Michael A. Taverna (Bourges, France), Douglas Barrie (London)
France is pursuing a revamped plan to flight test an experimental hypersonic vehicle, with Russia’s leading air-launched cruise missile developer, Raduga, tasked to oversee this element of the program. France’s LEA hypersonic research project—the acronym stands for the Russian term for flight-test vehicle—was begun in 2003 and the first of six flight tests was due in 2009. The vehicle is powered by a dual-mode ramjet capable of speed in the 4-8 Mach region. A revised prog ram schedule now foresees four test flights over the period 2012-14.
The U.S. airlines that fell into bankruptcy protection this year got their final push from different sources: ATA Airlines lost a big military contract, Frontier Airlines had issues with a credit card processor, and Skybus couldn’t survive high fuel costs and what many considered a flawed strategy.
Nextant Aerospace plans to fly its re-engined Beechjet 400A light jet in June 2009, aiming for certification and delivery of the Williams FJ44-3AP-powered 400NXT in 2010. Replacing the JT15D-5s will reduce fuel consumption by 32% and extend range to 2,005 naut. mi., says Nextant. The company is selling fully remanufactured 400NXTs for $4.9 million and conversions of customer Beechjet 400As and Hawker 400XPs for $2.4 million. The upgrade includes a Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 cockpit. This will be certificated by year-end, says Nextant.
Chinese controllers are practicing proximity operations with a small subsatellite released from the nose of the manned Shenzhou 7 spacecraft Sept. 30 that continues to circle the Shenzhou orbital module left in orbit when the crew rode the descent module back to Earth. The BX-1 subsatellite, weighing about 35 kg. (77 lb.) and equipped with a maneuvering system as well as two cameras, shows the growing maturity of Chinese small-satellite development.
MBDA says its Otomat antiship missile has undergone a successful test firing from a Royal Malaysian Navy Laksamana-class corvette using TG2 over-the-horizon inflight retargeting with target hand-off provided by a Super Lynx helicopter.
Michael M. Rombach has become senior vice president-market development for Input , Reston, Va. He was vice president-product marketing at America Online.
Emirates will open its Terminal 3 at the Dubai hub Oct. 14. The phased opening will eventually lead to a capacity of handling 43 million passengers per year. Initially, flights from Gulf Cooperation Council states will operate there, as well as from New York, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo and Toronto. In a second phase, other Middle Eastern and African destinations will shift to the new facility. European, Indian subcontinent, Far East and Australian destinations come even later. Five of the 26 gates are configured for double-decker A380 operations.
NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission will use a new orbit-raising method that could allow a variety of future small science missions to get beyond low Earth orbit without upgrading to large launch vehicles. The 1,016-lb. spacecraft is set to be placed in an initial 130-mi. orbit Oct. 19 by an air-launched Pegasus XL originating from Kwajalein Atoll. To reach its final, highly elliptical orbit, the spacecraft will fire an ATK Star 27 solid rocket motor to boost it to its apogee, then use a hydrazine propulsion system to reach its final 200,000 X 4,400-mi.
Oct. 20-21—Technology Training Corp.’s Space-Based ISR Conference. Hilton Arlington (Va.). Also, Oct. 23-24—Military Energy & Fuels Conference. Caesars Palace Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas. Call +1 (310) 563-1223 or see www.ttcus.com Oct. 20-22—Airports Council International-North America’s Public Safety and Security Fall Conference. Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City Hotel, Arlington, Va. See see www.aci-na.org/conferences
Douglas Barrie (London), David A. Fulghum (Washington), Robert Wall (Paris)
The British Royal Air Force could have the first of three Boeing RC-135V/W Rivet Joint electronic intelligence aircraft 24 months after concluding a deal to replace the capability now provided by the Nimrod R1. While the Defense Ministry says it is continuing to weigh a variety of platforms for its Elint program, known as Project Helix, industry executives on both sides of the Atlantic suggest the Rivet Joint option is emerging as the preferred approach.
The Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn, 920 million mi. from Earth, dove to within 82,000 ft. of the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus Oct. 9 to sample the composition of water vapor geysers blasting material 300 mi. into space. The flyby at nearly 40,000 mph. was with Cassini flying backward relative to its imaging systems, to enable the spacecraft’s particles and field instruments to be hit head-on by the plume materials. The geysers could mean Enceladus harbors a subsurface ocean, warm enough to form a stew of living organisms nearly 1 billion mi.
A new focus at the Pentagon on shoring up USAF’s nuclear stewardship is allowing Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) to begin a program to buy new helicopters for security teams supporting the Minuteman III mission. Maj. Gen. Roger Burg, 20th Air Force commander, says funding will be allocated in the Fiscal 2009 budget for a program office to manage the procurement. AFSPC needs 25-30 helicopters that have greater range, an all-weather/day-night capability and can fly faster than the 25 Hueys now conducting the mission, he says.
European airlines are feeling the effects of the global economic crisis, if passenger traffic figures are a barometer. British Airways’ numbers most clearly illustrate the situation, with its vital premium traffic down 8.6% in September over last year’s results. Overall, traffic for the carrier was down 4.8%. While a slowdown was expected, “this volume drop was greater than anticipated,” say analysts at financial institution Dresdner Kleinwort.
Dave Duesterhaus (see photo) has been named site director of the Arnold Engineering Development Center ’s National Full Scale Aerodynamics Complex, Moffett Field, Calif.
A Barack Obama administration is not likely to slash defense weapons spending, although some major acquisition programs would fall under tighter scrutiny, according to the Democratic senator’s senior national security adviser, Richard Danzig. The former Navy secretary says the next set of national leaders will “need to come to grips, above all, with the affordability issues and the requirements process.” But Obama doesn’t have a “predisposition” toward particular programs.
Brazil’s TAM Airlines will be the first Latin American member of the Star Alliance following completion of its integration process in 12-18 months. Star’s board voted last week to accept TAM, which is South America’s largest carrier with a fleet of 116 aircraft that fly on 16 international and 42 domestic routes. A code-share agreement signed last week by TAM and Star founding member Air Canada becomes effective in November, subject to government approval.
David R. Apt (see photos), Catherine Lamb-Heinz and Daniel J. McClain have been promoted to vice presidents-communications at the Northrop Grumman Corp. Apt and Lamb-Heinz were directors of communciations at the Herndon, Va.-based Technical Services Sector and the Linthicum, Md.-based Electronic Systems Sector, respectively. McClain was corporate director of media relations at the company’s Los Angeles headquarters.
The Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) is now implemented in air traffic flows over most of the globe, says the International Civil Aviation Organization. The minimum vertical distance between aircraft was accomplished starting Sept. 25 for operations above ICAO’s Africa and Indian Ocean region, the last to put it into practice. The RVSM, to 1,000 ft. from 2,000 ft., is in effect between FL290 and 410.
It doesn’t take classified access to understand that the Royal Air Force’s new Astor intelligence-gathering system, being fine-tuned here in the green swales of East Anglia, will soon be bound for operations over the sand seas and knife-edge ridges of Afghanistan.
The Astor system is maturing, and has proven that airborne radar ground surveillance is a crucial battlefield capability for fighting both small terrorist groups and conventional army formations, say British Army and Royal Air Force officials. But more importantly—and largely hidden from view—is a long-term, multi-service effort to pull additional advanced capabilities from the airborne sensor.
Barry Brown (see photo) has become vice president-commercial of Oman Air . He was chief commercial officer of SriLankan Airlines and has been an executive at Qantas, American Airlines and Air France.
The Pentagon is planning to make no changes to its national security space management structure until the new administration is settled in 2009. Despite a growing threat to systems in space—including direct-ascent anti-satellite technologies (demonstrated by China) and jamming, as well as developments toward fielding high-energy lasers, high-powered microwaves and co-orbital attack systems—there appears to be no resolve in the executive branch to manage these issues soon.
Michael Wright, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, Md.)
As burning of fossil fuels has both the airline industry and planet struggling to keep their heads above water, it’s time to start thinking outside the proverbial box. Rather than burning jet fuel while taxiing, wouldn’t it make sense to use a sustainable ground-based propulsion system rather than burn dirty and heavy onboard fuel? Linear induction motors (LIMs) could be added to aircraft to transport them while on the ground. LIM technology has been around for decades but only deployed on small scales.
All counterterrorism programs that collect or “mine” personal data, including web surfing, should be systematically evaluated for their effectiveness, lawfulness and privacy impact, a new report from the National Research Council asserts. Both classified and unclassified programs should be evaluated before being set in motion and then checked regularly, the report says. The danger of terror attacks is “real and serious,” says former Defense Secretary William Perry, co-chairman of the study group.
