An aerospace and defense government-industry cooperative is using Exostar to provide common standards for the international exchange of sensitive electronic information by industry and governments.
Three months after Boeing tasked Orion Propulsion Inc. (OPI) to work on producibility issues for the reaction control system (RCS) for the Ares I launcher, the two companies signed a NASA-sponsored Mentor-Protege agreement at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The accord will make OPI—a small engineering and testing specialist from Madison, a Huntsville suburb—more visible in the Boeing supply chain and open the door for it to move into RCS hardware work, says OPI business development director Shar Hendrick.
U.K. investigators continue to seek clues to the Mar. 30 crash of a Cessna Citation Model 500 (Citation I), registration VP-BGE, into a residential neighborhood near Farnborough, Kent, England. Early reports indicate the five people on board were killed, and no one on the ground was injured or killed. The U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is leading the probe, aided by the U.S. NTSB, FAA, aircraft manufacturer Cessna Aircraft Co. and engine-maker Pratt & Whitney Canada.
Faina Zaslavsky (see photo) has been named director of the Microelectronics Solutions unit of Crane Aerospace & Electronics , Redmond, Wash. She has been a senior process engineer. Honors and Elections
The first flight of the Kawasaki C-X military transport has been delayed again, this time until summer, because of newly found defects. The C-X, which was supposed to fly in September 2007, failed static structural tests last July. Now it has been decided that strengthening is needed for the mid and aft fuselage sections, where the landing gear is attached, and for the rear cargo ramp, the Defense Ministry says.
As the space-industrial complex spins up its pitch for more funding from the next occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. (see p. 34), oddsmakers at the 24th National Space Symposium see New York Sen. Hillary Clinton as the strongest space supporter in the three-way presidential race as it stands today. Illinois Sen. Barak Obama’s support for civil space is considered weakest, given his early call for diversion of NASA funding into education and subsequent lack of specifics on his position. The presumptive Republican nominee, Sen.
South Korea will develop a ground-surveillance radar for a large medium-altitude drone to be fielded as early as 2013, aiming to build the aircraft with almost completely domestic technology. Coupled with indigenous electro-optical and infrared sensors, the Korean radar should make the surveillance drone a viable option if the country cannot buy the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, which will not be allowed unless the international Missile Technology Control Regime is changed.
As the Pentagon studies what its military satellite communications architecture will be in light of dwindling funding, engineers at Lockheed Martin are preparing the first new-generation anti-jam military communications satellite for launch early next year. The initial Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite will mark a dramatic change in the capacity of secure communications available to Pentagon users between 65 deg. N and 65 deg. S latitudes. It’s expected to be launched on an Atlas V next January.
Lockheed Martin has completed the last satellite in the U.S. Air Force’s GPS Block IIR modernization program (GPS IIR-M), including a demonstration payload to transmit the new L5 civil signal. The last spacecraft is scheduled for shipment from King of Prussia, Pa., to Cape Canaveral in time for a June launch.
Army Gen. David Petraeus says the Iraqis are getting a bit of a bad rap in the criticism that they are letting the U.S. shoulder all the costs of security needs. So far this year, the Iraqi government has purchased over $2 billion in military equipment and services of U.S. origin under the Foreign Military Sales program. The U.S. commander in Iraq tells Congress Iraq’s security ministries “are steadily improving their ability to execute their budgets,” with $8 billion to be spent this year and $11 billion planned for next year.
The U.S. Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) has tested a General Electric F101 engine burning a 50/50 blend of synthetic and petroleum-based fuels in the center’s J-1 altitude chamber. The experiments are the first to check performance and operability across a wide envelope of altitude and Mach numbers, according to AEDC. The synthetic fuel is derived from natural gas or coal using the Fischer-Tropsch process. A B-1B Lancer flew at supersonic speed on Mar.
Capt. Terry McVenes (Executive Air Safety Chairman)
Your editorial “Don’t Let Courts Trump Safety” hit the mark when you pointed out that the judge’s decision to release the ASAP reports from Comair Flight 5191 endangers the entire program. The incentive for flight crews and other employees to submit ASAP reports is largely based on trust that the information will not be used in enforcement, disciplinary or legal proceedings.
Astronomers are analyzing a brilliant gamma-ray burst that took place an estimated 7.5 billion years ago, yet was so bright it could have been seen with the naked eye. “This burst was a whopper,” says Neil Gehrels of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, principal investigator on the Swift satellite that first spotted it. “It blows away every gamma-ray burst we’ve seen so far.” The Burst Alert Telescope on Swift detected the blast in the constellation Bootes at 2:12 a.m. EDT Mar.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is likely to approve the proposed $5-billion merger of satellite-radio providers XM Radio and Sirius within the next few weeks, following the Mar. 25 Justice Dept. approval of the deal. “Battles over merger conditions will likely take at least a few weeks to play out,” says Stanford Group Analyst Paul Gallant. Bear Stearns’ vice president of equity research, John Vreeland, notes that both XM and Sirius believe the FCC decision will follow closely behind the Justice Dept.
A low-cost subsidiary based abroad is likely to be All Nippon Airways’ solution to the problem of meeting a foreign budget-airline invasion of its high-cost homeland. The Japanese carrier’s long-running plans for a budget offshoot are becoming firmer. The company now says it could have such a subsidiary operating in the coming financial year, beginning on Apr. 1.
The European Vega rocket development program has scored a major milestone following the successful qualification firing of its second stage Zefiro 23 solid rocket motor at the Salto di Quirra test range. The 26-ton, 7.5-meter-long (24.6-ft.) unit was tested by Avio, which owns 30% of prime contractor ELV. The final development target is set for June, when the third stage Zefiro 9 is to carry out its final test firing.
NATO will adopt a new cyber-defense policy that will be presented to the 26 alliance nations during the summit in Bucharest this week. Protection and defense will be major buzzwords in the document, but the policy shies away from including the option of pre-emptive, first-strike cyber-attacks—despite moves toward developing network-invasion capabilities in the U.S. armed forces. The new policy was spurred by a sustained cyber-attack last year on NATO member Estonia, which Estonia alleged was orchestrated by Russia.
Larry Groves has been appointed corporate vice president-Washington operations for the Telephonics Corp. , Farmingdale, N.Y. A former defense consultant, he was vice president/general manager of air defense systems for the Sensis Corp.
Apr. 15-16—AVIATION WEEK Interiors, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Apr. 15-17—MRO Conference and Exhibition, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Sept. 23-25—MRO Europe, Madrid. Oct. 14-16—MRO Asia, Singapore. PARTNERSHIPS Apr. 7-10—U.S. Space Foundation, Colorado Springs. May 27-June 1—ILA Berlin air show. June 16-18—Aircraft Interiors-Middle East, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. July 14-20—Farnborough (England) air show. Nov. 4-9—Zhuhai (China) air show.
FAA oversight of airline maintenance—not the airlines’ maintenance practices—is under increasing scrutiny, prompting one industry group to push a thorough review of the FAA itself. The Business Travel Coalition is seeking signatories to a letter on its web site, BusinessTravelCoalition.com, that it will send Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), who is planning more hearings on the subject. The group will ask him to direct the National Academy of Sciences’ Transportation Research Board to review the FAA thoroughly.
JetBlue Airways founder and Chairman David Neeleman says he has raised $150 million to finance a new low-cost, low-fare airline based in Sao Paulo—the city in which he was born to American parents—and announced that the company has placed a firm order for 36 118-seat Embraer 195 jets. Neeleman hopes to begin service on the new carrier in early 2009, pending government approval, and serve most major markets in Brazil with as many as 76 new Embraer aircraft by 2013.
The British Defense Ministry and an EADS-led consortium last week signed a deal four years in the making for 14 Airbus A330-200 tanker aircraft for the Royal Air Force. The £13-billion Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) private finance initiative contract covers a 27-year period. The aircraft will replace VC10s and Tristars. The first A330-200 is due to enter service in 2011. The tanker fleet will continue to be based at RAF Brize Norton, which will see considerable privately funded development as part of the FSTA program.
