Telesat has picked International Launch Services to orbit its Telstar 14R, a Ku-band satellite intended to replace Telstar 14/Estrela do Sol. The 46-transponder spacecraft, to be built by Space Systems/Loral, will be orbited in the second half of 2011. Estrela do Sol was launched in 2004 but suffered a solar array failure that limited its service life. The launch deal, which followed an SES award for QuetzSat-1 a week earlier, is the eleventh for ILS.
Aeroflot’s board of directors has decided to postpone deliveries of two A320-200 and three A321-200 narrowbodies that had been planned to start next year. However, deliveries scheduled for 2009 remain unaffected; the carrier expects to receive 18 A320s and six A330s.
ThalesRaytheonSystems will roll out the Air Command and Control System Level of Operational Capability (ACCS LOC 1) at eight additional European sites under a framework agreement with NATO concluded last week. The accord will allow contracting to begin for the ACCS LOC 1, which is intended to form the backbone of NATO’s Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense program. The eight new sites are in France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Turkey.
Several hundred reports have been issued since the 1960s on the need to reform the U.S. government’s acquisition process, yet the dysfunction seems only to intensify. The cost of weapons systems keeps ballooning and program delays grow longer while the Pentagon, Congress and contractors continue to point fingers at one another.
Italian space managers aim to parlay plans for reconstruction of an earthquake-ravaged plant into a springboard for developing new telecom and radar satellite know-how.
Greg Caires (see photos) has become Washington-based vice president-media relations for Cobham plc and David Helfgott vice president of Cobham Surveillance, Arlington, Va. He was president/CEO of DataPath Inc.
Astronomers worldwide will turn their instruments on Jupiter’s south pole in the weeks ahead to study the fallout from what appears to have been a surprise hit from a previously undetected comet. A dark spot only a little smaller than Earth appeared in the gas giant’s atmosphere between 6 a.m. and noon EDT July 19, first detected by Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley.
China and Russia last week held a five-day joint exercise, Peace Mission 2009, that included army and air force personnel from both countries. In preparing for the joint training, a Xian JH-7A strike aircraft was reported to have crashed, with the death of its two crewmembers. Participating Russian aircraft included the Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer, Su-25 Frogfoot and Su-27 Flanker.
Pinnacle Systems of Beavercreek, Ohio, will license a self-repairing wire developed by Robert E. Kauffman, a chemist and fluid analyst at the University of Dayton Research Institute. He has conducted research for the FAA into issues surrounding wiring in aging aircraft (AW&ST June 23, 2008, p. 65). Kauffman calls the product “Patch” (Power-Activated Technology for Coating and Healing), and it comes in two versions.
Lockheed Martin officials report Boeing has withdrawn a renewed complaint protesting NASA’s award of the GOES-R weather satellites to Lockheed. NASA had been due to answer the late April protest by the end of August. Lockheed had cautioned that continued protests could heighten schedule and cost pressure on the GOES-R program.
Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington), Madhu Unnikrishnan (Kennedy Space Center)
It will be at least another week before the space shuttle Endeavour returns from its mission to the International Space Station, but its seven-member crew and the six more on the station already have set up a new platform where experiments can be exposed to open space.
Did the U.S. sell the F-117 to a foreign nation? No! So why sell the F-22? The whole premise of the F-22 is total air supremacy. Why would you even consider putting someone else on an even playing field with you? Who paid to develop this aircraft? The U.S. taxpayers. Who will profit from the sale of the F-22? Did we not learn anything from selling F-14s to Iran? We have the big stick on the block, an uneven fight in the air, total air superiority. That’s why we built the F-22.
Despite emerging signs of demand stability, U.S. airlines are eyeing the fall travel season with great trepidation. A renewed slump in this period will put intense pressure on airline liquidity—and that threat, along with earlier losses, is dispelling the last hopes of a profitable 2009 for almost all carriers.
Bodo Uebber (see photos) has been appointed chairman of the board of Amsterdam-based EADS . He suceeds Rudiger Grube, who has become CEO of Deutsche Bahn. Following Grube is Wilfried Porth, who is head of human resources and labor relations for Daimler AG.
Icelandair launched four-times weekly transatlantic service between Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Reykjavik on July 23. The carrier plans to add a fifth weekly flight in 2010.
Boeing has completed the first flight of the Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18 program. The flight lasted more than 1 hr. from Lambert International Airport in St. Louis. Boeing says the aircraft still will be delivered this month, which the company says is three months early. The next milestone comes in March when the first Super Hornet is due at RAAF Amberley. All 24 aircraft in the order are due for delivery before the end of 2011.
Col. Tanotsu Kidono heads the Japan Air Self-Defense Force Air Staff’s Defense Plans, Policies and Programs Div. He sat down with AW&ST Senior Military Editor David A. Fulghum at the defense ministry in Tokyo to detail the JASDF’s assessment of future threats and other topics. One of the service’s top priorities is to continue a modernization effort that will lead to the introduction of fifth-generation aircraft via the F-X and F-XX programs.
Japan’s National Police Agency is to purchase a Sikorsky S-92 medium helicopter for search-and-rescue and special missions. The agency already operates two S-76Bs. Sikorsky was unsuccessful in a previous effort to sell the S-92 in Japan for VVIP transport and mine countermeasures missions.
Lt. Gen. Hidetoshi Hirata is commander of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force’s Southwestern Composite Air Div. based in Okinawa. He met recently with AW&ST Senior Military Editor David A. Fulghum at the division’s headquarters near Naha to discuss such topics as the challenges of monitoring and policing a string of Japanese islands extending almost to China.
Agreement on a monitoring system for the sale of U.S.-made weapons systems and components to India has cleared the way for greater cooperation between the two countries and the potential for U.S. contractors to walk off with India’s biggest procurement prizes.
The private/public Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (Sesar) Joint Undertaking says 30 projects have been started since an agreement was reached with the 16 Sesar partners on June 12. The agreement covers 295 projects to be completed by 2016. Among projects begun over the past month are a Ground-Based Augmentation System for Cat. 2 and Cat.
Manufacturers of piston-engine aircraft and powerplant makers are showing interest in an experimental, non-petroleum biofuel that could possibly serve as a “drop-in” replacement for leaded avgas. Swift Enterprises Ltd., a West Lafayette, Ind.-based energy development company, has engineered a hydrocarbon-based fuel synthesized from biomass that has demonstrated detonation protection and energy output equal to or better than 100 octane low-lead (100LL) aviation gasoline. Until now, no research effort has arrived at such a product, petroleum-based or not.
Public relations consultant Kate Dougherty has been named to the board of directors of the Minneapolis-based Lindbergh Foundation . She was public relations director for Cirrus Design.
Modularity and autonomy are themes in the U.S. Air Force’s new long-term vision for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). UAS Flight Plan 2009-2047, unveiled July 23 at the Pentagon, lays out the doctrinal, organizational, personnel and technological steps required to institutionalize unmanned aircraft within the Air Force, and provides paths for the evolution of UAS capabilities in four classes: small man-portable, including nano and micro; medium “fighter-sized”; large “tanker-sized”; and special low-observable, hypersonic and ultra-long-endurance vehicles.
