The Joint Planning and Development Office charged with devising a master plan for the U.S.'s next-generation air transportation system has lost a forceful leader at a critical time.
Four months after Hurricane Katrina, while the government response continues to generate bad headlines and negative emotions, one small group of federal contractors will be honored this week for their actions during the storm. Top NASA managers have repeatedly praised the hurricane "ride-out crew" at the Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans for keeping the unique and precious spaceflight hardware inside dry and mostly undamaged during the storm.
Luxembourg must change provisions in its orbital concession agreement with SES Global or face further legal action by the European Commission. Under the existing arrangement, Luxembourg maintains the right to block certain shareholdings in the Luxembourg-based satellite operator and its European affiliate SES Astra. The EC labels that unjustified restriction on the movement of capital, and gives the government two months to start removing the provisions. If Luxembourg doesn't budge, the EC will take the issue to the European Court of Justice for adjudication.
Russia has launched two spacecraft on a Cosmos-3M booster at the Plesetsk military facility. The Dec. 21 mission lofted the Gonots-D1M communications satellite, which modernizes a constellation that has been operational for a decade. The system supports Russian federal agencies. The second payload is the Russian military Cosmos 2416, also known as Rodnik.
Ryanair has been forced to tweak expansion plans as the result of the continuing impact of delivery delays on some of its Boeing 737-800s. Positioning of a second aircraft at Nottingham, England, has been pushed back a month, while a second aircraft based at Pisa, Italy, is being delayed by three months.
Boeing closed out a record-setting year with four additional 777 Freighter orders from the Avion Group, bringing that aircraft's total sales to 135 for 2005, as of Dec. 29.
Lockheed Martin engineers believe borescope examination of seams in an Atlas V first-stage kerosene fuel tank will reaffirm the booster's readiness to launch the New Horizons mission to Pluto as early as Jan. 17. NASA slipped the original Jan. 11 launch date for extra inspections after a test tank ruptured during a water pressure test at the company's plant near Denver. That test was to validate Atlas V integrity under maximum loading conditions, with four or five solid rocket boosters attached.
Continental Airlines, trying to reduce the cost of its regional feed operations, notified its exclusive regional jet service provider, ExpressJet Airlines, that it will withdraw 25% of the RJs it subleases to ExpressJet--69 of a mix of 274 Embraer ERJ-135s, -145s and -145XRs--beginning in December 2006. Unsuccessful so far in negotiating reduced costs in its capacity-purchase agreement with ExpressJet, Continen- tal will solicit proposals from other RJ operators to take over the withdrawn aircraft and replace the capacity.
F-22 advocates haven't declared victory yet, but they're at least beginning to breathe again following threatened setbacks. The Pentagon's program budget decision (PBD) 720, issued on Christmas Eve but quickly rescinded for some last-minute changes, confirms F-22 production at 183 aircraft and instructs the Air Force to pursue a multiyear contract with Lockheed Martin. The document also kills the B-52 Stand-Off Jammer, the Air Force's attempted reentry into tactical electronic jamming.
The European Meteosat-2 weather forecasting satellite was launched on an Ariane 5 from Kourou, French Guiana, on Dec. 21. Also lofted was India's largest telecommunications spacecraft, Insat 4A.
Amy Butler, Douglas Barrie, Frank Morring, Jr. and Anthony L. Velocci, Jr.
JOHN McCAIN Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is loathed by some in industry and dreaded by others in the Pentagon. But, his impact is undeniable. When he first decried the exclusive deal to lease Boeing 767 tankers to the Pentagon as a "bailout" in the post-9/11 downturn, the industry probably didn't know what it was in for. But, his campaign for Pentagon accountability has also collected a cadre of supporters--most notably Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John Warner (R-Va.).
While imagery now suggests Britain's Beagle 2 lander may have made it to the Martian surface, British scientists will likely have to wait until the end of this year for a near-definitive answer as to its fate, when additional imagery may be taken.
The photo and description of the winner of the first prize in the Military category of the Aviation Week & Space Technology Photo Contest were incorrect (AW&ST Dec. 19/26, 2005, p. 62). Ted Carlson is a professional aviation photojournalist and runs Southern California-based Fotodynamics.net. He specializes in air-to-air photography. Carlson's aerial photos and articles have been published worldwide in numerous magazines, and his images have adorned more than 200 covers of aviation-related publications. They also can be found in books, calendars, posters and U.S.
In a test from a ship in the Bay of Bengal late last month, India fired its Dhanush ship-to-surface missile, a naval version of the Prithivi. The 4,000-kg. (8,800-lb.) single-stage missile has a 155-mi. range and can carry a 500-kg. warhead.
Informal discussions at a November UAV conference led some participants to believe the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency was interested in buying unmanned aircraft to conduct high-resolution mapping in the U.S. and in pushing the FAA to quickly find ways to permit UAV operations in national airspace (AW&ST Dec. 19/26, 2005, p. 15). NGA officials object to that characterization of the agency's intent. "Will we . . . purchase our own? That's not in our current planning," says Stephen Long, NGA's special adviser for emerging airborne capabilties.
Michael Meagher has been named Bellingham, Wash.-based Pacific Northwest marketing manager of Jaco Engineering Inc. He was a government contracts administrator for the Anaheim, Calif.-headquartered Jaco.
ø/?179-138?janna_robinson,ø?255-135?ÏP?195-151?Ä?255-135??255-135?I4L$MEDIAGROUP_REF$2$MEDIAGROUP_REF$ In the same issue, Canadarm 2 on the International Space Station was incorrectly identified in a photo caption (AW&ST Dec. 19/26, 2005, p. 106).
The project to raise awareness of the wide range of civil uses for unmanned systems is well underway at ParcAberporth in Wales. The Welsh Development Agency has offered tenders for one or more unmanned systems to demonstrate their capabilities to civil users and to perform trial runs. Project Manager Sue Wolfe noted that all flights would be subject to CAA regulations. The first phase of the 17-million-pound project includes five units providing office space and R&D facilities.
ManTech International Corp. received a five-year, $10.5-million TSA background-checking contract for analytic services in vetting noncitizens requesting flight training in the U.S. TSA's Alien Flight School Program checks fingerprints, passports and background information of aliens seeking flight training. Using a variety of databases, Fairfax, Va.-based ManTech will help cross-check references and potential risks of flight candidates.
Britain is beginning to receive imagery from its Topsat low-cost imaging micro-satellite technology demonstrator. This image, released by Qinetiq, which is leading the program, shows the River Thames on the outskirts of London. Topsat was launched into a polar low Earth orbit Oct. 27, 2005, as part of a Cosmos payload from Plesetsk in northern Russia. The British National Space Center and Defense Ministry are funding the program jointly. The cost of the mission was no more than 14 million pounds ($24.14 million).
It seems only fitting for the Stardust sample return capsule to be traveling so fast as it breaks through Earth's atmosphere that it will leave a white-hot streak across the late-night Nevada sky. After all, it is bringing back comet dust.
NASA's plan to offer the Kennedy Space Center's shuttle runway for specialized commercial and flight test operations will get a boost by a Scaled Composites/Virgin Atlantic decision to launch the GlobalFlyer's longest aircraft flight attempt there in February. Pilot Steve Fossett will use the 15,000 X 300-ft. runway for takeoff of the GlobalFlyer on a planned flight of more than 26,084 mi. He intends to fly eastward, circle the globe, then make a second Atlantic crossing toward a landing at Kent, England. The flight could break by 700 mi.
Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.) is a veteran of three decades of legislative action and debate on civil aviation issues on Capitol Hill, serving now as the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. He chaired the aviation subcommittee from 1989-94 and over the years has been active in attempts to curtail runway incursions and the possibility of midair collisions, and in addressing aging-aircraft safety problems. He grew up in Minnesota's Iron Range, the son of a miner and union official.
U.S. military planners seem to think we have no further need for massive airlift capacity (AW&ST Oct. 31, 2005, p. 22). They must be assuming all our future wars will be like the ones in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq.
