Space shuttle Discovery is back at Kennedy Space Center’s Pad 39A to begin its final flight to orbit, following repairs in the Vehicle Assembly Building. Now targeted for a Feb. 24 launch on the STS-133 mission to the International Space Station, Discovery was returned to the VAB last year after cracks were discovered in aluminum-lithium stringers which are used to strengthen the intertank region in the big external tank that separates the shuttle’s liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen compartments.
The European Space Agency has OK’d development of a higher-power version of the Alphabus large-satellite platform intended to help Europe’s satellite makers keep up with high-power models offered by U.S. suppliers such as Space Systems/Loral and Boeing or planned by newcomers like China’s Avic. ESA will spend €37.5 million ($51.8 million) on the undertaking; French space agency CNES and manufacturers EADS Astrium and Thales Alenia Space, who will market the technology, will provide matching amounts.
Some are confirmed, others merely candidates, but the bonanza that the planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has revealed in just its first four months of operations is doing exactly what scientists hoped for when it was launched—shaking up years of theories with new sets of intriguing questions about the formation of distant star fields and the possibility they might contain life.
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Teams led by Lockheed Martin/Raytheon and Boeing/Northrop Grumman have submitted proposals for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) sustainment contract, valued at about $600 million for at least seven years of work. Boeing is the incumbent and had mixed results in its service. The last GMD test producing an intercept was in December 2008. A contract award is expected May 31.
ATR, an EADS/Finmeccanica Franco-Italian joint venture, is expected to reach the 1,000-twin-turboprop milestone in the second half of next year. The Toulouse-based company is in good shape—producing about 50 aircraft per year—and it is scheduled to boost production to 70 per year now that it has inched its way back to profitability. Last year it secured orders for 80 ATR 42/72s, but the company’s long-term future is marred by the absence of all-new products.
Saab has delivered the central and forward fuselage section for Europe’s Neuron unmanned aerial combat vehicle, marking a major step in the French-led six-nation stealth demonstration program.
Edna Lopez (see photo) has become senior vice president and general counsel for Farelogix of Miami. She was president of the Amadeus holding company in North America and general counsel to Amadeus’s North American marketing company.
The political turmoil engulfing parts of the Middle East is expected to have longer-term effects on the aerospace industry beyond the disruption in flight activity and run-up in oil prices witnessed in recent days.
Air France needs to significantly alter its safety organization and culture to be able to improve overall safety levels, according to recommendations made by a mandated independent panel of experts.
Charles Marinello (see photo) has been named vice president of Raytheon Co. ’s Radar Sensor Systems (RSS) and deputy of its Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems mission area. He was senior director of RSS for Space and Airborne Systems.
Magdi Labib (see photo) is Etihad Airways ’ new country manager for Egypt. Before coming to Etihad, he handled commercial activities for British Airways in the Central Province of Saudi Arabia.
As the Seattle manufacturer prepares to unveil the first Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental airliner, it is helping compensate for extensive delays on the -8F freighter by leasing a 747-400BCF to launch customer Cargolux.
The latest NASA heavy-lift concept (AW&ST Jan. 17, p. 18) is that of a hybrid vehicle using both shuttle and Ares I elements. However, some key senators behind the authorization act rejected the concept, urging the agency to try again. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is insisting that any exploration systems be “affordable, sustainable and realistic.” That is why the shuttle-derived Heavy Lifter I (HLI) with a third solid rocket booster (SRB) is probably the better choice.
Helicopter airspeeds have remained essentially constant for the last four decades, but that could be about to change as manufacturers explore the value of additional speed to their civil and military customers.
Fuel has declined from its price peak of 2008 and, while renewed research into open-rotor engines continues, easing economic pressures along with tenacious technical challenges could combine to delay their availability.
French Defense Minister Alain Juppe says implementing a new defense cooperation treaty with the U.K will be one of his top objectives. Juppe said last week he will give top priority this year to applying the treaty, which was signed on Nov. 2. Juppe also says he intends to reinforce ties with Germany and shore up European defense, in both the European Union and NATO.
Operators with small spacecraft will have a one-stop place to shop for launch services under a teaming arrangement by two specialists in organizing piggyback rides on U.S. and other launch vehicles. Spaceflight Services Inc., a Seattle-based spin-off from Andrews Space Inc. and Innovative Space Logistics BV (ISILaunch), based in Delft, Netherlands, will begin offering low-Earth-orbit rides for cubesats, nanosats, microsats and EELV Secondary Payload Adaptor (ESPA) spacecraft this year.
Douglas Royce/Forecast International/www.forecastinternational.com
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program took up a lot of real estate in the national and international press and trade media in 2010, and the critical attention will continue into 2011. The sheer size of the program to supply the U.S. military and partner nations with a stealthy and relatively affordable strike fighter, coupled with questions about prime contractor Lockheed Martin’s ability to stick to the schedule and meet cost targets, makes it the No. 1 target of industry speculation.
Astronaut Steve Bowen, a five-time spacewalker, will replace Tim Kopra as an extravehicular activity crewmember on the upcoming STS-133 assembly mission to the International Space Station. Kopra suffered a hip injury in a Jan. 15 bicycle accident. The mission remains targeted for launch on Feb. 24.
For missile defense in the U.S., 2010 ended as it began: with a major flight-test failure of its linchpin Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) homeland protection system. Sandwiched between these two failures, the first taking place last Jan. 31, were ongoing struggles with quality control in setting up and executing tests as well as in contractors producing critical hardware for the defense systems.
U.K. military planners are cobbling together a new road map to bridge capability gaps that emerged from last year’s Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR) even as they brace for further cuts to plug funding shortfalls.
Can a small turbine-engine market long dominated by Pratt & Whitney Canada and Williams International accommodate another competitor? When the market entrant is one of the “Big Three” engine manufacturers, then the answer is likely yes. General Electric’s push to build its business and general aviation unit into a $1-billion company by 2020 is spearheaded by the HF120 turbofan developed jointly with Honda and the H80 turboprop re-engineered from the M601 produced by Czech manufacturer Walter, which GE acquired in 2008.
Douglas Royce/Forecast International/www.forecastinternational.com
The military transport market will see production of almost 900 new aircraft over the next decade, but the raw numbers obscure major changes in the landscape. Production of the Boeing C-17 could end, leaving the strategic transport market to the Airbus Military A400M, while the Lockheed Martin C-130J will face a challenge for the tactical sector from Embraer’s new KC-390.
As prime contractor for Iridium’s next-generation constellation, Thales Alenia Space is gearing up to build communication satellites on a scale to which the industry is not accustomed. Iridium Next involves the one-for-one replacement of the company’s low-Earth-orbit (LEO) constellation of 66 satellites in six orbital planes. Including six in-orbit and nine ground spares, 81 satellites will be built in less than four years—a rate approaching four a month.
