Tight budgets and other factors have left the U.S. facing “serious gaps” in its ability to monitor the Earth’s climate from space, both for near-term forecasting and for tracking longer-term changes, a panel of the National Research Council has found.
PARIS — Years have ticked by since European launch consortium Arianespace turned a profit. Despite Europe’s economic crisis, the market for commercial satellite communications is strong and conditions for launch providers are generally favorable. Yet the Evry, France-based launch services company continues to rely on government subsidies.
NASA’s twin Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (Grail) spacecraft will spend the next month refining their orbits around the Moon, where they will provide the most detailed gravity maps available and important clues to the origins of Earth’s big satellite.
The two largest space powers outside the U.S. had wildly divergent records in 2011, with Beijing boasting 19 launches and demonstrating in-orbit docking for a future space station while the Kremlin ordered an investigation into a string of high-profile engineering failures plaguing Russia's space program.
“Mr. President, congratulations. You're a tough adversary. No hard feelings, old pal. It's a great two-party system we have. We gave our best and you outdid us. As a matter of fact you stunned us. I never figured you could beat us that badly. I want to wish you all the success in the world.” Those words were spoken three decades ago by then-U.S. House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill, a liberal Massachusetts Democrat, to President Ronald Reagan, a conservative Republican, after the chief executive prevailed in a tough budget battle.
Few details about the merger are being disclosed, but if approved, it will create a company with more than 40,000 employees and operations to 115 destinations in 23 countries. The combined entity will be named LATAM Airlines Group, although the two companies will operate as separate brands.
BENGALURU, India - India's Defense Bioengineering and Electromedical Laboratory has developed an oxygen life-support system for helicopter pilots operating at high altitudes.
"There are concerns expressed by us time and again and we are watching the progress at the other end," one senior Indian Air Force official told AVIATION WEEK.
The June 9 test-stand fire that ruined one of the two rocket engines scheduled to power the first flight of the Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus II launch vehicle was caused by kerosene fuel leaking from a 40-year-old manifold manufactured in the former Soviet Union.
The flying of the space shuttle involves complex choreography of man (or woman) and machine. With five shuttle missions under his belt and a stint as the chief of NASA’s Astronaut Office, U.S. Navy Capt. (ret.) Robert L. “Hoot” Gibson is among the most qualified to explain what must be done to make a flight a success. In an exclusive Aviation Week pilot report, he describes what transpires from launch through landing from the commander’s point of view.
The loss of two shuttle orbiters and 14 brave astronauts gave NASA and the nation several textbooks worth of painful lessons about launching humans into space, including how easy it is to forget those lessons. The Challenger accident scuttled forever the notion that the space shuttle was an operational vehicle that could take humans to orbit as a matter of “routine.” Columbia’s loss underscored that schooling, and killed the shuttle program.
As new competitors enter the commercial aircraft market, Boeing and Airbus face big decisions about how to keep their products on the leading edge. Should they make incremental upgrades now, or wait until game-changing technologies are ready? Boeing Chairman, President and CEO Jim McNerney sat down at the company’s Chicago headquarters with AW&ST Senior Business Editor Joseph C. Anselmo to discuss the options the company is mulling and why he thinks China will become the industry’s next big power.
Trials about to start on a small engine stand in rural Oxfordshire, England, could open the door to full-scale development of a hybrid air-breathing rocket engine for single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) reusable launch vehicles.
The first images from the U.S. Air Force's new spacecborne strategic missile warning system are so far making good on the military's promise that they would surpass the quality provided by the decades-old Defense Support Program constellation.
The third time is anything but a charm for the Air Force, which has notified Congress--again--it needs more money for its next-generation missile early-warning system. Originally expected to cost about $4 billion, the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) High is now expected to total well beyond $10 billion. But needing more cash is not the only problem: Officials don't know just how much they need. The final amount is expected to be at least $1.5 billion, although officials say it could exceed $2.5 billion.
