A new company combining the launch vehicle division of EADS with its counterpart at Astrium will be formed sometime next year, once the buyout of BAE Systems' Astrium stake has been completed, according to EADS LV President/CEO Philippe Couillard. The new company, temporarily dubbed LICO, will have aggregate sales of 1.5 billion euros ($1.5 billion) and employ nearly 5,000 after an ongoing streamlining program has been put into effect.
Boeing's engineering and technical staff voted to ratify a three-year contract that specifies a 4% salary increase, with a 6% bonus for acceptance of the offer. Workers, represented by the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, also agreed to a 12% increase in monthly health care costs, beginning in July 2004. The company presented its final offer to the Puget Sound workers last month and won 88% approval from both labor groups.
This year's rising number of fatal crashes attributed to controlled flight into terrain is spurring urgent pleas from safety advocates for increased training and installation of advanced terrain avoidance warning systems.
While the U.S. airline crisis is blamed mostly on terrorism and post-Sept. 11, 2001, conditions, U.S. carriers bear a large responsibility for the flight of high-revenue passengers to foreign carriers, as their premium-class service has all but collapsed.
Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who chairs the Senate aviation subcommittee, is fuming about the Air Transportation Stabilization Board's rejection of loan guarantees for sickly United Airlines and hints broadly he might try to do something about it (see p. 43). "Over the last several weeks, United employees said they were willing to make necessary sacrifices to keep United flying" and looked to the three board members to help make that possible, Rockefeller said. "Yet they failed to do so. Even a simple request to give United a one-week extension was rejected. . . .
Barring a successful, hastily mounted court challenge, the Defense Dept. last week was poised to begin collecting $2.3 billion from General Dynamics Corp. and the Boeing Co. stemming from an 11-year-old dispute over the ill-fated A-12 Navy aircraft program. The Pentagon notified the two companies that it would immediately seek the money to which the government claims it is entitled. General Dynamics was hoping to win a stay of the collection effort through the courts. If it fails, the Defense Dept.
Less than a week after a Russian Block DM upper stage on a Proton K rocket failed, stranding Astra 1K--the world's largest satcom--in a useless orbit, Lockheed Martin shipped the Telesat Canada Nimiq 2 communications satellite to Baikonur Cosmodrome for launch in late December on board a Proton M booster. The Proton M version has a new Khrunichev Breeze M upper stage unrelated to the Energia system that failed. International Launch Services, which markets Protons, has now followed through on plans to abandon the Proton K/Block DM configuration.
Contractors who hope to pick up a piece of NASA's Consolidated Space Operations Contract (CSOC) after it is discontinued at the end of 2003 will get a chance to ask questions at a Dec. 18 briefing in Washington. Agency officials will describe how they plan to divide up the $1.9-billion pie Lockheed Martin lost when the savings it generated didn't meet expectations (AW&ST Sept. 2, p. 23). While the new "Space Mission Communications and Data Services" procurement will cover the whole agency, plans call for one or more work packages to be awarded at each field center.
Excess capacity and national markets limited by homeland regulatory boundaries are limiting factors for communications satellites in the Asia-Pacific region.
United Airlines, the famed "800-lb. gorilla" of U.S. commercial aviation, lurched toward bankruptcy after the federal government last week temporarily closed off an escape route by denying its request for a $1.8-billion loan guarantee. The Air Transportation Stabilization Board (ATSB) described United's business plan, designed to support the loan, as "not financially sound."
About $1 billion in U.S., European and Asian communications satellite hardware will be launched on about $700 million in Lockheed Martin boosters here through early next year. All of the Cape's Atlas and Titan pads were loaded with satcom mission hardware going into early December, ending a lull in satcom launch operations that has dominated 2002. The Boeing Delta IV is also to launch in February a Defense Satellite Communications system payload on a flight worth about $200 million in booster and satcom hardware.
Douglas Barrie (London), Michael A. Taverna (Paris)
Twelve European nations last week approved a feasibility study into a grand plan to collectively address future military fast-jet training needs. The future of one or more nascent European jet trainer projects also hangs on the outcome of the partner nations' Eurotraining efforts. The year-long study will include considering potential airframe options to address what is dubbed the Advanced European Jet Pilot Training, or Eurotraining, for short.
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Robert M. Jones, emeritus professor of engineering science and mechanics at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, has received the 2002 Award in Composites from the American Society for Composites for his contributions to composite materials technology.
The first Boeing Delta IV roars off Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral on more than 1 million lb. thrust from its Rocketdyne RS-68 oxygen/hydrogen engine and two Alliant Techsystems solid rocket motors (see p. 54). The 205-ft.-tall vehicle is flanked by 378-ft.-tall lightning protection towers. The Delta IV's cryogenic upper stage uses Mitsubishi components with a Pratt & Whitney RL10B-2 engine carrying a Snecma nozzle. Boeing photo by Carleton Bailie.
The latest internal drive toward US Airways' Chapter 11 restructuring got underway last week with management attempting to carve out another $200 million in cost reductions as a surety to qualify for a $900-million federal loan guarantee.
Originally developed to facilitate installation of high-speed wireless data networks by assessing clear line-of-sight conditions between geographic locations, VexLink has been enhanced to include emergency preparedness and emergency response simulations. The software can be used to study propagation of toxic gas and other airborne contamination, and models created from these studies provide data for risk assessment and evacuation planning. Photo shows a realistic depiction of observed air patterns and pollution measurements.
Unattended ground sensors used in Vietnam are making a comeback. During a recent demonstration, the Navy used Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-funded, BAE Systems-developed micro-internetted unattended ground sensors (Miugs) to locate moving targets on the ground, according to BAE Systems. The information was relayed to a command site 30 mi. away and used to cue a Predator unmanned aircraft, which provided imagery and positive target identification for an F/A-18 strike.
The Pentagon decides to boost production of the Patriot PAC-3 interceptor missiles after realizing the low rate at which it was buying the weapon could cause a supply shortage in case of conflict. So acquisition czar E.C. (Pete) Aldridge wants to boost procurement this fiscal year to 100 from 79 and to 108 from 100 for Fiscal 2004. With the move to an acquisition program, the Pentagon also wants the Army to start managing the effort, rather than the research and development-focused Missile Defense Agency.
Orbital Sciences Corp. has tested the first stage rocket motor for the ground-based mid-course missile defense interceptor being developed to supplant the surrogate booster currently used. The motor, built by Alliant Techsystems' Thiokol Propulsion division, fired for 70 sec. The test also demonstrated the system's thrust vectoring capability. The first interceptor launch is slated for early next year.
The Concorde's involvement in four incidents in a six-week period is raising industry doubts about the airworthiness of the aging fleet of supersonic jets that entered service in 1972. The most recent event occurred Nov. 27, with British Airways Flight 001's inflight loss of a piece of rudder. On Nov. 6, a Paris-bound Air France Concorde crew shut down an engine after a warning light appeared in the cockpit after takeoff. On Nov. 3, engine problems forced a New York-bound BA Concorde's return to Heathrow. On Oct.
