Aviation Week & Space Technology

A mid-January agreement among five nations, including three from Europe, to buy shares in the U.S. Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) system exemplifies America's success in an area where Europe has thus far fallen short. The agreement—signed by Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and New Zealand—affords these countries immediate access to WGS-reserved data frequencies in exchange for financing the U.S. Air Force's ninth WGS spacecraft.

The U.S. Air Force's tanker contract has been awarded, Airbus and Boeing have moved to upgrade the A320 and 737, and NASA's space shuttle has flown its last mission. It's time to move on to 2012 and the next round of big developments in the aerospace and defense industry. Here are 12 to keep an eye on.

Strike weapons is the only segment of the world missile-systems market expected to see significant increases in value and production through 2016, with the lightweight missile subsegment projected to experience rapid growth. The world missile market is forecast to see a slight increase in value from a low of $11.18 billion in 2012 to a high of $11.81 billion in 2016, but production is expected to drop, reflecting the high price of some systems. Annual purchases of lightweight missiles is currently low, but will reach $60 million in 2016.

Space Exploration Technologies Inc. (SpaceX) won't be ready to fly its first mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Feb. 7 as planned, and may run into an upcoming space traffic jam in March. The company says “there are a few areas that will benefit from additional work,” and is in talks with NASA to set a new launch date. The Cape Canaveral AFS range will be occupied in mid-February for the scheduled Feb. 16 launch of the Navy's Mobile User Objective System (MUOS-1) on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5.

A new opportunity is on the horizon for companies hoping to sell unmanned aircraft to support the missile defense mission in the U.S. This is welcome news for companies seeking to break into this space or expand this type of work because late last year the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) selected incumbent Boeing to manage the massive Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system for another seven years.

When TUI Travel, the European launch customer for Boeing's 787, finally takes delivery of its first aircraft, the team at Monarch Aircraft Engineering should be ready to provide maintenance support through the Goldcare option. The technical arm of London Luton-based Monarch Airlines, is currently Boeing's only airframe maintenance partner for the Goldcare program. Despite Monarch canceling its own order for six 787s in September of last year, Boeing has confirmed that Monarch will remain a Goldcare partner.

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Obama administration officials are pleasing no one with their space diplomacy efforts. Basically, the government still wants an “international code of conduct” for outer space, likes many parts of a proposed EU conduct code over a Russian-China effort, but will not sign either proposal and will try again from scratch. That was the tortuous conclusion after several recent official and unofficial statements in Washington.

There are no votes to be won for adding airport capacity in London, so there is little political interest in tackling one of the most contentious air transport policy issues in the U.K. But policy makers are accepting, albeit somewhat grudgingly, that simply maintaining the status quo is not tenable.

Alenia North America is expected to name a new CEO after the departure this month of John Young, who became CEO in June 2010. Alenia's M-346 is locked in a race against two teams for the only major USAF aircraft contract looming in the near term.

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For EADS investors, this point been has a long time coming: Airbus's financial performance is set to ramp up. Now the question is whether conditions beyond its control will allow the aircraft maker to follow through. With Airbus heading into new record output territory, production is due to hit 570 aircraft this year, including, for the first time, 30 A380s. Louis Gallois, CEO of Airbus parent EADS, promises the financial performance will take off, too.

As the composites revolution continues, industry is shifting toward more advanced “out of autoclave” processing technology to reduce the costs of manufacturing these weight-saving components. Large and expensive, autoclaves required for curing conventional composites are major investments, particularly for smaller suppliers. Vacuum bag only (VBO) processing is becoming popular because it allows large structures to be produced outside the autoclave, reducing cost and widening the number of potential suppliers.

The military's insatiable appetite for full-motion video is putting severe pressure on the bandwidth available to downlink data from manned and unmanned aircraft, and it is getting worse with the fielding of wide-area surveillance sensors providing multiple views of the battlefield. The answer could be high-capacity optical communications using laser beams instead of radio links. The European Space Agency first demonstrated an aircraft-to-satellite laser link in 2006. When the U.S.

A key planning document the U.K. Defense Ministry has been working on to spell out its industrial strategy in the wake of the Strategic Defense and Security Review is now not expected to emerge until February. The planning document, which industry hopes will spell out areas that the U.K. government will continue to support, was due last year.

As the business jet market begins to recover from the global recession, the development of new engines proceeds. General aviation continues to be a dynamic segment in terms of turboprop use and product availability. Single- and twin-engine designs are abundant, with more on the way in the next few years.

The launch industry is still recovering from a downturn that reduced the number of competitors in the market and forced the remaining players to restructure. These companies also have become more reliant on government spending. A recovery is being driven by the reduction of launch vehicle operators and an increase in launch opportunities, but an expected decline in satellite purchases and an increase in the number of launch vehicle operators could fuel greater competition.

Launch industry managers worldwide will go after government markets as the industry continues its recovery from a downturn that has brought a reduction in the number of competitors in the market and forced the remaining players to restructure. While the reduction of launch vehicle operators and an increase in launch opportunities is driving recovery for the survivors, an expected decline in satellite purchases and rise in the number of launch vehicle operators down the road could fuel greater competition in coming years.

This time it was supposed to be different for the Franco-German aerospace giant—a smooth transition of power, with a new management team building on the foundation put in place by its predecessor.

Looking purely at facts, the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 can likely be explained as a pilot-fatigue-induced loss-of-control accident. But as a bitter dispute over the findings shows, the case is imbued with political overtones—in itself a strong reason for concerns over safety cultures.

SkyTeam may be adding five new members this year, but CEO Michael Wisbrun says he still favors integration over network expansion.

U.S. military officials are keen on saying they never intend to fight the last war. This is their way of indicating a focus on future conflicts, not on the past. Apparently, this sentiment does not apply to the interservice skirmishes at the Pentagon. The U.S. Army and Air Force are in the final throes of hashing out an updated agreement on the time-sensitive, direct-support airlift mission, the latest chapter in a years-long saga over how to ship supplies to remote soldiers despite two wars and one stunted buy of Alenia's C-27J.

The global airline industry returned to profitability in 2010 after two years of financial losses. Driving this turnaround was the growth of passenger and cargo traffic, which had flat-lined over the previous two-year period. As a direct result, large turbine engine manufacturers have seen rebounding sales and full order books for new and existing engines.

The worldwide missile systems market—worth $58.2 billion over the next five years—will see a slight increase in value during the period, from a low of $11.18 billion in 2012 to a high of $11.81 billion in 2016. At the same time, production is anticipated to drop, reflecting the high cost of some of the systems being built. In all, 197,605 missiles of all types are forecast for production in 2012-16.

Some larger operators are confident in their ability to return a profit during another year of belt-tightening, but mixed results are more likely.