Boeing will build more Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) seekers next year in addition to the 159 already under contract from Lockheed Martin. The award includes the first international sale of the missile, to the Netherlands, with Japan expected to follow suit soon. Production, assembly, integration and testing of the seeker is carried out at Boeing's facility in Hunstville, Ala.
Remaining questions about the structural health of U.S. firefighting airtankers is prompting the creation of a new center dedicated to researching and finding solutions for aging-aircraft problems. A consortium combining the expertise and resources of NASA, academia, the U.S. Forest Service and private companies will build the center around the concept of condition-based maintenance.
Northrop Grumman has conducted the first flight of its modified Hunter UAV. The Endurance-Hunter, or "E-Hunter," includes the original fuselage coupled with a new tail assembly and longer center wing to stretch mission duration to 30 hr. at 20,000 ft. Company officials conducted controllability tests, including high-speed taxi runs and low-speed aerial handling passes.
Richard Christopher Olsen, Associate Professor of Physics (Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif.)
"Back in Play" (AW&ST Mar. 7, p. 38) suggests the MTSat vehicle solar sail will "balance it in the solar wind." That is not possible. The solar wind, a plasma pheno- menon associated with expansion of the solar atmosphere, does not penetrate into geosynchronous orbit. The standoff distance for the magnetopause, the boundary between the Earth's magnetosphere and the solar wind is 8-9 Earth radii, is well outside geosynchronous orbit. It appears the sail is using solar photon (light) pressure. (The article should have said solar light pressure--Ed.)
USAF Lt. Gen. Arthur J. Lichte has been nominated as assistant vice chief of staff at the Pentagon. He has been vice commander of United States Air Forces in Europe, Ramstein AB, Germany. He will be succeeded by Maj. Gen. Robert D. Bishop, Jr., who has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general. Bishop has been assistant deputy chief of staff for air and space operations. Maj. Gen. Christopher A. Kelly has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general and as vice commander of the Air Mobility Command, Scott AFB, Ill.
Russian Aerospace Agency Roskosmos and Arianespace have inked a contract covering production and supply of Russian hardware for the new Soyuz launch pad at Europe's spaceport near Kourou, French Guiana. The deal covers adaptation of Soyuz to the new facility and completion of an upgraded Soyuz 2b model to be operated there. Prime contractor for the launch system will be the Samara Space Center. KBOM will supply the ground infrastructure, under the supervision of TsENKI, and NPO Lavotchkin will deliver the Fregat upper stage. Initial launches are expected in 2008.
At first blush it would seem Airbus' A380 would be a nightmare for those facing the challenge of maintaining the massive aircraft's huge number of parts, large structures and difficult-to-reach places. But, as it turns out, the size of the 555-seat aircraft--or even Airbus' use of Glass-Reinforced Aluminum (Glare) or Carbon-Fiber Reinforced Plastics (CFRP)--isn't causing maintenance experts any particular headaches.
Helena Stalnert has been appointed communications director of Saab, effective June 1. She has been a news program editor-in-chief of Swedish public television. Stalnert will succeed Irene Svensson, who heads Saab's office in Brussels.
At the turn of the century, Boeing Commercial Airplanes immersed itself in the Internet to accelerate delivery of spare parts and distribute service bulletins.
Demand and earnings of Asian carriers may come under pressure as fares rise in response to escalating fuel prices. India's government-owned Indian Airlines and private carriers Air Sahara and Jet Airways introduced a 12% hike in domestic ticket prices effective Apr. 15. Air New Zealand, Virgin Blue, Asiana Airlines and Korean Air had already raised fares. Qantas introduced a fuel surcharge, and Singapore Airlines is weighing doing so.
I was discouraged to read of the further cuts in NASA aeronautics research. With the "Presidential Vision," NASA sees a chance to return to the clear goals it had during the space race. But perhaps the NASA mission was forgotten not when the space race ended, but when it began. NASA's original mission was to advance the technology of flight.
Civil-military space cooperation, which never seemed to take off under past NASA leadership, finally may get a big boost under newly confirmed Administrator Michael D. Griffin. That's important not just for the broader policy implications, but because it could give him another option for one of the thorniest problems he faces coming into office--what to do about the aging Hubble Space Telescope.
Sweden and Italy have agreed to cooperate on the development of multirole, active electronically scanned antennas (AESA). The industrial partners in the arrangement are Ericsson Microwave Systems, Alenia Marconi Systems and Elettronica. During a year-long first phase, the companies will conduct feasibility and technology studies to determine what direction to take in their research and development efforts. Eventually, the partners hope to apply AESA technology for radar, electronic warfare and communications.
The first German air force operational squadron has taken delivery of a single-seat Eurofighter. Fighter wing 73 (JG 73), near Laage, will field 10 single-seaters this year. It got rid of its MiG-29s last summer. The Luftwaffe took delivery of its first single-seat Eurofighter earlier in the year, but it went to the maintenance school house.
THE JAPAN ADVANCED INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE and Technology (JAIST) is buying a new Cray XT3 massively parallel processing system for its high-performance computing facility. The system has 372 Advanced Micro Devices Opteron processors and will be the first of its type in Japan. JAIST supports the work of 600 graduate students. The system will be used to develop new algorithms for massively parallel computing applications such as large-scale simulations and visualization in nanotechnology.
With the appeal of sake, Japan's traditional rice wine, diminishing at home, the search for new marketing gimmicks is literally going where no winemaker has gone before. Nineteen members of the Federation of Brewer Unions from the Kochi prefecture on Shikoku Island plan to make sake from rice stock flown in space. The federation will send several fermenting batches on a week-long Russian Soyuz mission in late September, claiming cosmic rays will subtly alter the process (and presumably the taste).
What Oneworld partners American Airlines and British Airways portray as a routine renewal of their behind-and-beyond transatlantic code-share operation may turn instead into a second confrontation between international alliances before the U.S. Transportation Dept.
To submit Aerospace Calendar Listings, Call +1 (212) 904-2421 Fax +1 (212) 904-6068 e-mail: [email protected] Apr. 25-27--Analytical Graphics Inc.'s East Coast Spring Training Summit. Doubletree Hotel, Philadelphia. Also, May 9-11--West Coast Spring Training Summit. Manchester Grand Hyatt, San Diego. Call +1 (240) 764-1511, fax +1 (240) 764-1501 or see www.agi.com
Jack Worthen has become vice president/general manager of the SatCon Electronics Div. of the SatCon Technology Corp. of Boston. He was vice president-sales for the Zywyn Corp.
Jonathan Coopersmith, Associate Professor of History (Texas A&M University, College Station, Tex.)
The writer who noted with amusement NASA historian Steven Dick's failure to follow the NASA pronouncements on Hubble policy (AW&ST Mar. 21, p. 6) may not fully appreciate the responsibility of the historian. His job is not to justify NASA policy and activities, but document, describe and understand what happened and why. Like an engineer, an historian's pro- fessional integrity demands full and honest reporting. A good historian does not take off his history hat and put on his management hat to suit the times.
We still remain a strange but wonderful industry. Over 30 years, world Gross Domestic Product has tripled. In the same period, passenger traffic has increased seven-fold. With 6% annual growth, air transport is expanding at more than twice GDP. The problem is that the more we sell, the more we lose. In 2004, 1.8 billion people flew--more than ever. And we still lost $4.8 billion. Shocks such as SARS, terrorism and war have interrupted the normal business cycle.
Russian missile manufacturer NPO Mashinostroyenia has finally released a test image of its 3M25 Meteorit strategic cruise missile. The air-launched variant of the Meteorit, probably designated Kh-80, is shown being dropped from an inboard pylon of a Tupolev Tu-95 Bear bomber. The Meteorit program was begun in the late 1970s, and ended in the early 1990s. Deployment was curtailed by the 1988 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the U.S. and then-Soviet Union.
Peg Billson has been appointed vice president/general manager of Honeywell's Phoenix-based Airframe Systems business. She was vice president/general manager of the Aircraft Landing Systems business and has been succeeded by Greg Albert. Billson succeeds Roger Wolfe, who has resigned. Albert was vice president-Engine Services Europe for the Aviation Aftermarket Services business.
Stratasys' VeroBlue is an acrylic photo-polymer resin for the Eden333 PolyJet System, manufactured by Objet Geometries. The resin's mechanical properties improve upon the original transparent resin in all standard strength ratings--tensile, flexural, notched impact and compression, according to the company Its opaqueness reveals more detail than the transparent model. Resolution capabilities are unchanged from original resin, so 0.0006 resolution is achievable. Changeover from transparent resin to VeroBlue takes less than 15 min.
