The European Defense Agency steering board has agreed to include Europe’s Multinational Space-based Imaging System (Musis) initiative as an agency project. The move will permit EDA nations to participate in harmonizing requirements for the system, such as ground segment architecture, and to seek synergies with civil systems such as Europe’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security network. Work on the space segment of the system, which is backed by Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain, is underway.
It is ironic that simple, low-cost spacecraft built on a fast pace with minimum testing require the most sophisticated management of mission risk. When Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems joined with NASA Ames Research Center in the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (Lcross) mission, the company found itself refining its management processes to ensure the program’s success. Now, it is likely that what it learned will ripple back into its more sophisticated, higher-priced missions.
China’s first orbital station will be the national space program’s testbed for automatic docking, one of four technological hurdles that must be cleared before launching a big space station a decade from now. The small, short-life space station, already identified as Tiangong 1, will be launched as soon as next year. Its mass has grown from the 8 metric tons (17,600 lb.) previously stated and is now given as 8.5 tons, still within the capability of several members of the Long March 2 and 3 family of rockets.
Sikorsky will start flying the prototype S-76D medium helicopter with composite main rotor blades within days, marking the resumption of full flight tests that are to include three aircraft by early June. The blades form a key element of the upgraded design that will also include a new tail rotor, more powerful Pratt & Whitney Canada PW210S engines, a Thales-developed integrated avionics cockpit, active vibration control and an advanced health and usage monitoring system (HUMS).
Six months on from the insolvency of Grob Aerospace, Bombardier has transferred all work on the Learjet 85 from its erstwhile airframe partner to new locations while keeping the new midsize business jet on track for entry into service in 2013.
After several consecutive years of rapid growth, Russian airlines are facing falling traffic and revenues and the specter of multiple failures, as the effects of the global economic downturn on the economy and credit institutions begin to be felt. Though no carriers have collapsed yet, some are close to bankruptcy and casting about for a financial lifeline from the government.
Russia plans to start testing a new manned space vehicle in 2015, after kicking off its development in 2010. Alexi Krasnov, head of human spaceflight at Russian space agency Roskosmos, says a competition for development of the vehicle will be completed this year, with initial operational capability by 2018. The government has agreed to fund the effort, Krasnov said in Moscow Mar. 5, according to the Interfax-AVN news agency.
EADS Astrium affiliate Spot Image has opened a subsidiary in Brazil, joining others in Australia, China, Japan, Singapore and the U.S. Spot is working with Infoterra, another Astrium affiliate, to develop services for the Brazilian farming sector.
Giovanni Bisignani has been director general and CEO of the International Air Transport Assn. since 2002, and is expected to head the organization through 2011. Bisignani recently met with Aviation Week & Space Technology Editor-in-Chief Anthony L. Velocci, Jr., and Senior Air Transport Editor Adrian Schofield to talk about the dire condition of the airline industry, the urgent need for liberalization, and the steps being taken on safety and environmental issues.
USAF Col. (ret.) Michael R. Gallagher (Hillsboro, Ore.)
Reader Capt. Judkins points out correctly the aft center-of-gravity shift caused by the shearing away of the left engine when US Airways Flt. 1549 ditched in the Hudson (AW&ST Feb. 23, p. 8). What has not been mentioned in the coverage is the fact that the pylon attaching the engine to the wing performed exactly as intended by allowing the engine to separate without destroying the wing.
Mark another casualty of the struggling airline industry. Career specialist AIR Inc. closed its doors last month after 20 years of operation. In a farewell notice to members, President Kit Darby said the state of the airline industry and the economy combined to render the business “unsustainable.” The Atlanta-based company is transferring its current memberships to FltOps.com— a web-based pilot career information provider that also specializes in job fairs.
Work is being fast-tracked on compact warheads for non-lethal, non-explosive, air-launched or air-carried weapons that destroy electronics, as next-generation electronic attack begins to take shape. New projects offer alternative and parallel approaches to electronic attack capabilities that have, so far, focused on the proposed combination of Next-Generation Jammer and the Active Electronically Scanned Array radar that is to be carried by upgraded versions of the EA‑18G Growler, F/A-18F Super Hornet, F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
It’s a risky move to load down your balance sheet with new debt in these tumultuous economic times. Senior managers at Woodward Governor Co. are finding that out the hard way. Shares in the Colorado-based supplier of aircraft fuel systems plummeted by 33% on Mar. 2 after it announced a deal to buy Textron Inc.’s actuation systems unit, HR Textron, for $365 million.
Dutch investigators are focusing on the link between a radio altimeter malfunction and the autopilot-throttle system as the possible cause of the Feb. 25 crash of a Turkish Airlines 737-800 at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.
NASA has completed work on a 92-acre launch complex at the White Sands Missile Range, N.M., for the abort flight tests of its Orion crew exploration vehicle. The first test series at the new LC-32 East Launch Complex was expected by late summer, but is awaiting the availability of the vehicle, which may push it to later in the year.
Chinese engineers are evaluating data from a controlled impact of the Moon by the Chang’e-1 orbiter Mar. 1 to help their planning for a soft landing there in 2012. Chinese news agency Xinhua reports the 2,350-kg. (5,180-lb.) orbiter crashed just south of the lunar equator at 52.36 deg. E. Long., 16 months after its launch on a Long March 3A rocket. The probe’s mission lasted four months longer than its announced nominal duration, and ended when controllers at the Qingdao and Kashi centers slowed its speed to allow it to fall out of orbit, according to Xinhua.
Lockheed Martin is beginning ground tests of a cargo X-plane produced using advanced composite materials and manufacturing technology and designed to break the paradigm that airframe cost is dictated by aircraft weight. Assembly of the Advanced Composite Cargo Aircraft (ACCA), an extensively modified Dornier 328JET regional airliner, has been completed at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works in Palmdale, Calif., and the demonstrator is now in subsystem checkout.
Wassim Saheb has been appointed sales director for the Middle East for Bombardier Business Aircraft , based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He was sales director for Execujet Middle East.
NASA is using radar images of sand dunes to gauge which way the wind blows on Saturn’s smog-shrouded moon Titan, information that will come in handy when planetary scientists send balloon-borne instruments there. Although previous models suggested the big moon’s prevailing winds blow east to west, analysis of longitudinal dunes imaged with Cassini’s synthetic aperture radar suggests the wind blows to the east (see color map).
An undisclosed country in the Middle East has signed an agreement with Valley Forge Composite Technologies Inc. of Covington, Ky., to acquire a series of ODIN and Thor-LVX screening systems. According to the company, the equipment will be installed at various maritime facilities and airports to screen cargo containers and checked baggage. The Thor-LVX system uses gamma rays instead of X-rays and generates a small-scale, photonuclear reaction that identifies the chemical composition of explosives and narcotics as well as their quantity and location.
Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport is the first in Russia approved for New Large Aircraft (NLA) operations such as the Airbus A380. The approval signifies that usable dimensions of its Runway 01 and pavement strength comply with Category F standards set by ICAO, as well as Airbus’s recommendations. Reconstruction of the runway, taxiways and parking areas to handle NLAs began in 2003.
NASA was preparing to launch the space shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station (ISS) this week after reaching the preliminary conclusion that it will be safe to fly the orbiter despite a hydrogen-valve problem on the most recent mission. A formal flight readiness review for the STS-119 mission was set for Mar. 6 to confirm or modify a tentative Mar. 11 launch date set by the shuttle program. That updated schedule would advance the launch by a day to gain as much time as possible to complete the mission before a Soyuz docking at the ISS scheduled for Mar. 28.
David R. Ross (Arlington, Va.), Executive Director, Governmental Affairs Former President Teamsters Local 1224 Monument, Colo. (Arlington, Va.)
“Cargo Casualty” (AW&ST Feb. 2, p. 29) attributes DHL’s failure in the U.S. market to “teething problems,” and falls short of describing the cause or effect of the duopoly facing the U.S. express market. Also, it omits the anti-trust concerns raised by a proposed lift arrangement between DHL and UPS that prompted two congressional hearings at which I testified.
