Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems started its pulse production line for the GPS IIF spacecraft last week with Space Vehicle 4. Each satellite will take about 10 months to manufacture, including 14 pulse stations with different work. Twelve satellites are on order from USAF.
The Space Foundation’s Space Report 2010, released at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, paints a picture of positive global growth in the space business, but simultaneously reveals the continuing shrinkage of the U.S. launch industry. The report reveals it reached a value of $261.6 billion in 2009, representing close to 40% growth since the Space Foundation started tracking the state of the industry in 2005.
Michael Mecham says “the Delta IV Heavy’s 2-million-lb. liftoff thrust is the most of any expendable rocket since the Saturn V . . .” Didn’t the Titan IV have around 3? (The reader is correct. The Titan IV’s two solid rocket booster motors had a combined 3 million lb. thrust. Its two-stage liquid propellant core had 548,000 lb. in the first stage and 105,000 lb. in the second—Ed.)
William F. Kiczuk (see photo) has been named vice president/chief technology officer of the Raytheon Co. , Waltham, Mass. He is a Raytheon senior principal engineering fellow and was technical director and director of the Strategic Architectures unit of Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems.
Former U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab has been appointed to the board of directors of Chicago-based Boeing . She is now a member of the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. George C. Roman has become Washington-based vice president-state and local government operations. He was vice president-government operations and St. Louis regional executive for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems.
Airbus has wrapped up the Airbus A330-200F freighter flight-test campaign and on April 9 received type certification for the aircraft from the European Aviation Safety Agency. The FAA’s target date for completing the freighter certification amendment is late May. The 200-hr. flight-test program launched in November 2009 involved two aircraft, the first powered by Pratt & Whitney PW4000 turbofans (above) and the second by Rolls-Royce Trent 700s. The EASA certification includes both engine types.
Boeing recorded 12 unidentified customers for the 777 last week, which pulls the airplane into the black for the year with nine net orders. It previously had lost three orders. The company also lost a 737 order from an unidentiifed customer, giving it a net 70 for the year. In all, Boeing has 94 net orders, including 15 previously recorded for the 787.
Dorothy Arbiter (see photos) has been promoted to principal director of the Systems Engineering and Ground Div. within the National Systems Group from systems director for the Systems Architecture, Engineering and Cost Department in the Systems Engineering Div. of The Aerospace Corp. , El Segundo, Calif. Chris Dunbar has been promoted to associate principal director of the Guidance and Control Subdivision of the Vehicle Systems Div.
NASA has decided that a problem with the International Space Station’s thermal control system can wait at least a month before astronauts will have to perform a spacewalk to fix it.
Sikorsky has offered the high-speed, coaxial-rotor X2 Technology Light Tactical Helicopter as part of its response to the U.S. Army’s request for information on candidates for its Armed Aerial Scout (AAS) requirement to replace the Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior and its canceled successor, the Bell ARH-70A Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter. EADS North America and teammates American Eurocopter and Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, are to fund three demonstrators for its AAS contender, an armed derivative of the Army’s UH-72A Lakota light utility helicopter.
It is only a matter of time, say experts in U.S. military parts procurement, before a fake component in a major piece of Pentagon equipment leads to catastrophe because the Pentagon lacks the ability to track or identify the counterfeits. “One of these days, we’ll have a real problem,” says Mark Snider, founder and president of ERAI, formerly known as the Electronic Resellers Association, which operates a global database of counterfeit parts and vendors. “Something is going to cost lives that’s going to be traced back to a counterfeit component.”
It appears from the love fest at the Senate Armed Forces Committee that Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander will be confirmed as a four-star general and the first commander of U.S. Cyber Command. But all his concerns and those of Congress about a lack of policy for cyberwar remain. The ability to operate in cyberspace—in particular to attack networks—has “outpaced the development of policy, law and precedent to guide and control those operations,” says Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Boeing’s long-promised GoldCare life-cycle management services system for 787s will soon come to life with a launch order from U.K. leisure group, TUI Travel.
If military sustainment spending follows the laws of gravity, what goes up must come down. In the case of the U.S., however, while overall military budgets are flat, sustainment spending is still inching slightly upward. That is mostly due to aircraft acquisitions taking a bigger hit in budgets than sustainment, as well as flight hours that are not decreasing.
As Britons prepare to go to the polls in two weeks, clashing policies on defense and aerospace are emerging among the three main political parties. While all three are signed up to a strategic defense review and support operations in Afghanistan, positions vary on nuclear deterrence, defense collaboration and elements of equipment procurement. In the commercial arena, airport expansion is contentious.
In the next 15-20 years, we will see commercial suborbital hops from west to east. Virgin Galactic is gearing up to launch SpaceShipTwo on short trips into space, but they will be for the novelty and just go straight up and return to base. It would make more business sense to launch on a suborbital trajectory to the East Coast to get from California to the East Coast in 20 min. versus the 5 hr. it takes today. Going east to west would require a lot more fuel and take more like 60 min., but would still be possible using today’s technology.
I’m not sure where Richard G. Norris is coming from in his letter “Another CAS/ISR Aircraft Idea” (AW&ST March 22, p. 10), or what aircraft he is talk-ing about. The U.S. Air Force A-1E is a renamed Navy AD-7 Skyraider manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Co. in the late 1950s and early ’60s. USAF picked it up and renamed it for use during the Vietnam War. The AD-7 was a single-place light bomber and nevercould carry “10 troops, cargo or stretcher cases.” It had two guns, one in each wing root, not four, as Norris described.
On April 14, the NTSB recommended that the FAA require Honeywell to revise software logic in its MK XXII Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS) and all helicopter operators using the system to install the revised software. The NTSB issued the recommendations in response to investigative testing that revealed a failure within the radio altimeter system could prevent the look-ahead feature of the EGPWS from functioning in flight—and that a pilot could be unaware that the feature was not operational.
Along with other major U.S. space players, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) is hoping for firmer guidance from the Obama administration—and in particular a rescoped road map for heavy-lift launch vehicle development—in the wake of the decision to abandon NASA’s Constellation program.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of the Philippines says it will upgrade the quality and skills of its personnel, including airworthiness and flight inspectors, in a bid to get the country’s carriers removed from the European Union’s list of unsafe airlines. Citing safety deficiencies identified by aviation authorities of the United Nations and U.S., the EU has banned all Philippine carriers from entering its airspace.
Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn says major new investments for traditional national security space mission areas are not likely to materialize, so new approaches to delivering space capabilities are being examined. He says cooperation is possible in areas such as rules of behavior for operating in space, climate monitoring from space and even the critical mission of missile warning. Furthermore, international cooperation could deter malfeasance with U.S. allied satellites.
Gary Driggers, who is retired senior vice president of Midcoast Aviation, has received the William A. Ong Memorial Award from the Alexandria, Va.-based National Air Transportation Association. NATA’s Award for Distinguished Service went to Rep. Jerry Costello (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on aviation. Driggers, a former NATA chairman and member of the board of directors, “played an instrumental part in the . . .
The argument between quality and quantity regarding pilot training is too shallow and perhaps even silly (AW&ST Feb. 1, p. 11; Nov. 30, 2009, p. 52). Both views offer substantive points; both complement each other. I believe it is necessary to go much deeper into the issue. •First, “training” and “education” are not interchangeable. While air carrier pilots are expected to perform at a professional level commensurate with doctors, lawyers and others, they alone matriculate through a course that is built almost solely around “training.”
Cerberus Capital Management, the private-equity firm best known for buying ailing U.S. automaker Chrysler in 2007, is acquiring defense contractor DynCorp International, in a $1.5-billion deal that includes assumption of DynCorp’s debt. Cerberus will pay DynCorp shareholders $17.55 per share, a 50% premium from the stock’s April 12 closing price of $11.75. Although the deal is subject to shareholder review, affiliates of Veritas Capital, which in aggregate own 34.9% of DynCorp’s stock, have agreed to the acquisition.
