Airbus says the 28-month delay to the Boeing 787 flight-test program is bad news for the European manufacturer and the industry at large. “It does not do us or the industry any good when a program is as troubled as we were with the A380,” says Airbus Americas Chairman Allan McArtor. “Suppliers are hurting when a big program is delayed, so we’d like to see that program get going.”
A proof-of-concept experiment with radiation-resistant carbon nanotube-based memory devices has demonstrated that they can be operated in space regardless of the rigors of launch. The wafers of carbon Nanotube Random Access Memory (NRAM)—similar to the one at right being examined by a technician—performed as well after reentry into the atmosphere as they did in benchmark tests before launch. Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, Calif., and Nantero of Woburn, Mass., conducted the experiment on last May’s STS-125 mission of space shuttle Atlantis.
Boeing and General Dynamics are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the long-standing case between them and the Pentagon over cancellation of the U.S. Navy’s A-12 stealthy attack aircraft in 1991. The saga has focused on whether the Pentagon had the right to cancel the program for cause. This year, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the government and last week refused to reopen the case. The verdict would force Boeing and General Dynamics to pay the government $2.8 billion plus interest, which has become a huge bill.
Blue Origins, the space-tourism startup developing the New Shepherd vertical-takeoff-and-landing suborbital vehicle, has picked three scientific experiments to ride the vehicle as early as 2011. Although the three will be carried on an unmanned flight, the company plans to offer rides to “researcher astronauts” who will need to tend their experiments during the roughly 3 min. of microgravity it will provide.
The Canadian Air Transportation Security Authority (Catsa), under a C$27-million ($25.7-million) contract with Smiths Detection, plans to install 140 advanced checkpoint X-ray systems at the nation’s airports by February. Major airports—the first being Vancouver, host to the Winter Olympic Games Feb. 12-28—will receive the Advanced Threat Identification X-ray (aTiX) units. The order includes training costs and involves two sizes of scanners, the HI-SCAN 6040 and the slightly larger HI-SCAN 7555, which can accommodate big objects such as strollers.
A Boeing 737NG full-flight simulator in Texas is to be used to test whether actual flight-recorder data can be employed for improved pilot training. The U.S. military is fronting the research, but its results could have significant ramifications for civil aviation as it moves to training based on performance standards instead of prescriptive tasks.
Industry groups want to make sure aviation is not forgotten if another bill to stimulate the economy and create jobs is drafted by Congress. A coalition of 19 aviation associations has written to lawmakers urging them to include funding for air traffic control modernization in any such bill. “Congress should seize this opportunity to expedite NextGen capabilities and to provide a platform for domestic job creation,” the letter says. Separately, Airports Council International-North America is calling for Congress to consider airport infrastructure projects.
Astronomers plan to use data from NASA’s upcoming Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission for decades to come as a pointer to objects in the sky that deserve closer study.
Centrifuge-based simulation is expanding the flight envelope and providing what’s missing in upset recovery training—a realistic encounter with the violent forces generated during airliner upsets.
Unlike most other international airlines, Emirates continued to grow in spite of the global economic downturn. In the first six months of its financial year, 2009-10, which ended Sept. 30, passenger numbers grew by 18%.
Why there is so much excitement over M3 and Lcross “discoveries?” It has been known for a long time that the solar wind included protons—the common isotopes of hydrogen—and solar wind has impacted the Moon since it formed. Is anyone surprised that as a result, there is interaction with oxygen in the regolith—a ubiquitous element in lunar minerals—resulting in H2O? To get excited over the fact that processing a ton of lunar regolith may yield a pint or two of water seems unrealistic, considering the investment.
Defense technology company Qinetiq is reflecting uncertainty in its two key markets, the U.K .and the U.S., warning it is unlikely to meet its financial expectations for the year. Announcing first-half results, Qinetiq cautions that its “main geographic markets are experiencing short-term uncertainties in specific areas.
Gen. Xu Qiliang, head of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, caused a stir in November with his declaration that “competition between military forces [in space] is a historical inevitability and cannot be undone.” Picked up by news outlets worldwide, Xu’s remarks in an interview with the Xinhua news agency did not sit well with the mandarins at China’s foreign ministry, who were getting ready to host President Barack Obama in Beijing. “I want to point out China has all along upheld the peaceful uses of outer space,” said Ma Zhaoxu, the ministry spokesman.
Michael A. Taverna (Paris), Douglas Barrie (London)
France and the U.K. are working on a deal that would make it easier for them to acquire each other’s military equipment and to undertake joint procurements. Under the agreement, which is to be signed in the next few months, the two nations will be able to exchange information and use each other’s procedures in meeting urgent operating requests (UOR), according to Vice Adm. Bernard Rogel, assistant chief of defense for operations within the French defense ministry.
The FAA, following a review of icing accidents and incidents, has proposed a rule that would require Part 121 scheduled carriers to retrofit existing fleets with ice detection equipment, or make changes in an airplane’s flight manual to ensure timely activation of an existing system. The rule applies only to in-service aircraft with a takeoff weight less than 60,000 lb. The FAA anticipates the rule to become final in December 2010. Comments on the proposed rule are to be made by Feb. 22, 2010.
France and Italy are expected to sign off on contracts for two new military communications satellites by year-end. A go-ahead for the Sicral 2 secure satcom and Athena-Fidus dual-use broadband spacecraft has been held up for more than a year by discussion about technical requirements and other issues. Thales Alenia Space is the expected prime contractor.
Retiring labor-intensive air transport aircraft, such as the Airbus A300, DC-9, and Boeing 737 and 747 Classics, will help decrease maintenance labor hours per aircraft by 12% for narrowbodies and 25% for widebodies, according to AeroStrategy.
EADS CEO Louis Gallois has set a goal of growing the company’s North American revenues eight-fold during the next decade, to $10 billion annually. But to make the big acquisitions he will need to achieve that target. Gallois will first have to find a way around a major roadblock: his own board.
After billions of dollars spent over nearly 50 years of hypersonic propulsion research and development, what does the U.S. have to show for it? NASP, the National AeroSpace Plane that President Ronald Reagan once promised would lead to a commercial “Orient Express” to whisk passengers from New York to Tokyo in less than 2 hr., is all but forgotten. The best space launchers still must haul their own oxidizer as well as the fuel for their engines as they climb to orbit, and they throw away pieces of the vehicle as they go.
ESA’s science program committee has approved a rescoping of the BepiColombo mission to Mercury and €970 million ($1.45 billion) for Europe’s share of the program, being undertaken with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. Mass and technology problems, in particular related to solar arrays, had led agency heads to push back launch to mid-2014 and consider scuttling the project altogether. Agency managers are now confident technology issues can be resolved and the mission completed within the revised budget.
The Aerospace Industries Assn.’s executive committee has approved the Global Principles of Business Ethics for the Aerospace and Defense Industry already endorsed by the Aerospace and Defense Industries Assn. of Europe. In a statement, the AIA said the rules address conduct relating to “zero tolerance of corruption, use of advisers, management of conflicts of interest and respect for proprietary information.”
United Aircraft Corp. (UAC) is aiming to merge the combat aircraft businesses—Sukhoi and MiG—under its control into a single unit in 2012. Control of MiG was achieved following an additional share issue in October. According to the restructuring strategy approved by the UAC board in late November, the 2010-12 period will see it establish separate business units for commercial, special mission and combat aircraft. The first two will be set up in 2010, but the combat aircraft unit will not be established until 2012 due in part to the poor financial state of MiG.
With reference to possible changes to accident inquiries in Europe (AW&ST Nov. 9, p. 52), it is vital that any investigation authority is completely separate from the safety regulator to ensure impartial investigations and recommendations. It would be very concerning if the European Union, in a desire to centralize, created a body that inevitably is unduly influenced by politicians or the regulating authoritiy, and aircraft and equipment manufacturers, particularly if the aircraft was built in Europe.
NASA Ames Research Center has licensed a design for a photo-bioreactor that grows algae in municipal wastewater to produce biofuels and other products. Called the Offshore Membrane Enclosure for Growing Algae (Omega), the bioreactor will not compete with agriculture for land, fertilizer or freshwater. Algae Systems of Carson City, Nev., plans to use the technology as the basis for biorefineries to produce diesel and jet fuels, among other products.
Italian air force investigators have recovered recorders from a C-130J belonging to the 46th Aerobrigade that crashed at 2:10 p.m. local time on Nov. 23 near Pisa, killing all five on board. The aircraft was scheduled to support paratrooper training, but wind conditions were above limits so the mission focus changed to crew training. Just prior to theaccident, the crew completed a touch and go when eyewitnesses said the C-130J turned right before losing altitude and impacting. It is Italy’s first fatal C-130J accident.
