NASA has adjusted the launch window for its Mars Science Laboratory rover slightly to gain better conditions for entry and landing at the red planet. Doug McCuistion, Mars exploration director at agency headquarters, tells a Space Studies Board committee that the new launch date will come somewhere between the last week in November and mid-December 2011, and not in September-October as earlier planned. Meanwhile, Mars-science planners at NASA and the European Space Agency have decided to forgo an opportunity to launch a sample return mission in 2020.
When it arrived at the last ILA Berlin Air Show, OHB Technology was a relative unknown still trying to parlay a surprise victory in the German SARLupe radar satellite competition into a reputation as a global satellite supplier. During the show, the Bremen-based company—Germany’s second-largest space contractor after EADS Astrium—inked a preliminary agreement with Hispasat to build its first geostationary telecom satellite, based on an all-new bus of its own design. It has not looked back since.
Robert Wall (Ueberlingen and Schrobenhausen, Germany)
Even with today’s budget constraints, Germany is preparing to kick-start several air defense upgrade efforts, underscoring the importance of this arena in the nation’s military modernization strategy.
Initial reports indicate success for the launch of Arabsat’s BADR-5 satellite by an International Launch Services Proton-1/Breese M from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on June 3. The first three stages separated without event. Constructed by EADS Astrium, the spacecraft will provide digital television services to the Middle East and North Africa.
Robert Wall (Ueberlingen and Schrobenhausen, Germany)
The limited scope of Germany’s weapons procurements is forcing industry to look abroad to sustain production lines for several high- profile missile programs.
The U.S. and France last week agreed to implement the Immigration Advisory Program (IAP) to identify high-risk passengers before they board flights to the U.S., according to the U.S. Homeland Security Department. The formal signing is planned for August. Under the IAP, specialized U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel at foreign airports would examine passenger analysis information or travel documentation to make “no board” recommendations to airlines and host governments.
Russia’s Soyuz TMA-17 crew vehicle touches down in Kazakhstan with a flash of its cushioning retrorockets, ending Expedition 23 to the International Space Station. Cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, the Expedition 23 commander, and flight engineers Timothy Creamer of NASA and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) spent 163 days in space—a record for JAXA—before their safe return June 1. Kotov’s crew greeted three NASA space shuttle missions during its stay and built up facilities for the scientific research underway on the orbiting laboratory.
The rapid expansion of Ryanair and EasyJet, Europe’s two most dynamic airlines in recent years, is starting to ease with growth-for-growth’s-sake no longer the driving force in the airlines’ business plans.
Israel Aerospace Industries says it will display at next week’s Eurosatory exhibition an unmanned aircraft that can take off, hover in one place and land without any additional landing or recovery systems. The ETOP (Electric Tethered Observation Platform) can be deployed from a static or moving ground vehicle or station, from which it also derives its energy. The ETOP can carry a payload of up to 20 kg. to a maximum altitude of 100 meters (328 ft.), and hover at altitude for as long as its energy source on the ground lasts.
The first of 12 planned next-generation Global Positioning System satellites should enter service in three to six months after its May 27 launch from Cape Canaveral AFS on a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket. The 206-ft.-tall launch vehicle, assisted by two strap-on solid rocket motors, soared off Launch Pad 37B at 11 p.m. EDT, ending a string of delays including a dramatic abort seconds before liftoff due to an anomalous reading from one of the strap-on motors’ steering systems.
One hundred years after the first German air show, the country’s aerospace industry is grappling with the fallout of two difficult years as it gathers for the ILA Berlin Air Show June 8-13 at Schoenefeld Airport. Military and commercial activities will be heavily represented, with the Airbus Military A400M marking its air show debut and Lufthansa and Emirates both showing off newly received Airbus A380s.
Eurocopter will introduce a new rotor blade shape into its inventory following completion of full-scale flight tests on board an EC155, an upgrade of the venerable Dauphin. The shape, dubbed Blue Edge Blade, features a double-swept configuration intended to sharply reduce noise—a major concern in urban operations. It was developed by Eurocopter and French defense research agency Onera based on a patented Erato configuration devised by Onera and German aerospace center DLR. The shape demonstrated a noise reduction of 4-7 dB. in wind-tunnel tests and 3-4 dB.
In publishing the final rule establishing the requirements for Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), the FAA has stuck with its deadline for all aircraft in U.S. airspace to be equipped by 2020, but has reduced the performance specifications in a bid to minimize costs.
Brian Humphries, president/CEO of the European Business Aviation Association, has received the annual Business Aviation Meritorious Service Award from the Alexandria, Va.-based Flight Safety Foundation . This award is presented annually at the Corporate Aviation Safety Seminar by FSF to recognize an ability to improve the safety of business aviation.
Rolls-Royce has run a new core in the E3E (efficiency, environment, economy) two-shaft engine research program. The core, 3/2b, which has run 40 hr. at Stuttgart University in Germany, achieved good results, the engine maker says. Work on the core, funded by German federal and state governments, is to continue in the next two years with 1,200 cycles of endurance testing.
David A. Fulghum defines a “sixth-generation” aircraft as being optionally manned, stealthy and having advanced payloads such as an active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar (AW&ST April 26, p. 50). He then cites the remotely piloted General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Predator C as an example. Predator C is not optionally manned or stealthy and does not carry an AESA radar. But it represents a huge generational leap.
With the new British government resolutely against construction of a third runway at London Heathrow Airport, airport operator BAA on May 27 announced it would stop pursuing the project. BAA will gradually end efforts to purchase properties in Sipson, which would have been required if the runway project had proceeded.
Honeywell is continuing its Educators @ Space Academy Program this year, and has tapped 220 teachers from 17 countries and 44 states to attend the June 11-23 event. Created in partnership with the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in 2004, the program is set up to encourage teachers to go beyond standard math/science curriculum via techniques developed through astronaut training at the center in Huntsville, Ala. Participants receive 45 hr.
USAF Brig. Gen. Eric W. Crabtree is among 10 of his rank who have been nominated for promotion to major general. He is commander of the 4th Air Force, Air Force Reserve Command, March ARB, Calif. The others are: Wallace W. Farris, Jr., deputy director for politico-military affairs for Africa for the Joint Staff at the Pentagon; Craig N. Gourley, mobilization assistant to the commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe, Ramstein AB, Germany; Carol A. Lee, mobilization assistant to the surgeon general of the Air Force, Bolling AFB, Washington; David S.
Asia Broadcast Satellite has agreed to acquire Koreasat-3 from KT Corp. of South Korea (Korea Telecom) to provide Ku- and Ka-band VSAT cellular backhaul, broadband and government services to the Middle East. To be named ABS-7, Koreasat-3 employs a Lockheed Martin A2100 bus carrying 30 Ku- and three Ka-band transponders. It was launched in September 1999 and has six more years or so of useful life left.
Jeff Hanley, manager of NASA’s embattled Constellation Program, has been reassigned as Johnson Space Center’s associate director for strategic capabilities. Lawrence “Dale” Thomas, Constellation’s deputy manager, has become acting manager. Hanley, who had been manager since 2005, led NASA’s efforts to develop key Constellation components including the Orion crew exploration vehicle and Ares I crew launch vehicle that were to replace the space shuttle.
Mark Barclay (see photo) has been appointed senior vice president/head of the Wing and Pylon Center of Excellence at Airbus , Broughton, Wales. He succeeds Brian Fleet, who retires in June. Barclay was chief operating officer of Thales U.K.
