Boeing expects India's P-8I order to increase to as many as 30 aircraft, due to expected Indian navy and coast guard interest. “With 7,500 kilometers of coastline, and with three aircraft carriers, the Indian navy is going to have a tremendous need for . . . maritime and surveillance aircraft,” says Carl Lang, Boeing's P-8I program manager. Under a $2 billion contract signed in 2009, Boeing will deliver eight of the maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft starting in the first half of 2013, with an option for four more.
Northrop Grumman's X-47B unnamed combat aircraft system demonstrator is a step closer to landing on a carrier after its first flight from the U.S. Navy's test center at NAS Paxutent River, Md. During the 36-min. flight over Chesapeake Bay on July 29, Air Vehicle 2 reached 7,500-ft. altitude and 180-kt airspeed. The next step is for ground-maneuvering trials. Air Vehicle 1 is being readied for carrier-suitability testing with the next block of software, with shore-based catapult launches and arrested landings at Pax River beginning later this year.
A little more than one year after its revolutionary KA-SAT broadband satellite entered service, fleet operator Eutelsat is lowering its revenue expectations. The Paris-based company says the all-Ka-band spacecraft is still expected to generate €100 million ($122 million) in new business, but not until 2015, one year later than projected.
In April 2009, President Barack Obama laid out an ambitious vision in Prague about moving to a world without nuclear weapons. The speech won him friends among present and past heads of state and across the arms control community, and criticism from Republicans. But these days, the president's nuclear policy is under attack from all sides.
Koay Peng Yen has been named group CEO of Tiger Airways Holdings of Singapore, succeeding Chin Yau Seng, who will return to Singapore Airlines. Honors And Elections
As a passenger, it's evident that airlines are doing a much better job at managing their capacity. It's rare to find an empty seat next to you. Frequent fliers also know many airlines offer ancillary services—from onboard food to checked baggage—for a fee. New revenue streams are visible. What is invisible to passengers is that airlines also are getting smarter about managing life-cycle costs.
How do you fight off a swarm of small UAVs? Answer: With another swarm. That's the thinking behind the Aerial Battle Bots project masterminded by Timothy Chung, assistant professor of systems engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. Chung is planning to stage an airborne gladiatorial contest between two fleets of 50 UAVs by 2015, to demonstrate how the swarm defense might work.
Aurora Flight Sciences' Centaur optionally piloted aircraft flies over northern Virginia with Tom Washington, chief pilot and Centaur chief engineer, as safety pilot in the left seat. The unmanned-aircraft ground station and operator are in the back seat, while a flight-control servo package occupies the normal space for the right front seat. Aviation Week & Space Technology was on board the Centaur as it flew an autonomous mission, from takeoff to landing. Aurora photo by Martin Gomez.
There is no single “smoking gun” that caused breathing trouble for USAF F-22 Raptor pilots, but rather a “mosaic” of inter-related cockpit equipment issues that led to a chain reaction of problems resulting in symptoms similar to hypoxia, says Maj. Gen. Charlie Lyon, Air Combat Command's director of operations. The Air Force said last week it believes it has resolved the breathing issues for now, with a plan to replace a valve in a vest that was not meeting Raptor oxygen-supply requirements, Lyon says.
Hans J. Langer, founder and CEO of technology company EOS, has been named one of the Top 20 Most Influential People by the U.K.'s TCT Magazine. The list recognizes individuals for their contributions to the additive manufacturing industry in the past 20 years.
Lockheed Martin plans to conduct detailed studies of an advanced hybrid wing-body transport concept under a second phase of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) Revolutionary Configurations for Energy Efficiency (RCEE) program. The study is part of AFRL-led efforts to identify ways to radically reduce the amount of fuel used by the Air Force's air mobility fleet for “a severely energy-supply-constrained future scenario,” says AFRL. Reducing fuel burn has become a top priority for the U.S. Defense Department, which consumes almost 4 billion gal.
Students will be given the opportunity to send up small payloads, as well as fly up themselves when suborbital commercial space flight becomes available as early as late 2013, according to some of the leading companies in the field. At an Aug. 1 hearing of the House Science subcommittee on space and aeronautics, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and XCOR Aerospace all said they are counting researchers and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students among the projected clients for their vehicles.
As any military planner hoping to introduce new capabilities knows, breaking the cost paradigm in these days of tight budgets is every bit as important as proving the technology itself.
Two of the Progress capsules that Russia uses to resupply the International Space Station have validated advances that could simplify cargo and crew operations at the orbiting laboratory. The unpiloted Progress 48 capsule, with almost three tons of cargo, docked with the ISS Aug. 1 less than 6 hr. after lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, demonstrating a four-orbit journey instead of the normal two-day, 34-orbit transit. The spacecraft carried out four precise rendezvous maneuvers over the first 2 hr., 40 min.
Finmeccanica 's first-half financial results for 2012 confirm that the flagship Italian defense company is recovering financially, but its growing debt is becoming an issue for management. Giuseppe Orsi, chairman and CEO, says Finmeccanica will dispose of assets worth €1 billion ($1.22 billion) before the close of the year, which should allow the company to reduce its debt. At the end of June, that debt stood at €4.6 billion, an 11% increase over the same period in 2011.
As planned, the U.S.-led F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program will get a new chief executive. The Pentagon says USAF Maj. Gen. Christopher Bogdan has been nominated for a third star and to become director of the Pentagon-based program office, succeeding Navy Vice Adm. David Venlet, who has headed the program since 2010. Bogdan, previously in charge of the KC-46A aerial refueling tanker program, stepped into the deputy position on JSF in July. He succeeded USAF Maj. Gen John Thompson, who had been with JSF for less than a year, in an unusual job-swap announced in May.
Aug. 13-14—Bombardier 2012 Safety Standdown Latin America. Grand Hyatt Sao Paulo (Brazil) Hotel. See www.safetystanddown.com Aug. 13-16—American Institute Aeronautical and Astronautics/American Astronautical Society's Astrodynamics Specialist Conference. Hyatt Regency Minneapolis. See www.aiaa.org Aug. 15-17—Ninth Annual Latin American Business Association Conference and Exhibition. Congonhas Airport, Sao Paulo. See ww.abag.org.br/labace2012/
Bradford Parkinson, the vice chairman of the outside board that advises the government on matters affecting GPS, had a financial conflict of interest when he signed a letter in August 2011 opposing the LightSquared satellite- and ground-based wireless communications network, the NASA inspector general (IG) finds.
NASA tweaked the paths of its Mars Science Laboratory and Mars Odyssey orbiter in preparation for the planned landing of the car-sized rover in a crater near the Martian equator early Aug. 6. Controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory fired thrusters on MSL twice for a total of 6 sec. at 1 a.m. EDT July 29. The thruster burn was designed to nudge it west of its projected entry point into the planet's atmosphere by 21 km (13 mi.), after tracking with Deep Space Network antennas indicated it was that far off its target entry point.
Steve Alford has been tapped to become VP and general manager for the Circor Aerospace's Corona-based California businesses. He was global director of manufacturing for Milliken & Co.'s floor covering division.
