corp. will integrate and test the 81 spacecraft in the next-generation Iridium mobile satellite system and pre-purchase capacity for the hosted payloads.
