The launch of Echostar 10 on a Zenit-3SLB in early February will be the first of six missions scheduled for the Sea Launch Odyssey floating platform in 2006. Sea Launch recorded nine commercial contracts last year, the best order and launch pace since the company was founded in 1995. Replacements for satellites launched in the early 1990s and demand for broadband, digital radio and high-definition/direct-to-home television services are sparking the sales, a company official says.
NASA's chief of aeronautics, Lisa Porter, unveiled a reorganized directorate this month, with an emphasis on fundamental research and the termination of grand demonstrations (AW&ST Jan. 23, p. 32). It leaves us wondering what the future of aeronautics is in the agency. Should we be happy that a thinly spread operation is being focused on key areas; or should we worry that instead of letting 1,000 flowers bloom they are being mowed down, and that research-only aeronautics will be invisible to the public?
The 46th Test Wing at Eglin AFB, Fla., has turned over a C-130H airlifter to Boeing for modification as a laser gunship. The aircraft becomes part of the Advanced Tactical Laser program, and its turnover marks the first milestone in the effort. Changes will enable the aircraft to carry a high-energy chemical laser plus beam control and battle management systems.
Many U.S. aerospace companies registered robust sales gains--and even stronger profit growth--in 2005, according to the first batch of corporate earnings reports made public. Due out this week are fourth-quarter and full-year earnings figures from Boeing, Goodrich, L-3 Communications and Raytheon.
Comair is attempting to conclude labor agreements with flight attendants and mechanics now that the pilots' group has narrowly ratified a new contract that wipes out much of their financial gains from an 89-day 2001 strike. The unit of the Air Line Pilots Assn. says concessions are a "painful sacrifice."
NASA has added a second grant to promote development of Deformation Resistance Welding (DRW), bringing to more than $2 million the amount it has invested in perfecting the advanced technique. The U.S. agency added $870,000 to the $1.3 million it has already spent on DRW, which is a way to join dissimilar shapes and materials such as metal and other tubes, solids and sheet metal. The technique is particularly valuable in applications that use hollow units to construct transportation, stationary and fluid-handling hardware.
I read with interest your articles on Required Navigation Performance (RNP) and precision departures. It is too bad the FAA took 20 years to catch on to these capabilities (AW&ST Jan. 2, p. 64; Jan. 9, p. 39).
Delta Air Lines won U.S. Transportation Dept. authority to launch five-times-weekly nonstop round-trip service between New York and Kiev, Ukraine. Selected over United Airlines, Delta plans to begin the service June 1, which the department set as a deadline. Delta and United already serve Ukraine in code shares with Air France and Lufthansa, respectively, as does Northwest Airlines with KLM. Delta will remain in the Air France code-share, but will reduce service by two flights per week, shifting the authority to the nonstops.
Researchers from a dozen nations have used the "microlensing" effect of an intervening star's gravity to spot the smallest extrasolar planet yet, an icy body only 5.5 times as massive as Earth orbiting a red dwarf star in the constellation Sagittarius more than 20,000 light-years distant. And because of the nature of the microlensing survey that found the planet, astronomers believe low-mass planets are much more common than the 160 much larger exoplanets found by other means.
Air France says it is taking a serious look at the Russian Regional Jet, for which a launch order from Aeroflot is pending, to be part of its commuter fleet renewal program. Bombardier's CSeries is another possibility, said Chairman/CEO Jean-Cyril Spinetta, provided this program goes forward and can meet timing requirements. But for now, Spinetta remarked, the Embraer 170-190 line "is currently the only real alternative" to its Fokker 70s and 100s, whose ownership costs, he said, are "unbelievably low."
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is pushing the rotorcraft envelope, seeking a technology leap beyond the tiltrotor for tomorrow's combat search-and-rescue (CSAR) vehicle. Under a $6.4-million proof-of-concept phase launched late last year, Darpa is underwriting preliminary design and demonstration efforts that could lead to a CSAR "Heliplane." Current work will exploit Groen Brothers Aviation's (GBA) gyrodyne technology, which joins a helicopter's vertical takeoff and landing capability with the speed of an airplane.
AMB Property Corp. of San Francisco expanded its global cargo facility holdings in the fourth quarter by starting cargo facility projects comprising 2.4 million sq. ft. at nine locations and acquiring another 2.1 million sq. ft. of facility space at nine other sites. Many of AMB's facilities are near seaports or airports. In the quarter it began development of a 149,000-sq.-ft. distribution center at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, and a logistics center at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. It acquired a 239,000-sq.-ft., on-tarmac facility at DFW for $38.3 million.
United Airlines is expected to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as early as this week, following a judge's approval of its business plan. In reorganization since December 2002, United is aggressively cutting international fares to draw attention to its debut as a reorganized network carrier. A sale through Feb. 7 by United and Star Alliance partner Lufthansa is offering sharply reduced fares to 300 destinations. The one-way fare for Chicago-London and for Washington-London is $172.
NASA and Houston-based Ad Astra Rocket Co. will collaborate on development of the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (Vasimr) technology pioneered by space shuttle astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz. Intended for interplanetary travel, backers of the radio-frequency-driven magnetoplasma rocket have scrambled for government funding for the past 25 years. Now NASA will transfer the technology to the Houston firm, which already has some Vasimr research under its belt, while continuing to fund some activities for the next two years.
Last year's investigation of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri received help from an unlikely venue: a modest-sized office building near Madrid, flying the European Union flag. The EU Satellite Center (EUSC), an organization with just a few dozen staff, assisted the inquiry by providing information on the exact location of the explosives that tore through Hariri's motorcade on the afternoon of Feb. 14, 2005, as he drove through an upscale section of Beirut.
What went wrong at Kirksville (Mo.) Regional Airport could lead to improved cockpit safety through revisions of FAA rules on minimum-descent procedures, pilot fatigue and sterile cockpit compliance. The NTSB recommendations came out of its investigation of the Oct. 19, 2004, crash of Corporate Airlines Flight 5966, a BAE Systems' Jetstream 32 (N875JX), at Kirksville.
FROST & SULLIVAN, A HIGH TECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS FIRM, EXPECTS huge growth in the use of fiber optic systems on commercial aircraft as fly-by-light, optical computing, optoelectronics, smart structures, photonics and nano-optics systems develop. The lightweight technology is expected to save the airlines fuel. Fiber optic lighting in the passenger cabin, for example, not only weighs less than conventional lighting but is cheaper to maintain and generates less heat, according to Frost & Sullivan. Fiber optic cable has a 0.125-1-mm.
The U.S. Air Force is buying another five Predator B MQ-9 unmanned strike-and-reconnaissance aircraft from San Diego's General Atomics Aeronautical Systems for a total of $41.4 million. Deliveries are to be completed by March 2008.
Someday the U.S. military could drive a trailer to a spot just beyond insurgent fighting and, within minutes, reconfigure part of the atmosphere, blocking an enemy's ability to receive satellite signals, even as U.S. troops are able to see into the area with radar. This scenario may not be far away. An engineer with Research Support Instruments in Princeton, N.J., recently completed the first phase of work for a U.S. Air Force-sponsored project called Microwave Ionosphere Reconfiguration Ground-based Emitter, or Mirage.
Composites, noise/emissions abatement, flight control and other onboard systems are prominent on the list of 40 research projects proposed by Aerospace Valley, a research cluster created last year to bring together Airbus, Dassault Aviation, Sagem, Thales and other companies, universities and research institutes in southwestern France. Geoinformation services, navigation, air safety and security, and orbital infrastructure, as well as maintenance/training and industrial engineering are also on the agenda.
French test pilot Max Fischl died in his sleep in Toulouse, France, on Jan. 21. He was 83. He participated in multiple flight test programs involving advanced military aircraft--such as Espadon, Vautour and Trident--before joining Sud-Aviation. After participating in the Concorde's certification program, Fischl became Airbus's first test pilot and was pilot-in-command for the A300B's maiden flight in October 1972. After retiring in 1974, Fischl formed Toulouse-based Aeroconseil, which is now a 1,000-employee aviation consultancy.
Anna Rathsman has been appointed vice president-corporate communications at the Swedish Space Corp. She will succeed Sven Grahn, who also has been senior vice president-engineering but is scheduled to retire on Mar. 31.
The U.S. has sent a message to foreign nations that are interested in buying the Hellfire Longbow missile: The production line can be restarted as part of a plan for "batching requirements." This means that if several countries order together, Lockheed Martin, which produces the Hellfire Longbow, could restart production. Lockheed Martin officials last year warned international customers that the production line would close unless more orders came in; all contracts are complete and the U.S. government's requirements have been met.
This year looks to be a real watershed for the FAA's air traffic control modernization effort, with the agency working to complete the deployment of two crucial systems while the test phase begins in a third--and even more ambitious--program.
