Japan is scheduled to launch Hayabusa-2 on a six-year mission to return samples from the asteroid 1999 JU3. Four landers are designed to explore the C-type asteroid’s surface before the main spacecraft itself touches down for two or three grab-and-go sample harvests.
Aviation Week's Bill Sweetman discusses the key takeaways from the recent China Airshow with Joe Anselmo. In addition to China's development of military aircraft, Sweetman details the tremendous push toward missile systems, radars and other command and control systems.
Airbus is launching the second generation of the outsize cargo aircraft that will be based on the larger and heavier A330-200. Five new Belugas will be built, the first of which will enter service in 2019 after a five-year development phase. They will progressively replace the current fleet and take over all special cargo flying for Airbus by 2025.
The danger of a hobbyist or troublemaker flying a small, light, remotely piloted aircraft into the path of a commercial aircraft may be overblown due to the rigorous certification standards already in place for other unidentified flying objects—birds.
Increasing the assembly rate to 10 aircraft per month seems minute compared to Boeing and Airbus, but it is confirmation of ATR’s renaissance in the past decade.
Studies by the Japanese defense ministry’s Technical Research and Development Institute that point to the advantages of big fighters with the fuel capacity and aerodynamic optimization to keep them on station longer. Range alone is not enough, however. The aircraft also should be networked.
M ichael Rossell has been appointed deputy director general of Montreal-based Airports Council International. He was director of ACI relations with the International Civil Aviation Organization and has been the U.K.’s permanent representative to ICAO and its first vice president. Rossell succeeds Craig Bradbrook, who has become vice president-aviation services at the Greater Toronto Airports Authority.
Although the FAA has not yet completed rules for how UAVs should be operated in U.S. airspace, it can fine commercial operators for “careless or reckless” flying of unmanned aircraft—even those that cost less than $200. That is the upshot of what being perceived as a “win” for FAA regulators: an NTSB ruling this week on Raphael Pirker’s promotional video for the University of Virginia—shot from a remote-control aircraft.
Unspecified U.S.-government spacecraft have been detecting the fireballs generated when small asteroids have hit Earth’s atmosphere for the past 20 years at least, and apparently measuring the energy they generate as they burn up.
NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (Maven) orbiter relayed this surface image from the Curiosity rover before placing itself in a safehold state Nov. 19 that the agency says was triggered by a “timing conflict between commands.” The spacecraft, which initiated full science operations Nov. 16, remained in high-data-rate communications with controllers, who were developing a plan to return it to normal operations.
An article on page 44 of the Nov. 17 issue mischaracterized funds Boeing has dedicated to building a worldwide finance information technology system. Not all of the cost is new spending.
XCOR Aerospace has used its unique piston-pump technology to move two cryogenic propellants in a hot-fire test of the XR-5H25 engine it is developing as a pathfinder for a potential advanced upper-stage powerplant for United Launch Alliance (ULA). It will be in the same class as the RL-10 used on the Atlas and Delta launch vehicles. The Mojave, California, company says it hot-fire-tested the engine’s regeneratively cooled thrust chamber using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen (LH2) pumped with the proprietary technology.
Three materials-science projects will share $800,000 in grants from the non-profit Center for the Advancement of Science In Space (Casis) to flight-test their concepts on the International Space Station. Casis says Alexei Churilov of Radiation Monitoring Devices, Inc. of Watertown, Massachusetts, will grow scintillator crystals; St. Petersburg, Florida-based Eclipse Energy Systems Inc.
Delta Air Lines has selected the Airbus A350 and A330neo over Boeing’s 777 and 787 to replace Boeing 747s and 767s. The U.S. airline ordered 25 A350-900s to replace 747-400s on Pacific routes beginning in 2017, and 25 A330-900neos to succeed 767-300ERs on transatlantic and other routes beginning in 2019.
U.S.-based Sikorsky is set to secure a $1 billion tender to deliver 16 Multi-Role Helicopters for the Indian navy after NH Industries, which is linked to alleged scandal-tainted Italian conglomerate Finmeccanica, is said to have been eliminated from the contest. “The navy is in urgent operational need of helicopters and we have almost decided to buy the S-70B Seahawk over the NH90, since the government decided to impose a partial ban on group companies of Finmeccanica from all future weapons supply deals,” a senior naval official says.
U.S.-based Bell Helicopter has signed a contract with India’s Dynamatic Technologies to supply helicopter cabin assemblies, a partnership that could generate millions of dollars in business over the next seven years. Bell Helicopter, a unit of Textron, will establish Dynamatic as a subcontractor for the assembly of the airframe cabin for its Bell 407 GX helicopters and airframe parts.
Air France KLM Engineering and Maintenance has received European Aviation Safety Agency certification to complete MRO services on GE GEnx engines at its Amsterdam Schipol Airport facility. Final testing will be conducted at the group’s test cell in Paris. The GEnx engine will power Air France-KLM Boeing 787s by the end of 2015. In related news, Latam Airlines awarded AFI KLM E&M a component support flight-hour contract for Boeing 767s, 777s and 787s.
NTSB board member Mark Rosekind has been selected by the Obama administration to lead the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, succeeding Peter Strickland, who resigned in December 2013. Rosekind’s departure would leave the NTSB down two members since Deborah Hersman left to lead the National Safety Council. Chris Hart, who has been acting chairman since April, also awaits Senate confirmation.
