NASA will attempt to back the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit out of the patch of soft soil where it has been trapped for almost six months, but acknowledges that if this process fails, the rover will probably be stuck for good.
Barack Obama, as a candidate, pledged to cancel every large government program that is overspending or late on schedule. So did John McCain. Now, as president, facing extensive challenges in new energy, health care or defense programs, Obama and his chief advisers need to take a fresh look at these statements. Are such policies really serving the U.S. well? The answer is: not really. The issue involves a deeper understanding of the nature of complex programs and the challenges associated in managing them.
Irkut, the lead contractor in Russia’s United Aircraft Co., is expected to make key final selections on engines, avionics and flight controls for the MS-21 airliner by Nov. 20. According to industry sources, the move follows Russian government threats to give leadership of the program to an unidentified company if selections are delayed beyond this deadline.
Italy may have figured out how to pay for some of its Afghanistan deployment costs without draining the nation’s defense budget, but government officials will not use the special funding stream recently approved by the parliament to finance major weapons systems.
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Airbus Military has performed the first night refueling from its A330 multirole transport tanker (MRTT). The operation involved four contacts with two Portuguese air force F-16s on the night of Nov. 4. Nighttime refueling between the A310 boom and F-16s was also conducted in July. Airbus says the trials, part of final-phase testing for the A330 MRTT, confirmed the capability of laser infrared lighting and high-definition digital stereoscopic viewing features that equip the airplane’s advanced refueling boom system.
For the first time, the French air force has dropped the Sagem-developed AASM air-to-ground guided weapon equipped with an imaging infrared (IIR) seeker from the Rafale fighter. The IIR version uses its seeker for terminal guidance to increase the weapon’s precision using scene-matching algorithms. During the same mission, the Rafale also fired a radar-guided Mica air-to-air missile, to demonstrate the aircraft’s multi-role capability.
Cilas has delivered a compact mid-infrared laser source for a directed infrared countermeasures project being undertaken by French armaments agency DGA. The Cesam project involved development of a jamming laser source to be used by self-protection suites for military transports such as the A400M. The Cilas source, known as Milda, will undergo flight trials to determine its ability to provide jamming in low and average IR spectral bands.
The communications payload for Hylas-1, a flexible payload Ka-/Ku-band satellite intended to provide broadband satellite service in Europe, has been shipped from the Astrium payload plant in England to Bangalore, India, where it will be integrated with a bus supplied by the Indian Space Research Organization’s commercial arm, Antrix. To be launched in 2010 by Arianespace and operated by U.K. startup Avanti Communications, Hylas-1 will be the second spacecraft to be built jointly by Astrium and Antrix.
Although the worst may be over for the Russian air transport industry—and some carriers are already beginning to turn the corner—precarious finances may cause a number of them to fail before they can recover. On the face of it, the Russian outlook mirrors the situation in other regions. Capacity far exceeds demand and yields are in sharp decline. Although a few airlines are starting to report improved numbers, overall passenger traffic fell 14.1% to 34.3 million in the first nine months, compared with the same period in 2008 (AW&ST Oct. 19, p. 53).
Avic Defense, adopting an increasingly Western approach to military aircraft sales, says it is willing to allow foreign production of its latest export product, the L-15 Falcon supersonic trainer. The aircraft is likely to retain the key advantage of an aircraft from a developing country, however, since the manufacturer is also suggesting it will be cheaply priced.
Capt. (ret.) R.L. (Bud) Keeler, Jr. (Eustis, Fla.)
In “The MIT Connection” (AW&ST Oct. 26/Nov. 2, p. 75), Graham Warwick says the only two requirements for the “third-generation” subsonic aircraft were 180 passengers and a 2,800-nm. range. This is a bit shortsighted by not taking into account the air traffic control environment in which the aircraft will operate. While NextGen ATC may be able to handle aircraft at varied speeds more efficiently than the current system, it eventually will give priority to higher-speed aircraft, certainly while they are still in the majority.
BMI’s low-fare affiliate BMIbaby plans significant cuts to its network and fleet in an effort to trim the losses incurred in the ongoing economic downturn. BMIbaby will take five out of its 17 Boeing 737s out of service and cut up to 160 positions. The network reductions will affect bases in the U.K. cities of Birmingham, Manchester and Cardiff. By contrast, the carrier is creating 10 pilot positions and 15 jobs for flight attendants at its main base in East Midlands.
National and international military efforts to provide greater rotary lift for operations in Afghanistan are coming to fruition. Royal Air Force AgustaWestland Merlin helicopters will shortly begin operations in Afghanistan, following the end of four months of training for the deployment, as part of an effort to increase the number of British support helicopters in-theater.
Alitalia plans to become the third partner in the Air France/KLM-Delta Air Lines joint venture as early as next spring. The goal is to conclude negotiations and start operations before the start of summer 2010. The integration will allow Alitalia to share traffic revenues with Delta on Italy-U.S. transatlantic routes. However, it is too early to quantify the respective shares of revenues.
BAE Systems has delivered the last of 24 U.K.-assembled Hawk 132 advanced jet trainers for the Indian air force. India has 66 more of the type on order, the first two of which will be built in the U.K., and the rest license-assembled by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.
The Middle East’s low-fare airline sector has been the biggest growth industry in commercial air transport recently and indications are that the field will continue its upward trend as fresh competitors emerge. “The market is growing [but] the environment is not an easy one,” says Adel Ali, chief executive of Air Arabia, the region’s largest low-fare carrier.
Ed Lukas and Bernie Adamache from Air Canada Jazz are among the 2009 winners of the Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) “Better Way” Award from the FAA and the Air Transport Assn. of America . The award recognizes a team of government and airline industry individuals who worked to advance inspection and testing of aircraft structure, components or systems.
Controllers in Toulouse and in Redu, Belgium, are checking out the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite and Project for Onboard Autonomy (Proba-2), respectively, after a successful launch Nov. 1 from Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome on a Rockot vehicle. Liftoff came at 8:50 p.m. EST, and SMOS separated 70 min. later.
Despite the glowing words in “The Innovation Imperative” (AW&ST Oct. 26/Nov. 2, pp. 50, 52-53), the “Icons of Innovation” timeline shows conclusively that except for a few miltary aircraft and the dead-end Concorde, there has been no real innovation in aeronautics for 50 years, only refinement and upscaling. This is particularly evident in the air transport category. To address a problem, you have to recognize that it exists.
Robert Mullins, who is director of operations, strategy and development at the Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Linthicum, Md.-based Space & Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems Div., has been named executive in residence and Harris Center Fellow at his alma mater, Franklin & Marshall College , Lancaster, Pa., for the 2009-10 year.
The U.S. Air Force has begun certification testing of a synthetic jet fuel derived from waste animal and vegetable oils, while the U.S. Navy has tested a biofuel derived from the camelina plant in an F404 jet engine. The Air Force Research Laboratory says the performance of Syntroleum’s R-8 renewable fuel in initial tests is indistinguishable from its S-8 natural-gas-derived synthetic jet fuel, flown in a B-52 in 2006. Dynamic Fuels, a joint venture between Syntroleum and Tyson Foods, plans to begin fuel production in 2010.
The Bolivian government has concluded a memorandum of understanding with China Great Wall Industry Corp. and the International Telecommunication Union to prepare the way for construction and deployment of a Bolivian telecom satellite, Tupac Katari.
A plan by ICO Global to introduce hybrid mobile satellite service in the U.S. and Canada looks likely to proceed following confirmation of a reorganization plan for its North American unit that gives direct broadcasting giant EchoStar a role, if one smaller than anticipated.
Heavy interest has allowed troubled ProtoStar to sell its ProtoStar-1 spacecraft to Intelsat for $210 million—twice what had been expected—and to prolong the bidding for ProtoStar-2 until the end of the year. The Bermuda-based startup, formed to serve the Asia-Pacific market, was forced to auction the two units after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. in July. Intelsat will rename ProtoStar-1 Intelsat 25 and shift it to a slot over the Atlantic Ocean.
