AN INTERSTATE ELECTRONICS CORP. software package permits turnkey visualization for analysis of GPS performance in high-dynamic vehicle maneuvers. The GPSView 2000 integrates 3D visualization and joystick control with the company's SCS2400 GPS satellite constellation simulator. The new system reproduces terrain, fuselage and inertial effects on GPS performance, and the joystick control helps users quickly isolate receiver anomalies, according to the company.
U.S. Space Command trackers believe a blazing object in the sky that startled early risers on the East Coast last week was a spent Russian SL-3 Vostok booster reentering after a quarter century in orbit. A command spokesman said the Space Control Center in Cheyenne Mountain, near Colorado Springs, had predicted the rocket, tracked since August 1975, would reenter at 6 a.m. EDT on Sept. 6. That was about the time police switchboards began lighting up with reports of the burning object, which Space Command said reentered about 100 mi. off Delaware.
The credit line on satellite imagery of Lajes Field in the Azores was omitted from last week's issue (AW&ST Sept. 3, p. 35). The picture was supplied by Space Imaging.
Preussag, the leading charter/tour operator, will expand its air travel operations into Poland by acquiring a 29% interest in Polish charter/air taxi carrier White Eagle Aviation. White Eagle has a fleet of 13 aircraft, including two Boeing 737-400s and one ATR 42 turboprop. The purchase will expand the group's charter fleet to seven airlines in six European countries, flying a fleet of 90 aircraft. Preussag also decided to adopt a common livery and brand name for its operations.
John A. Pope, who was a member services employee of the Washington-based National Business Aviation Assn. from 1961-84, has been selected to receive the organization's Staff Lifetime Achievement Award. After retiring, Pope became a free-lance writer and founded a company that prepared operations manuals for corporate aviation departments.
A group of top German aerospace executives led by EADS Co-CEO Rainer Hertrich and Lufthansa German Airlines boss Wolfgang Mayrhuber have released a report demanding major upgrades for the country's air transport system. The report said capacity must be expanded rapidly if Germany is to remain competitive and become a growth engine for Europe. Specifically, it recommended that Germany take a lead role in implementing Europe's Single Sky Initiative and Galileo satellite navigation system, and foster further restructuring and integration of the European supplier industry.
British Airways plans to cut its workforce by 1,800 employees by next April, a move analysts say is consistent with the carrier's strategy to reduce overall capacity by about 16% by 2003. BA's tactic includes replacing Boeing 757s and 767s on European routes with smaller Airbus A320s and phasing out older Boeing 747s on long-distance routes to increase yields. BA has already reported a 12% boost in yields on North Atlantic routes.
Aerojet has ground-tested a 67-ft.-long monolithic solid rocket motor destined for heavy-lift versions of Lockheed Martin's new Atlas V and perhaps other space launch vehicles as well. The motor generated 285,000-390,000-lb.-thrust in the horizontal test, which lasted 95 sec. Engineers determined the motor burned nominally, validating the new manufacturing processes Aerojet developed for the large motor. Two more tests in the Atlas V configuration are planned.
NASA/Langley Research Center plans to conduct further experiments this autumn of an upgraded Runway Incursion Prevention System (RIPS) using the Center's Research Flight Deck and pilots from major U.S. airlines.
Albuquerque International Sunport set an all-time, single-month record for passenger traffic in July, serving 643,632 travelers. That was a 9.6% increase over July 2000 and topped the previous record set in October 1996 during the airport's rapid growth spurt. Aviation Director Jay Czar attributed the recent peak to ``great air fares and a healthy summer travel season.'' Southwest Airlines saw a 17% year-over-year increase, Continental rose 18.5%, and Frontier posted a stunning 98% jump. Delta, American, TWA and Mesa registered declines.
Israel has tested ``advanced weapons capabilities'' in the latest trial of its Arrow anti-ballistic missile system, said a senior aerospace industry official. In addition to ensuring the system's reliability, the procedure was used to gauge software changes made in the last year. The upgrades produced improvements in three areas resulting in better discrimination of targets, an expanded envelope in which it can strike enemy warheads and an increased probability of a hit within that envelope, he said.
The use of interactive streaming media to train, motivate and communicate with workers and retain customers is expected to grow 10-fold over the next five years, according to the Cahners In-Stat research group (www.instat.com). This will cut travel expenses--bad for the airlines, but perhaps good for satellite companies. Hughes and other satellite-based networks are the leading providers of streaming media to large and medium-size companies, the group said.
Although mobile digital radio services have barely started rolling out in the U.S., satellite operators are already dusting off plans for similar projects to bring clear digital audio sound to drivers in other parts of the world.
A British Airways Boeing 777-200 and a contractor's fuel truck were damaged by a fire that broke out during refueling shortly after the aircraft arrived at Denver International Airport on Sept. 5. One ground crewman involved in the refueling operation was injured and transported by helicopter to a Denver hospital.
The FAA's 10-year plan to modernize the National Airspace System, welcomed nearly three months ago as a comprehensive, meticulously diagrammed blueprint for air traffic management in 2010, has come to be viewed since then as too slow, providing too little. Criticism of the plan's substance comes in the form of faint praise. Everybody supports it, but nearly everybody thinks it can be done faster, better or both.
Orbital Sciences Corp. says it has abandoned attempts to raise BSAT-2b, a broadcasting satellite built for Japan's Broadasting Satellite System Corp., to its intended geostationary orbit. BSAT-2b, stranded by an unsuccessful Ariane 5 launch in July (AW&ST July 23, p. 38), will be written off. Artemis, a European experimental spacecraft left stranded after the same launch, is expected to be partially recovered, but with a lifetime of barely five years--half that initially planned.
To help create a widely supported library of processing routines for sensor systems, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is sponsoring the Vector Signal Image Processing Library (VSIPL) Forum (www.vsipl.org). The group is working to define industry-standard application programming interfaces for high-performance programs in real-time embedded systems, such as radar, sonar, signals intelligence, and electro-optical and infrared processing.
The booster for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization's long-range kill vehicle has completed its first flight from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., in a launch that was about 18 months behind schedule. The Boeing-developed booster now faces competition from within the program with the company's awarding of contracts to Lockheed Martin and Orbital Sciences Corp. for their concepts on a complementary and more powerful launch vehicle.
HARDWARE TO MITIGATE RADIO-FREQUENCY interference with GPS is getting smaller and is now available on the open market for civil users, as well as military. Electro-Radiation Inc. of Fairfield, N.J., has a miniature interference suppression unit that combines a commercial-off-the-shelf patch antenna and an electronics unit, which plug directly into a GPS receiver's antenna port (see p. 55). The electronics unit is a chip that uses surface-mount technology, weighs less than 1 oz. and measures 1.3 X 2.3 X 0.15 in. According to the company, it provides more than 25-dB.
Boeing and General Dynamics are considering whether to keep at the long-running fight over the cancellation of the A-12 Avenger II strike aircraft. The Court of Federal Claims ruled Aug. 31 that the Navy was justified in canceling the development of the stealthy, carrier-borne aircraft in 1991, because the contractors weren't making sufficient progress toward delivery and flight test milestones. The contractors may have to reimburse the government more than $1 billion.
