Aviation Week & Space Technology

Kamarudin Meranun, AirAsia co-founder, has been appointed to the new role of AirAsia X Group CEO, where he will spearhead development of the “overarching strategy” for the carrier and its new join- venture affiliates in Thailand and Indonesia.

Our editors discuss adaptive engine technology, sixth-generation fighters, threats to the F-35 and the next presidential aircraft.

NASA and its commercial crew partners open up about their plans, now that the legal hurdles have been cleared.

Early work is underway on an expendable version of the space shuttle main engine, which will power the heavy-lift Space Launch System.

The Rise and Fall of a Launch Monopoly?

SpaceX-USAF legal settlement offers little near-term gain for SpaceX, but it appears to serve the company’s strategic goals.

Students of post-Cold War aerospace are intimately familiar with the Last Supper.

Small problems that blighted the helicopter in its earliest days of operation are still causing concerns as operators struggle to procure spares and get rotorcraft back into service.

U.S. military planners have now broadly accepted that the only way to meet the advanced performance needs of “sixth-generation” combat aircraft, barring changes to the laws of physics, will be the adoption of variable-cycle, or adaptive engine technology.

GE makes strides in lightweight ceramic matrix composite blade technology.

KAL appears to be proposing a design based on the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which should be developmentally cheaper than KAI’s KF-X proposal. However, Boeing reportedly has given up supporting KAL’s bid because of a serious image problem suffered by the South Korean company.

Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have reached into their bag of tricks to keep NASA’s solar-propelled Dawn probe in good shape to enter orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, its second stop in the main asteroid belt.

Shrinking defense budgets, fewer programs, and tech developments in other industries creating incentives for A&D rivals to cooperate to win awards.

A few European airlines are seeking to expand into the low-cost long-haul market, but they are finding that a viable formula to do so is not easy to identify.

Air Canada’s Westjet edges toward long-haul market, but most North American low-cost airlines are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

Early expansion limits returns, but airline executives stress that the LCC model is sound.

Seeking permission to expand, Heathrow is pursuing multiple initiatives to reduce noise impacts on surrounding communities.

Test-flight data for the Orion crew capsule heat shield will be important in the redesign process.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is crafting a strategy to leverage the influx of imagery available from the many new information services providers working today.

Global demand for Earth-observation satellites booming, mainly from emerging countries lacking their own space programs.

Rep. Mac Thornberry, the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, plans to evaluate the costs of modernizing U.S. nuclear weapons and delivery systems and take on the Pentagon’s sluggish procurement system.

Thanks to relatively abundant power, improved data links and a unique orbit, the ISS is an attractive vantage point for instruments designed to study Earth. Researchers are taking notice.

Human-missions-to-Mars advocates cite skewed statistics; kill the notion of Exoatmosphere Kill Vehicles; flight-tracking suggestion; the many merits of women engineers; digitial edition woes; uncomfortable with Aviation Week's new app; very comfortable with new app

France seeks European partners for Musis imaging satellite program.

An “A322” would have a minimum range of 5,000 nm, opening up many new, thin international routes to Europe from U.S. hubs currently unreachable with single-aisle aircraft.