Boeing will build another Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) for NASA under a $289 million contract option exercised by the agency and announced Nov. 29. Boeing Satellite Systems Inc. already has built TDRS-K and L under a 2007 contract. The new option covers design, development, fabrication, testing, launch support, in-orbit checkout and sustaining engineering, with operations set to begin by 2017.
ATK will provide lightweight advanced solar arrays to Orbital Sciences Corp. for its Cygnus cargo carrier under a $20 million contract announced Nov. 30. The 11-ft. UltraFlex circular arrays will allow the Cygnus to carry more payload weight to the International Space Station under Orbital's resupply contract with NASA, ATK says.
The European Commission has put forward its spending plan for research that suggests aerospace may fare well despite the lack of a previous dedicated funding line. Research and development funding will increase, with industry hoping it will support “downstream” efforts as much as possible without violating subsidy rules. Moreover, the funding for transport efforts is up almost 50%. The money is not dedicated to aerospace, but industry officials believe the sector will receive a fair share.
AgustaWestland has completed the buyout of Bell Helicopter Textron's stake of the AB609—now AW609—civil tiltrotor after announcing in June it would take full control of the project. The company now hopes to obtain civil certification of the rotorcraft in late 2015 or early 2016. Commercial deliveries would start immediately afterward, the company says, noting it has around 40 customers with commitments for 70 tiltrotors. The third flight-test aircraft, now in production, should fly next year. It will focus on icing certification testing.
General Electric and Rolls-Royce are dissolving the Fighter Engine Team (FET) after deciding to discontinue self-funding the F136 alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
An Airbus A320 with an interim upgrade between the current and new-engine-option (NEO) variants has begun flight trials with the goal of delivering the first of the aircraft to customers late next year.
More than two decades ago, Manfred Bischoff, then-Deutsche Aerospace's (DASA) chief financial officer, adamantly claimed that political interference in the European aerospace industry should be banned once and for all. In the 1990s, while a major cross-border consolidation initiative was envisioned by German and French leaders, Bischoff, expressing Germany's long-held conviction, claimed that state-owned Aerospatiale should be privatized before a merger agreement with DASA could be considered.
Airbus, led by its top salesman John Leahy, is making a huge push for market share, a move that threatens to put Boeing permanently on the back foot in the narrowbody market.
European Union emission allowance (EUA) prices crashed to €7.71 ($10.36) per metric ton on Nov. 25—their lowest level yet seen in the 2008-12 second phase of the cap-and-trade program. The price of EUAs for delivery in December this year has fallen from as high as €17.00 per metric ton in May, due to concerns that Europe will enter a second recession, cutting industry's carbon dioxide emissions and demand for allowances to cover them.
The small, inexpensive spacecraft that have seduced more than one engineering student into the space arena with their hands-on appeal as teaching tools, cubesats are attracting attention beyond the academy as their capabilities grow and launch opportunities proliferate.
Citizens outside of Washington often accuse those inside the Beltway of living in their own world, and the upcoming budget request for fiscal 2013 is only going to prove them right. That is because while Congress—through failure last month by the so-called Super Committee to agree to any cuts to the deficit—has set in motion $600 billion more in reductions to defense spending over a decade, starting in January 2013. But the Pentagon is not going to acknowledge that reality in the budget request coming out in February.
If the leaders of the armed services are forced to start choosing major weapons programs to keep or kill, former Air Force leaders suggest the Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter will prevail, despite headline-grabbing issues in recent years.
It is hardly the first time an airline has sought protection under U.S. bankruptcy law in order to formulate—or at least fine-tune—a new business plan. Some carriers are even recidivists in bankruptcy court. But AMR Corp. had striven proudly to restructure its high cost base on its own. Now that it has thrown in the towel and headed down the path trodden by all the other remaining U.S. legacy carriers, it is at least hoping for the smoothest trip yet through the courthouse and vowing to “kick some ass” when it comes out of Chapter 11.
Thomas Horton's background is almost tailor-made for the role he now serves as AMR Corp.'s chairman, president and CEO. His nearly life-long career at the company was punctuated only by four years at AT&T where, as chief financial officer and vice chairman, he restructured the struggling telecommunication company's debt and then organized a merger with local provider SBC.
In early October, Boeing surprised the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 by proposing talks on a new four-year contract months ahead of schedule. What has emerged from those meetings is a contract that preserves the union's health and benefit goals and guarantees that its newest project, the 737 MAX, will remain on the IAM's home turf in Renton, Wash., and not drift away to a non-union locale.
Just how many new employees Boeing Commercial Airplanes will need when it begins production of the 737 MAX is unclear, but efficiencies gained in its regular 737 Next Generation series production suggest the number will be relatively low. As it heads toward a 38-per-month production rate for NGs in 2013, BCA already has added an additional 600 workers across all job categories, says company representative Liz Verdier. But whether it will need to add another 600 to achieve its next production step of 42/month in 2014 has not been determined.
He told controllers “Houston, we have a problem” only 2 hr. before banking on it to save his crew's lives on the aborted Moon landing flight, but decades later, James Lovell has cashed in literally with an Apollo 13 checklist.
Business as usual—including record profits and high overhead and labor rates—could shift in the defense industry as it adjusts to new buying practices taking root at the Pentagon. Contractors can expect a growing emphasis on using competition to secure and maintain work and government overseers are honing their negotiation tactics for the lean times ahead. If this initiative works as planned, the Pentagon intends to reduce its own costs while maintaining “reasonable” profit for industry, says Brett Lambert, the department's industrial policy chief.
Keep it simple stupid.” That, at least, is the philosophy the U.K. appears to have embraced as it revives its effort to replace its search-and-rescue helicopter force after a previous effort went spectacularly off course.
Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt once said that when it comes to international relations, it is best to “speak softly and carry a big stick.” Malaysia, in its relations with China, has to deal with the thorny issue of conflicting claims over the South China Sea. The Southeast Asian nation needs Chinese trade and investment, but cannot afford to be at the losing end of the stick when it comes to its sovereignty.
Arab countries are part of a global group of states trying to fend off inclusion of their airlines in the European Union's emissions trading system (ETS) in its current form. But, as they and representatives of their airlines witnessed at the Arab Air Carriers Organization (AACO) general meeting here last week, the European Commission still shows no sign of relenting.
Process improvements that cut fuel burn and emissions during Boeing's aircraft delivery preparation process are under consideration across the company's product line after an especially “green” rollout in November of a 777-300ER for Air New Zealand. “You have to be relentless about it,” Air New Zealand (AirNZ) technical manager Duncan Mairs says of the implementation of environmental impact policies. “No one's going to change the environment overnight. But you've got to look at everything and you've got to keep at it to [make it] a way of life.”
With commercial aviation facing stiff competition from road transport for biofuels derived from vegetable oils and animal fats, the FAA is funding research into advanced alternatives to conventional jet fuel. The agency has awarded contracts totaling $8 million to develop drop-in jet fuel from new sources, evaluate how biofuels affect engine durability and develop guidelines for quality control and sustainability.
