Boeing says its modified lithium-ion battery system worked as designed during the failure of a single cell on the main battery of a Japan Airlines Boeing 787 at Tokyo Narita Airport on Jan. 14, grounding the aircraft. The airline's maintenance staff in the cockpit, preparing the twinjet for a flight to Bangkok, noticed white smoke coming from the bottom of the fuselage, but did not see any additional smoke when they checked outside. “The 787 issue on the ground at Narita appears to involve venting of a single battery cell during maintenance,” Boeing says.
The history of space exploration generally has been a march toward greater ambition, risk, complexity and cost. The first launch vehicles were guided missiles carrying the simplest of satellites, and the objective—orbit—was simple and straightforward. Earlier this month, circumstance presented a unique opportunity to observe how the international space-exploration endeavor has evolved over more than 50 years.
International Launch Services (ILS) plans to launch Eutelsat 9B for the Paris-based satcom operator in 2015 on a Khrunichev-built Proton rocket under a agreement announced Jan. 15. Space Systems (formerly Astrium) of Airbus Defense and Space will build the 5,300-kg (11,700-lb.) Ku-band satellite, which will be positioned at 9 deg. E. Long. to deliver service via 66 transponders. The spacecraft, which is based on the Eurostar E3000 bus, also will host the first payload for the European Data Relay Satellite System.
European Space Agency controllers in Darmstadt, Germany, placed the $1.3 billion Gaia spacecraft into its operational orbit with a brief thruster burn at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrangian point on Jan. 14, setting up the mission to produce a 3-D star map of the galaxy with unprecedented precision. The final maneuver followed an almost 2-hr. firing a week earlier to set up the orbit around the imaginary point 1.5 million km (937 million mi.)from Earth on the side opposite the Sun. Launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on Dec.
Arjan Meijer has been appointed managing director of KLM UK Engineering Ltd. He was vice president-technical services and fleet development for KLM Cityhopper.
USN Adm. Mark E. Ferguson, 3rd, has been named commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Europe/commander, U.S. Naval Forces Africa/commander, Allied Joint Forces Command, Naples, Italy. He has been vice chief of naval operations at the Pentagon. Vice Adm. Michelle J. Howard has been nominated for promotion to admiral and to succeed Ferguson. She has been deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans and strategy at the Pentagon. Honors And Elections
India's Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) may finally have been cleared for entry into squadron service, but the coming year brings a critical round of testing for the Mk. 1 fighter. It must meet a final deadline of December 2014 to be fully operational. The tests are crucial to how the Indian air force (IAF) will deploy the jet, built chiefly to replace large numbers of MiG-21 interceptors still in service with frontline squadrons.
Rebecca R. Rhoads (see photo) has been appointed president of the Raytheon Co.'s Global Business Services. She will remain the Waltham, Mass.-based company's chief information officer.
USAF Maj. Gen. (ret.) Charles W. Lyon (see photo) has been named lead executive for Northrop Grumman Corp. business in Hampton, Va. He succeeds Timothy A. Peppe, who is retiring. Lyon's final USAF assignment was director of operations at Air Combat Command Headquarters in Hampton.
Is it a coincidence that both the US Airways Flight 1549 crash landing in New York's Hudson River on Jan. 15, 2009, and the Scandinavian Airlines Flight 751 crash in Gottrora, Sweden, on Dec. 27, 1991 (with zero casualties in either incident), were performed by pilots with glider training? Some hours logged in a sailplane for pilots would be a cost-effective introduction to the necessary seat-of-the-pants feeling in stall situations.
China's defense ministry may be denying reports that its hypersonic-missile test was aimed at the U.S., but it is not denying that the test, first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, took place. “It is normal for China to conduct scientific experiments within its borders according to its plans,” the defense ministry told China Daily. “The tests were not aimed at any nation nor any specific target.” The hypersonic vehicle was tested on top of an ICBM, writes Daniel Goure of the industry-supported Lexington Institute. He compares the Jan.
It has not been canceled but it is still not launched. South Korea's KF-X indigenous fighter program has received limited 2014 funding from parliament, subject to conditions that implicitly threaten to kill it if it goes off the rails.
A story on page 25 of the Jan. 13 issue, “Leadership Shuffle,” misstated the death toll from the de Havilland DHC-3T crash in 2010 that killed former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Five people died.
What is becoming increasingly clear as the U.S. military continues its rebalance to the Asia-Pacific is that it is not only a mostly naval Pacific pivot, but primarily a shift of naval aviation. The Navy and Marine Corps are deploying their most technologically advanced aircraft to the region to participate in large-scale exercises or assist in major humanitarian efforts.
The fiscal 2014 omnibus appropriations bill considered last week in Congress seeks to provide the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with $1.89 billion for continued development of satellite systems, $207 million more than in the last fiscal year.
Philippe Merlo has become director of air traffic management at Brussels-based Eurocontrol. He was deputy director of air navigation services for the French Directorate General for Civil Aviation.
It has 1.25 million men and women and double-digit increases in its budget. But for officers, does the People's Liberation Army have good military leaders or good networkers?
Bombardier has pushed its service-entry target for the CSeries airliner back by at least 12 months, saying it will take longer than planned to complete certification flight testing. The announcement, which was expected, targets a service-entry date for the initial 110-seat CS100 variant for the second half of 2015, with the 135-seat CS300 following about six months later. Malmo Aviation in Sweden will be the first airline to take delivery of the CSeries, Bombardier says. The airline has five CS100s and five CS300s on firm order.
