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The majority of the 161 unclassified milsats forecast for production in the next decade will go into service in the near term with production tapering in the outyears.

Michael Grimme has been named senior VP-sales and marketing at AirBaltic, Riga, Latvia. He was director-sales and marketing at TraviAustria.

It took Congress seven years and 23 extensions to pass a bill to authorize funding and set policies for the FAA for the next four years. It took makers and users of NextGen air traffic management equipment about a day to recognize that while the FAA reauthorization bill makes welcome changes, realizing the full benefits of air traffic modernization is still a long way off. The funding picture in the bill is not quite what industry had hoped, and all signs point to the fact that it is not likely to get much better.

Mike Leinback has become director of human spaceflight operations at Denver-based United Launch Alliance. He was launch team leader for all NASA space shuttle missions launched since 2000.

David Hygate has joined Denver-based TeamSAI as director for Europe. He was an aerospace consultant who worked mainly for Rolls-Royce.

There are worrying signals that a significant part of the airline industry could implode in the coming months, and despite the doom and gloom predictions from Europe this horror is occurring on the other side of the Atlantic.

The Oneworld alliance is facing severe headwinds on many fronts: Malev is bankrupt, American Airlines is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, Royal Jordanian is instituting serious network cutbacks and Kingfisher Airlines is putting its plans of joining on hold. Now the big hope is that Air Berlin will provide the alliance with the robust European network it needs.