The Planetary Society is offering a $50,000 prize for the best design of a mission to "tag" a potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroid with a tracking beacon. The "Apophis Mission Design Competition" aims at a concept for planting a radio beacon on the 400-meter-dia. asteroid that will fly within about 20,000 mi. of Earth in 2029. Tagging may be necessary to track this or other asteroids accurately enough to determine whether they will impact Earth, making it easier to decide whether to mount a deflection mission to alter their orbits.
Harvey Bazaar has joined the board of directors of CPI Aerostructures Inc., Edgewood, N.Y. He is retired global and Americas leader for the Capital Markets Group of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. CPI's founder and chairman emeritus, Arthur August, has retired.
The Air Force may not like being in a sole-source arrangement with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems for Predator UAVs, but it isn't willing to cut the contractor off. During a recent budget drill at the Pentagon, senior civilian leaders sliced as much as $500 million from the 2008-13 Predator account. Pentagon sources suggest the Air Force quickly found more money and refunded the program. What remains to be seen is whether this effort was simply a drill, or whether the new Predator funds were extracted from one or more USAF intelligence programs.
Private Bag 92007, Auckland 1020, NEW ZEALAND Code: NZ Employees: 10,233 www.airnewzealand.com Tel. (64-9) 336-2863 Fax (64-9) 336-2664 Ownership: 79.9% state; 20.1% other Executive Management Chairman John Palmer CEO Rob Fyfe CFO Rob McDonald General Manager Marketing Steve Bayliss General Manager Airline Operations & Planning Glen Sowry
Air Force Gulfstream G-IV (4) Lockheed C-130H (8) Saab JAS 39A (92) Saab JAS 39B (15) Saab JAS 39C (50) Saab JAS 39D (3) Saab SF 340B (9) Saab SH 37 (2) Saab Sk 37 (2) Saab SK 60A (45) Saab SK 60B (17) Saab SK 60C (19) Coast Guard CASA C-212-200 (3) Military Helicopter Wing Agusta A109LUH (2) CASA C-212 (1) Eurocopter AS332M (10) Eurocopter BO 105CBS (20)
4333 Amon Carter Blvd. Fort Worth, TX 76155, USA Code: AA Employees: 88,400 www.aa.com Tel. (817) 963-1234 Fax (817) 967-3816 Ownership: 100% publicly traded Executive Management Chairman, President & CEO Gerard J. Arpey Executive VP Marketing Daniel P. Garton Senior VP Finance & CFO Thomas W. Horton Senior VP & General Counsel Gary F. Kennedy
DigitalGlobe 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, II Scheduled for launch in mid-2006, respectively.
Indian controllers are activating four satellites, including a new Earth-mapping platform and a recoverable microgravity-science capsule that will provide data for future reusable launch vehicles, following their launch Dec. 10 on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). All four spacecraft reached their desired 97.9-deg. polar orbits, with an altitude of 637 km., and all were reported deploying normally and in good health. It was the 10th PSLV the Indian Space Research Organization has launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center.
Two Mesaba investors are leveling harsh allegations against Northwest Airlines and seeking legal action to halt Northwest's current plan to acquire the regional carrier.
Talk about a nice return on investment. Five months after paying $630 million for Textron's Fastening Systems unit, private equity firm Platinum Equity is selling off the business's aerospace operations--which account for just 1/18 of total revenues--for $300 million. The buyer is aerospace metals supplier Precision Castparts Corp. (PCP). Mark Donegan, PCP's CEO, says the old Textron operation, which manufactures aerospace rivets and blind bolts, will fill a gap in the PCP's product line.
Threats from Northrop Grumman, the Pentagon's No. 3 revenue-generating defense contractor, to back out of a $200-billion competition with Boeing to build new aerial refuelers indicate that the company may be changing its approach to high-stakes competitions, according to industry officials.
