Embraer has issued its 2008 aircraft delivery target, saying it will beat the 160-165-aircraft output plan for next year by producing 195-205 jets the year after. That production level includes 15-20 Phenom 100 very light jets in the first year those aircraft are being built. Eventually, production for the Phenom 100 and its light jet cousin, the Phenom 300, is expected to reach 120-150 aircraft per year.
Europe, the U.S. and China are teaming with the World Meteorological Organization to set up a global broadcasting system intended to make weather, climate and environmental data readily available at little cost to users worldwide. The system, known as GeonetCast, will be unveiled at a meeting of the Group on Earth Observations in Bonn on Nov. 28. It will be one of the first tangible links in the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (Geoss).
Europe's Ulysses spacecraft is once again passing over the Sun's south polar area as it continues tracking sunspots and other cyclical solar activity. Previous solar probes stayed near the plane of the Sun's equator, the European Space Agency says. From its highly inclined orbit, Ulysses has twice before orbited over the Sun's polar areas, first during a lull in sunspot activity and then during a period of frequent sunspots. This third pass is during a sunspot minimum, after a reversal in the Sun's magnetic poles.
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Pentagon brass testifying next year before the Senate Armed Services Committee will answer questions from three potential presidential candidates. John McCain (Ariz.) has all but announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination in 2008, and as ranking minority member he will have a bully pulpit. Incoming Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) says he hopes McCain will keep pushing for military acquisition reform. Despite her front-runner status in Democratic opinion polls, Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) remains mum about her presidential plans. But her lecture to U.S.
General Electric and Rolls-Royce have completed a preliminary design review of the F136 engine they are jointly developing as the alternative powerplant to Pratt & Whitney's F135 for the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. Critical design review is expected to be completed in late 2007. The first F136 for the system development and demonstration phase is expected to be tested in mid-2008.
Kenneth McNamara has become vice president-customer and product support for Eclipse Aviation, Albuquerque, N.M. He was chief operating officer of Skyplus Technologies.
Prof. John H. Marsh, who is cofounder/chief technical officer of Intense Ltd., Glasgow, Scotland, has been appointed president-elect of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers' Lasers and Electro-Optics Society for 2007. In 2008, he is expected to become president, succeeding Prof. Alan Willner of the University of Southern California.
SES Global has split awards for two new spacecraft, contracting NSS-9, intended for its New Skies affiliate, to Orbital Sciences Corp. and Astra 3b to EADS Astrium. NSS-9, a 2.2-metric-ton, 2.3-kw. spacecraft with 28 active C-band transponders, will be launched to 183 deg. E. Long. in 2008, permitting NSS-5 to be moved to an as-yet undisclosed orbital slot. The satellite will have three flexible beams serving the Western and Eastern Hemispheres and the entire visible planet, in line with New Skies' role as SES's third pillar, alongside Astra and Americom.
Two days after Pakistan tested its Hatf V missile, India test fired its surface-to-surface Prithvi-II ballistic missile, with a 250-km. range. More tests are likely to be conducted in the next weeks. The latest trial checked new software designed to increase accuracy. The test comes four months after intermediate ballistic missile Agni-III's failed firing.
Air Cruisers, Honeywell Aerospace and Thales have joined six other equipment suppliers in Boeing's GoldCare life-cycle support system for the 787. Air Cruisers, a part of the Zodiac Group, will provide the jet's evacuation system; Honeywell, the navigation package, Crew Information System/Management System, flight control electronics and external lighting; and Thales, the flight controls, inflight entertainment, navigation and power conversion systems.
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), with a powerful camera, thermal emission spectrometer and laser altimeter, was to be used for continuing science operations even though the new Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has much greater resolution and spectral capability. Science areas that would especially feel the loss of MGS include: *Weather and climate monitoring: MGS has collected about five Martian years of weather and climate data that researchers wished to overlap with MRO monitoring.
AW&ST Rocky Mountain Bureau Chief William B. Scott waits to board the Scaled Composites White Knight while Scaled crew chief Rick Aldrich (kneeling) helps Douglas B. Shane, test pilot and director of flight operations, strap into the aircraft. During a 1.4-hr. mission from the Mojave (Calif.) Airport, Shane flew the former SpaceShipOne carrier/launch aircraft to 25,000 ft. and 40,000 ft., where Scott acquired baseline test data on a FlexSys wing section (see p. 70).
Boeing has announced completion of a mission system production upgrade for the first NATO E-3 AWACS aircraft as part of the $1.35-billion Mid-Term Modernization Program. All 17 of NATO's AWACS aircraft and two simulators, based in Geilenkirchen, Ger- many, are to be upgraded by the end of 2008. The upgrades are designed to integrate data from aircraft sensors and off-board sources. Workstations also have been upgraded, as has the communications equipment. Two NATO mission simulators are being upgraded, too, to reflect the new standard.
Airbus's partners in a planned Chinese assembly line have raised only $38 million to invest in it, the first financial details from Chinese state media suggest. That figure will be the capital of the Chinese consortium expected to hold a 49% stake in the plant, which is to assemble A319s and A320s beginning in 2009, predominantly for the Chinese market. Airbus is to hold the other 51%. Government-linked Tianjin Free Trade Zone Investment Co.
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Czech government and industry officials are trying to downplay concerns that the acquisition of Czech aerospace contractor Aero Vodochody by Oakfield, an affiliate of private equity firm Penta, may bring the troubled L-159 trainer/light attack aircraft program to a halt.
Thales is likely to expand its dominance over the Chinese air traffic control market as a result of a joint venture between the French company and an affiliate of China's civil aviation authority.
Measat Satellite Systems of Malaysia says its Measat-3 communications satellite has been shipped to Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, for a December launch atop an International Launch Services Proton M booster. The Boeing-built spacecraft will provide C- and K u-band service to Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa.
ENAV, the Italian air navigation services provider, is expected to slow modernization spending in 2007 and 2008, after putting €311 million ($401 million) in equipment this year. Outlays in the next two years are expected to reach €189 million and €158 million, respectively. ENAV's priority in those years will be on runway control systems and anti-intrusion systems, precision approach landing, air surveillance and monitoring, better ground and air communications and more reliable meteorological services.
Except for the Defense and Homeland Security Depts., the federal government remains funded by a continuing resolution through Dec. 8, and under one scenario brewing in Congress, the situation may remain the same through Sept. 30, 2007, the end of the fiscal year. The lame-duck Congress still has a stack of unfinished Fiscal '07 appropriations, including money for NASA and the Transportation Dept. Last week, conservative senators blocked action on a few appropriations bills, citing fiscal disgust.
ICO Global Communications has requested that the Federal Communications Commission grant it a six-month extension for the construction and launch of ICO's planned hybrid mobile satellite system, because of production/delivery issues encountered by the spacecraft manufacturer, Space Systems/Loral. The extension would move launch from July 1, 2007, to Nov. 30, 2007, and the in-service date from July 17, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2007.
EgyptAir has signed a contract with Lufthansa Systems to use its Sirax revenue accounting system. That makes EygptAir the second carrier in the region to use the system after Royal Jordanian Airlines. Sirax controls accounting by checking ticket sales against specific flight data and allows paperless billing of code-share flights.
