The German government plans to hike spending for space as part of a reinforced support strategy for research and development that should also benefit aeronautics.
Trials of a key element of the ground segment of the U.K.'s Airborne Stand-Off Radar (Astor) intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance program are underway. Tests of the system's Tactical Ground Stations are being carried out in parallel to those now ongoing on the first two of the Royal Air Force's five Sentinel R Mk.1 aircraft. Mobility tests of the ground stations mounted on the Pinzgauer Steyr vehicle (see photo) have been carried out at the Millbrook proving ground in the south of England.
Cessna has sold 11 aircraft to customers in the Middle East. Wallan Aviation, Cessna's Middle East distributor, signed up for four Citation Sovereigns, two Citation XLSs and one Citation CJ3, for delivery in 2007. Gulf Jet of Dubai ordered a Sovereign, along with three XLSs. Cessna also revealed a 136-kg. (300-lb.) payload increase for the Sovereign.
Rolls-Royce has begun the fast-paced test program for its latest commercial aircraft turbofan, the Trent 1000, which is to power the Boeing 787. The high-bypass engine features new-design, wide-chord swept fan blades to help meet noise and efficiency targets. But Rolls and other European engine makers know they need to do more to keep pace with increasingly stringent requirements for quieter powerplants that also bring reductions in air pollutants (see p. 48). Rolls-Royce photo.
Robert L. Crippen, who joined John Young on the flight deck of the first space shuttle mission, received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor at an Apr. 26 ceremony commemorating the shuttle program's 25th anniversary. Authorized by Congress in 1969 as the highest U.S. award for spaceflight, the Space Medal of Honor has gone to 28 astronauts, including Young--commander of the STS-1 mission--Neil Armstrong, John Glenn and the lost crews of Apollo 1 and the shuttles Challenger and Columbia.
Two NASA individuals who were key to the shuttle return-to-flight effort are retiring from the agency, although one of them--the director of the Kennedy Space Center (KSC)--will stay on through at least the next shuttle mission and possibly beyond that. KSC Director James Kennedy will retire in January 2007 after 35 years of government service, 31 of them with NASA. Kennedy has overseen nearly 15,000 NASA and contractor employees at the shuttle launch site involved in returning the fleet to flight.
Boeing expects to select an overhauler to rebuild passenger 767-300s into freighters by early summer as it moves toward a first delivery to All Nippon Airways in fourth-quarter 2007. Marco Cavazzoni, director of the 747-400 Boeing Converted Freighter (BCF) program, says a preliminary agreement has been signed for the 767 program with a single overhaul center that specializes in passenger-to-freighter conversions.
Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany will provide strong support for research during its rotation at the European Union presidency next year. Lukewarm support by some states during the U.K. presidency last year threatened to rein in the EU's space ambitions, which include helping bankroll the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security network. Although the R&D budget has yet to be determined, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain says the assumption is still that EC space research funding will be about 200 million euros ($252 million) per year.
Ron Kato (see photo) has become vice president-customer satisfaction for the Aerospace Group of Crane Aerospace & Electronics, Lynnwood, Wash. He was vice president-customers and solutions.
Boeing, Honeywell and Rockwell Collins are now officially part of the mostly European team that's developing an air traffic management (ATM) master plan for Europe.
Jeffrey N. Shane, U.S. undersecretary of Transportation for Policy, has won Aviation Week & Space Technology's annual L. Welch Pogue Award. Shane was cited for advocacy of open skies for nearly 15 years. The award, which was initiated in 1994 on the 50th anniversary of the Chicago Convention, led to establishment of the International Civil Aviation Organization. Pogue was U.S. representative to the convention and a chairman of the former Civil Aeronautics Board. In presenting the honor at Aviation Week's MRO awards dinner in Phoenix on Apr.
New digital passports issued by France comply with U.S. technical requirements for countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program, the Homeland Security Dept. says. Travelers carrying French e-passports, which also comply with digital photo requirements, will immediately be entitled to enter the U.S. without visas.
NASA has put as much of the space shuttle as possible into the Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) it is developing as a replacement, looking to hold down development costs and smooth the transition from the old to the new. Still, moving crews from the shuttle to the CLV and the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) that will ride atop it will not be a simple plug-and-play reconfiguration. Despite some surface similarities, the CLV will be almost as different on the inside from the shuttle as the CEV will be from the Apollo command module that has given it its basic shape.
Nearly 23 hr. long, the 11,664-naut.- mi. nonstop flight of a Boeing 777-200LR last November that went the "wrong way" from Hong Kong to London has been honored by the National Aeronautics Assn. as a world record.
Yair Ramati (see photos), who has been general manager of the MLM Div. of Israel Aircraft Industries' Systems, Missiles and Space Group, has been named IAI's corporate vice president-marketing. Joseph Weiss, who has been general manager of the group's MBT Space Div., has been named the group's corporate vice president/general manager. Yehoshua Eldar, who has been the group's director of finance, is now IAI corporate vice president-business development and subsidiaries.
The pace of business at Sweden's Esrange Space Center is high these days, with two sounding-rocket launches in less than a month and the addition of six polar-orbiting satellites en masse for its controllers to track. On May 2, a big Maxus 7 rocket (see photo) exposed a package of five European Space Agency experiments to microgravity for 12 min. as it fell from an apogee of 702 km. (436 mi.). Launch of the Maxus 7 by Swedish Space Corp. (SSC), which operates the facility north of the Arctic Circle near the mining town of Kiruna, followed the Apr.
NASA can't do all it has on its plate with the funds the Bush White House has allocated to it, and the nation's science establishment wants Congress to restore some of what has been cut from scientific research in space. Failing that, many scientists who rely on the U.S. space agency for funding would be willing to defer the multibillion-dollar "flagship" missions on the books in favor of stronger near-term financing of small missions and the research and analysis (R&A) that benefits the next generation of space scientists.
Stung by high fuel costs, TAP Air Portugal is overhauling its services--down to how it distributes newspapers to passengers--in an effort to minimize fuel consumption and achieve profitability. Fleet modernization is the cornerstone of TAP's activities to streamline operations, with fielding of eight Airbus A330s planned to replace A310s on long-haul routes. The older aircraft actually burn less fuel but carry fewer than 200 passengers. A330-200 deliveries started in March, triggering the A310 phaseout, which should be completed in 2008.
A vibrant economy and the rise of entrepreneurs who understand the concept of an aircraft as a business tool are leading Indian corporations to fast-track acquisition of business jets. But there are two big impediments: bureaucracy and a lack of infrastructure, including night landing facilities. Mumbai and Delhi may have the lion's share of India's domestic commercial air traffic, but they only handle 10% of its business jets.
India's largest private carrier, Jet Airways, posted a net profit that rose 15% in the year ended Mar. 31 to $101.3 million. Jet expects to be integrating operations with Air Sahara, which it acquired, subject to regulatory approvals by the end of December 2006.
Foster Miller, a subsidiary of Qinetiq, received an additional $28 million from the Indian Head, Md.-based Naval Surface Warfare Center for approximately 200 more Talon robots and spare parts to repair robots damaged while dealing with roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. The funding is under a multiyear contract, part of the Man-Transportable Robotic Systems program, that runs through 2009.
The Russian Cosmos 2420 reconnaissance spacecraft is undergoing initial checkout in a 200 X 100-mi. orbit inclined 67 deg. following launch May 3 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on a Soyuz booster. The mission is an attempt by the Russian Military Space Force to reconstitute its dwindling space reconnaissance capability.
Space Systems/Loral has been selected to supply AsiaSat-5 for Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. The C-/K u-band spacecraft, which is to be launched in 2008, will replace and expand capacity on AsiaSat 2, which is at 100.5 deg. E.
The Pentagon has selected 64 new projects for funding. Forty-two fall under the Foreign Comparative Testing program, and 22 are in the Defense Acquisition Challenge domain.
Embraer has sold two Legacy 600s, one to the CEO of Beirut-based Fransabank, Adnan Kassar. The other buyer is Celtel International, a unit of Kuwait-based cell phone service provider MTC. Embraer also launched its customer support program, called Executive Care. It expands the existing Total Legacy Care, by also covering the Phenom 100/300 very light and light jets, as well as the newly launched Lineage 1000.
