The Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) on the Mars rover Opportunity, jammed for the past month, is back in operation. Last week controllers used the RAT, which includes a spinning brush to clean dust off rocks, to brush areas of the rock Escher deep inside Endurance crater. The operation demonstrated the RAT was back in working order and cleared sites for the rover's two arm-mounted spectrometers. Scientists believe Escher could hold more evidence of past water at the crater site.
Robert Wall (Washington), Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington)
The White House has directed the Pentagon to retain both Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle designs through 2009 and only then revisit the debate over whether one booster family can satisfy military, intelligence and civil needs.
Some military planners have a grand vision to equip every grunt with a radio, enabling all personnel to call for help if needed, but that appears unrealistic. The cost to provide a survival radio to every U.S. military member operating in Iraq, the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan alone is $660 million, and that doesn't include batteries or spares, says Lt. Col. Doug Smith, the Army's personnel recovery officer. Support elements would add several hundred million dollars more. But there may be an elegant workaround, suggests a U.S. Central Command representative.
Raynor B. Reavis, who has been senior vice president-marketing and sales for the Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Savannah, Ga., now also will be a vice president of parent company General Dynamics, Falls Church, Va.
When the Genesis spacecraft returns its microscopic bits of the Sun on Sept. 8, final trajectory adjustments will be made in a Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. center hundreds of miles from the reentry and retrieval area. Controllers here will handle any last-minute problems and, if necessary, activate a missed-approach procedure to set up a second sample-return opportunity about six months from now.
Swiss International Air Lines can expect a stable ownership base for at least another year, after its most important shareholders agreed to extend a ban on selling shares. The move should help the airline as it faces ongoing financial difficulties and more efforts to achieve a long-delayed corporate turnaround. The Swiss government, cantons and communities as well as major private shareholders last week concluded lengthy negotiations on the topic.
The White House is preparing to issue a new space transportation policy that will take into account the Columbia disaster and President Bush's call for human exploration of the Moon and Mars. Expected sometime this fall--maybe even before the election--the policy is a rewrite of one that was almost ready for release when Columbia was destroyed on Feb. 1, 2003. It replaces the 10-year-old Clinton policy that put the Pentagon in charge of expendable launch vehicles and left reusables to NASA.
Pakistan is buying seven used C-130Es, which had been owned by Australia. To support the deal, Lockheed Martin has received $8.4 million from the U.S. Air Force for the foreign military sales arrangement. Additionally, the company received a $56-million contract for upgrades and depot maintenance.
Finmeccanica/Alenia Aeronautica is submitting a proposal to acquire a substantial stake in OGMA Industria Aeronautica de Portugal, a maintenance, repair and overhaul firm.
Sikorsky's pending acquisition of Schweizer Aircraft will enable the helicopter giant to diversify quickly into nontraditional markets and gain access to a rapid-prototyping organization that has penetrated a variety of aerospace and defense sectors. Schweizer, for its part, will be able to call on Sikorsky's greater resources in developing new products. It also will gain the marketing savvy and reach, as well as the financial clout, it needs to grow and prosper, said President Paul Schweizer.
Eric Byer has been promoted to vice president from director of government and industry affairs, Amy Koranda to director of safety management from manager of education and training, and Jacqueline Rosser to senior manager for regulatory affairs from manager for flight operations, all at the Alexandria, Va.-based National Air Transportation Assn.
David Holeman has been named vice president-information technology for Sentient Jet, Norwell, Mass. He was an IT consultant to startup companies and had been chief information officer of the Monitor Group, Cambridge, Mass.
Hooray for Aviation Week & Space Technology for recognizing that general aviation has shouldered an unfair burden for the events of Sept. 11, 2001. GA pilots have been made to feel like second-class citizens and worse.
A secret National Reconnaissance Office spacecraft with characteristics of a data relay payload that will operate in a highly elliptical orbit was launched Aug. 31 from Cape Canaveral on board a Lockheed Martin/ International Launch Services Atlas IIAS booster. The Atlas IIAS is the last of the original Boeing/Rocketdyne-powered Atlas designs.
BAE Systems is preparing for 6-9 months of intensive trials on its Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft as it attempts to show the U.K. government that the aircraft is worth procuring.
World News Roundup 18 BAE preparing for intensive Nimrod MR4A flight tests 19 NASA picks first exploration studies for funding 19 British Airways chief reviews lean efforts after Heathrow debacle 20 Ex-AW&ST editor named an Elder Statesman of Aviation 20 Homeland defense strategists imple- ment novel way to protect facilities World News & Analysis 24 Expectations, aspirations clash on transatlantic aircraft subsidy talks
Frances Fiorino (Washington), Alexey Komarov (Moscow)
The midair destruction of two Russian aircraft by explosives stunned the aviation community because terrorists were able to easily breach the post-Sept. 11 security of a modern airport facility. The events that unfolded on the evening of Aug. 24 at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport were very travel-ordinary--things that occur every day at every airport around the world. Passengers checked in at one of the most modern and well-equipped airports in Russia.
Eurocopter is scheduled to begin deliveries of Tiger attack helicopters next month to a Franco-German training center located at Le Luc in southeast France. Late in August the UH Tiger obtained certification by the BWB German armaments agency and was certified a few days later by the Occar European military procurement agency. Germany and France will take delivery of 80 Tigers each while Spain and Australia have orders for 22 aircraft apiece.
Curtis E. Sawyer has been appointed senior vice president/chief financial officer of Midwest Air Group Inc. He succeeds Robert S. Bahlman, who is resigning. Sawyer has been vice president/CFO of Pinnacle Airlines.
H. John Mucks, an electronics engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate, Rome, N.Y., has been named to receive the 2004 Harold Brown Award, the Air Force's highest honor for research and development. The award is named for a former Air Force and Defense secretary.
NASA Langley Research Center is working in conjunction with the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) to develop standards for composite materials used in manufacturing aircraft. The standards would be similar to those established for aluminum alloys. Specifically, NIAR would develop the process to validate composites and advanced materials through a centralized database.
A Forecast International study focuses on the growing role of large-capacity regional jets and the impact the trend may make on Bombardier and Embraer. These larger aircraft, 51-75 seats and 76-130 seats, will make up more than 3,000 of the total 3,728 aircraft forecast to be built in the 2004-13 timeframe. Analyst Raymond Jaworowski gives Embraer a current edge over Bombardier in the large-capacity RJ category with its EMB 170 and 190 aircraft. Bombardier's current offering, the CRJ 900, tops out at 90 passengers.
NASA headquarters isn't the only outfit in D.C. that wants to avoid bad news before the Nov. 2 election (see above). Congress itself is in no hurry to get anything done that might upset the voters back home. So far the only appropriations bill to clear Capitol Hill is defense, and only homeland security is expected to make it through the wickets with Congress back from recess. Defense is the sole appropriations bill addressed by the full Senate, and its appropriations subcommittees have tackled just three others. The House has done better.
Developers of the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) have demonstrated critical technologies needed to realize their vision for an autonomous battlefield scout and attack helicopter, but uncertainty still lingers over the project's future.
