Seeking a commanding lead in the race to build ever more powerful telecommunications spacecraft, Hughes Space and Communications Co. officials have unveiled plans for a satellite that would offer unprecedented power, transponder capacity and solar cell efficiency. The ``702-plus'' geosynchronous platform, based on Hughes' new HS 702 bus, would provide 25 kw. of power at end of life and solar cells with 35% efficiency, enabling it to carry more than 100 transponders.
The East Timor crisis has provided Australia's Defense Dept. with an unexpected chance to test the new Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN), the country's over-the-horizon radar network. It is tracking East Timorese air operations from a transmitter at Longreach in Queensland. Defense officials say JORN operates at ranges up to 6,500 naut. mi. from its transmitter--well above the published figure of 1,875 naut. mi. Such a capability would give the Australians an ability to monitor air traffic throughout Asia, depending on conditions in the ionosphere.
President Clinton has signed a $47-billion Transportation Appropriations Act for Fiscal 2000, despite a $144-million congressional cut in his budget request for the FAA's operations and capital programs. Although the act expands the Coast Guard's search and rescue and drug interdiction operations, the President said, the FAA shortfall will slow the hiring of safety and security personnel (AW&ST Oct. 11, p. 30).
The second in what may be a long string of reports on lessons from the air war over Yugoslavia was released by the Pentagon late last week. It says that to ease allied concerns about collateral damage, the U.S. adopted a two-tier system in which military commanders approved most targets, but those in downtown Belgrade and those likely to involve great collateral damage required coalition approval.
Go, the low-cost subsidiary of British Airways, will add two new services starting Dec. 15, bringing its route network to 17 destinations in nine countries. The carrier plans to inaugurate daily services from its London Stansted hub to Lyons, France, and Zurich. The latter service is subject to government approval, which is expected next month.
John D. (Mike) Rice, director of the New Mexico Aviation Div., and Gary R. Ness, director of the North Dakota Aeronautics Commission, have been elected to the board of directors of the National Assn. of State Aviation Officials Center for Aviation Research and Education. Demetrius D. Glass, director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Aviation, was elected board chairman and Ness board treasurer. Other board members are: Raymond J.
Singapore Airlines was expected to confirm its membership in the Star Alliance late last week. Star members gathered in Tokyo to celebrate the entry of All Nippon Airways into the airline grouping. SIA's membership had been in some doubt after its attempts to buy an equity stake in Star Alliance member Ansett Australia failed. But it reportedly turned away other overtures. Its inclusion will lead Star into a dominant position in Asia, with Thai International, Ansett, Air New Zealand and ANA already members.
The Army and Boeing are testing the Rotorcraft Pilot's Associate (RPA) in a Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter, and believe the system is ready to be transitioned to operational aircraft. The RPA software and design methodology are versatile enough that they have been chosen for other vehicles. Boeing will use RPA to plan and monitor a flight of several unmanned combat air vehicles, and the Army may use it to help a ground reconnaissance vehicle crew.
Eutelsat has launched a pay-per-use broadband service to reinforce its growing range of multimedia applications. The service, EWDS, allows users to lease circuits on a long-term basis for its base traffic while paying for the variable component of their traffic on an on-consumption basis. EWDS will transmit at 64 Kbps. to 2 Mbps. and can be configured to asymmetric/symmetric or one-way/two-way format.
A solar array glitch that has grounded several satellites and affected others in orbit has now been resolved, said Matra Marconi Space Chairman and CEO Armand Carlier. Carlier said engineers now know ``clearly and without any ambiguity'' where the problem lies, why it occurred, and how to prevent its recurrence. The defect, a process-related fault in the cell coating, concerned just a single batch of arrays, and did not affect the nominal performance of any spacecraft in orbit, he said. All satellites still on the ground will be launched by next summer.
Alcatel Space has acquired equity interests in a South American telecom venture and a U.S. satellite messaging service, further expanding its range of international satellite holdings.
After years of preparation and the bankruptcy of two competitors, the Loral-backed Globalstar venture officially inaugurated its commercial satellite telephone service here, with Chairman Bernard L. Schwartz confidently forecasting 3 million subscribers within three years.
George Groppi (see photos) has been named vice president-quality and metallurgy of the Ladish Co., Cudahy, Wis., and David L. Provan vice president-materials management of its Cudahy Forgings Div. Groppi was manager of quality and metallurgy and Provan manager of materials management, both for Cudahy Forgings.
Art Rancis has been named vice president-communication and video products for the Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. He was president/CEO of Racom Systems Inc.
Updates to an experimental En- route Expeditionary Operations Center (EEOC), including faster computers, Iridium and Inmarsat satellite telephone systems and high-bandwidth data links, allowed airborne commanders to track other aircraft and stay in touch with forward units during Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 1999.
The German-Swedish KEPD 350 Taurus standoff missile has completed its first successful free flight test at Vidsel, Sweden, from a Tornado testbed. According to Manfred Kuesters, general manager of Taurus Systems, a joint venture of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and Bofors Missiles, the test fully met requirements for aerodynamics, propulsion and navigation systems and demonstrated free-flight capability over hilly terrain in ``marginal'' weather conditions.
The EC-130 Compass Call aircraft--designed to use jamming to frustrate a foe's ability to command his field forces--is a largely invisible factor to the casual observer in an exercise or even a war.
Applied Microsystems has developed an analysis tool called Codetest Native that works solely on the developer's host computer, permitting code test analysis to begin as soon as coding begins. . . . Southwest Airlines will keep track of its computer equipment, what it's worth, and how it is used with MainControl MC/EMpower software. The program compares proposed infotech plans with existing equipment to predict budgets and help plan upgrades. . . . LMS of Coralville, Iowa, has released version 9.5 of its DADS dynamic motion simulation software.
Richard Yeatter has been appointed manager of FlightSafety International's maintenance technician training center in Little Rock, Ark. He was director of technical training for US Airways.
Fred McNutt has been appointed chief financial officer of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. McNutt was a vice president/controller for the Raytheon Corp.
Shares of Raytheon Co. of Lexington, Mass., suffered the consequences last week of a combination of reverses--a pretax charge of $638 million plus word of an expected $600-million shortfall of revenues for 1999 and lower growth estimates. The stock price fall was a massacre, a 40%--or 18 3/4--decline in stock value to 24 1/4. Raytheon was not alone. The aerospace sector took a dive the next day, last Wednesday, as if in sympathy.
Galileo appears to have gathered good data of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io during the closest pass yet by any spacecraft, on Oct. 10. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory spacecraft flew 611 km. (380 mi.) from Io in a highly radioactive region. Controllers scrambled in the hours preceding the encounter to restart the spacecraft after it had been knocked into a ``safe mode'' by a memory error, likely induced by the radiation. They succeeded in bringing Galileo back to full operation 2 hr. before the encounter.
Carole A. Shifrin, former senior transport editor and London bureau chief of Aviation Week&Space Technology, has been named to receive the Lauren D. Lyman Award on Oct. 26 in Washington. It honors career-long achievements in journalism or public relations and is sponsored by the United Technologies Corp.
Iridium officials are seeing glimmers of light in the dark clouds of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In the past few weeks, the satellite telephone venture has been signing up 1,300-1,500 new subscribers a day, double the level of four months ago. Iridium still won't reveal how many customers it has, but execs say the number is ``many more'' than the 10,000 the company had before Mar. 31.
Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Integrated Systems and Aerostructures Sector in Dallas last week demonstrated the first full-size, reconfigurable tool for forming complex aircraft sheet metal parts. Within about 30 min. three parts with widely different shapes were produced. The goal of the program is to reduce the cycle time and cost of manufacturing aircraft and aerospace parts.
