Douglas Royce (Forecast International/www.forecastinternational.com)
Production of new fighter aircraft is set to rise during the next decade, and the landscape of this market overall is about to undergo a drastic change.
Rooseveltplantsoen 4 2517 KR The Hague, Netherlands Tel. (31-70) 306-4100; Fax (31-70) 306-4101 www.ses-newskies.com Astra 2B Broadcasting, direct-to-home TV broadcasting, multimedia. Orbital location is 28.2° E. Carries 28 Ku-band transponders. 2014 EOL. IS-603 Business services, Internet access, telecommunications. Orbital location is 340° E inclined. Carries 38 C-band and 10 Ku-band transponders. Launched 1990.
Edward H. Phillips (Aviation Week & Space Technology)
The worldwide airline maintenance, repair and overhaul business was projected to lose money in the fourth quarter of last year followed by a $1-billion downturn this year as the credit crunch and fear of a protracted recession take their toll on balance sheets.
Astra says its Astra 5A satellite, positioned at 31.5 deg. E. Long., has suffered a catastrophic failure and will be removed from service. The spacecraft would normally have had around three years of life remaining. The satellite operator, Swedish Space Corp., and manufacturer, Thales Alenia Space, are seeking the cause of the incident and are preparing to deorbit the spacecraft. Astrium says a substantial part of capacity was transferred to another spacecraft at 23.5 deg. E. Long. The company will later determine how to replace and develop capacity at the 31.5 deg.
Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman report that the SpaceWire data bus technology they are developing for USAF’s Transformational Satellite Communications Systems (TSAT) constellation has matured to the preliminary design review level. TSAT is to serve thousands of military users with wideband, mobile beyond line-of-sight range protected communications. SpaceWire, which hosts a scalable architecture, is to provide internal box-to-box and system-to-system data transfers as would a local area network in space.
1601 Dry Creek Drive, Suite 260 Longmont, CO 80503, USA Tel. (303) 684-4000; Fax (303) 684-4048 www.digitalglobe.com QuickBird Commercial remote sensing, environmental and Earth resources monitoring. Orbit is near-polar LEO. Carries one 61-cm.-resolution panchromatic and one 2.4-meter-resolution multispectral sensor. 2009 EOL. Worldview I Launched Sept. 18, 2007. Worldview II Under development with Ball Aerospace using the company’s BCP-5000 platform. Scheduled for launch in 2009.
Tired of repeated cost overruns on major defense programs, the Australian government is creating the Defense Systems Integration Technical Advisory (DSI-TA) body to try to identify potential problems early. The group will monitor programs, assess risk, and provide advice to decision makers and project leaders on how to manage systems complexity. The organization is to focus particularly on system integration risks.
All Nippon Airways has named Senior Executive Vice President Shinichiro Ito as president and CEO to succeed Mineo Yamamoto beginning Apr. 1. Regarded as a consensus-builder, Ito most recently led the airline and sales organization, but past management postings have included heading maintenance and engineering and corporate planning. He says improving ANA’s reliability and on-time performance are priorities. Yamamoto led the airline through four years of sustained growth and profits, despite high oil prices.
Despite a strong performance last year, Eurocopter expects a downturn in helicopter sales and plans to cut costs and beef up support for commercial customers to help cushion the fall. But research and development spending will be maintained and even increased.
Air Force Aerospatiale SA342L (4) Bell Helicopter Textron 206L III (2) B-N Group Ltd. BN-2B (1) Hughes Helicopters 500 (2) Mil Mi-35 (12) Police Air Wing Bell Helicopter Textron 412EP (1) Bell Helicopter Textron 412SP (1) B-N Group Ltd. BN-2T (1)
The Navy’s decision to base its next nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Mayport Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Fla., has touched off a war of words that the new administration may have to weigh in on. The Navy says its decision “reduces risks to fleet resources in the event of natural disaster, man-made calamity or attack by foreign nations or terrorists.” The location also provides the advantages of fleet dispersal and survivability without affecting operational availability, which the Navy says it has encountered in the past on the West Coast. But Sen.
Air Force Bell Helicopter Textron 206B (5) Bell Helicopter Textron 212 (10) Bell Helicopter Textron 214ST (1) Eurocopter BO 105CB (6) IPTN CN-235 (1) Pilatus PC-7 Mk II (4) Sikorsky S-70A (4) Sikorsky S-70C (2)
Air Force Basler Turbo 67 Conversion (8) Beech 65-B80 (2) Beech D50 (1) Beech D55 (1) Beech T-34M (9) Bell Helicopter Textron 205 (5) Bell Helicopter Textron 206 (6) Bell Helicopter Textron 212 (14) Bell Helicopter Textron 412 (2) Bell Helicopter Textron UH-1H (21) Boeing 707-373C (1) Boeing 737-700BBJ (1) CASA C-212 (4) CASA C-212-100 (2) CASA C-295M (2) CASA CN-235M (3)
21700 Atlantic Blvd. Dulles, VA 20166, USA Tel. (703) 480-7500; Fax (703) 480-7544 www.geoeye.com OrbView-2 Commercial remote sensing and environmental and Earth resources monitoring. Orbital location is near-polar LEO at 438 mi. Carries one 1.1-km.-resolution multispectral imaging instrument with eight channels, six in the visible and two in the near-IR spectrum. Provides daily coverage of Earth’s land and oceans with a swath width of 2,800 km. from a polar orbital path. Launched 1997. 7.5-year design lifetime.
Douglas Royce (Forecast International/www.forecastinternational.com)
Military transport aircraft demand is projected to remain stable through 2017 as air forces worldwide are looking to replace aging aircraft and expand their capabilities. The U.S. military continues to acquire several transport types as part of ongoing recapitalization, and Western Europe is emerging as a major customer for transports as its nations face a need to support security missions in distant regions.
