Jun Li, a research scientist at the Center for Nanotechnology at the NASA Ames Research Center, Moffitt Field, Calif., has won an award from Nanotech Briefs magazine for his invention of a microscopic sensor that can monitor spacecraft water quality and detect biohazards. Li's carbon-nanotube biosensor may be used to monitor water quality of the proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle that NASA plans to fly to the Moon and Mars.
Routine space tourism has drawn a step closer with publication of proposed rules governing the nascent industry published by the FAA. Drawing heavily on its experience certificating Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne for its ultimately successful try at the $10-million Ansari X Prize, the FAA sets out its plans for pilot licensing (case-by-case, with instrument rating required); medical standards for the crew (second-class airmen); vehicle flight testing (no tourists allowed), and the official term for a space tourist ("space flight participant").
Senior Editor Craig Covault (left) interviews Alan Stern, overall lead manager and principal investigator for the Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft in the background. Both are wearing protective "bunny suits" in the Kennedy Space Center Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility. Stern, from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., has for years championed the need for a mission to Pluto and Kuiper Belt objects. The planned Jan. 17 liftoff of New Horizons will be the first mission into unknown planetary territory since the launch of Voyager 2 (see p. 46).
FAA CERTIFICATION OF THE ECLIPSE 500 VLJ will be delayed until late in the second quarter of 2006 from March, as originally planned, say Eclipse Aviation officials. President/CEO Vern Raburn attributes the slip to supply chain issues. "Unfortunately, an in-depth assessment of the new schedules has made it clear that these slips will force a delay in our overall certification effort." Initial customer deliveries would begin shortly after certification is received, according to Raburn. The company has orders for more than 2,000 jets.
Southwest Airlines launched its Denver service Jan. 3 and announced two destinations to be added Mar. 4--Baltimore/Washington, with one daily nonstop, and Salt Lake City, with four. United, Frontier and US Airways currently serve Denver-BWI nonstop, and these three carriers, plus Delta, fly nonstops between Denver and Salt Lake City. Also on Mar. 4, Southwest will add a fifth daily Denver-Phoenix flight and a sixth to Las Vegas. Southwest serves Chicago Midway from Denver, too, and offers direct service or connections to 36 additional points.
Mike Heuer of the U.S. has been reelected president of the Switzerland-based Federation Aeronautique Internationale's Aerobatics Commission. John Louis Gaillard of South Africa, Jiri Kobrle of the Czech Republic and Osmo Jalovaara of Finland were reelected as first, second and third vice presidents, respectively. Karl Berger was elected vice president-gliders. Kobrle also recently received the commission's Leon Biancotto Diploma for his "long and distinguished service to aerobatics."
The New Horizons Pluto flyby spacecraft is poised to become the fastest vehicle ever to depart Earth, blazing outbound at 10.07 mi. per sec.--zooming past the orbit of the Moon in just 9 hr.--on the first mission to the last known planet. New Horizons' velocity will be about 10,000 mph. faster than most previous Earth escape flights to the Moon and planets. Flying at 36,000 mph.--the Earthly equivalent to about Mach 50--New Horizons will reach Jupiter in only 13 months. Relative to the Sun, its Earth escape velocity will be 28.8 mi. per sec.
Launch rates at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) are set nearly to double in 2006, compared with 2005. The U.S. Air Force 45th Space Wing, which operates the Eastern Range and reserves mission slots for both Cape Canaveral and KSC, has at least 20 launches booked for 2006, compared with only about a dozen missions flown in 2005.
THE ISRAELI CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY HAS CERTIFIED the Israel Aircraft Industries/Elta Systems Ltd. Flight Guard on an Israeli Boeing 767, and the system is now expected to be used on most Israeli airline 767s. Derived from military technology, Flight Guard is designed to protect civil aircraft from man-portable air defense systems (Manpads). The ICAA will have to apply for permission from local authorities if the system is to be used on flights to destinations in other nations.
NASA will work with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to develop a new Earth-observing satellite that would continue the 33-year-old Landsat data set, following a White House decision to pull the mission from the faltering National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (Npoess).
Airbus has increased its A350 order book, with Bangkok Airways committing to take six aircraft and Italy's Eurofly converting its intent to purchase three A350-800s to a firm order. Deliveries to Bangkok should commence in 2012, and those for Eurofly a year later.
As predicted, the White House has again maneuvered around the Senate confirmation process by taking advantage of President Bush's authority to make appointments during congressional recesses. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) suggested the tactic to install appointees that had been on congressional hold for months, in at least one case as retaliation for base closing decisions.
Finmeccanica holds 84.8% of Italian information and communication technology company Datamat, after completion of a public share purchase offer. Finmeccanica previously held 56%. Datamat retains 4.2%.
Led by its twin-engine, wide-body family, Boeing set a sales record for 2005 with orders for 1,002 aircraft, including individual high marks for the 737, 777 and 787, the company's three main product lines.
Airbus has assigned additional work packages to Russian entities Irkut and the Voronezh Aircraft Production Assn. (VASO), netting them about $200 million in 10 years. Irkut's deal includes wall panels for the A320 family auxiliary center tank, A330/A340 wing ribs and flap-track roller beams, and A380 work. VASO will build engine-pylon elements and A380 parts. The first shipments are to be delivered in about a year.
Federal Communications Commission approval for a second AfriStar satellite is helping clear the way for WorldSpace to launch a digital audio radio service in Western Europe.
Vigorous debate of public policy is not just a hallmark of democratic republics, it's a good way to make decisions. Even a despot, were he savvy, might convene the best minds in his empire and listen to them discuss and argue before making his unilateral decision.
Piaggio Aero Industries has delivered the first P.180 Avanti II business aircraft, to a Swiss customer. Plans call for installing upgraded Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6-66B turboprop engines in production airplanes late this year, which will increase cruise speed slightly. EASA certified the Avanti II in October 2005, and FAA approval is expected soon.
Development of a new air defense system will proceed, based on French government approval, while a comparable German effort appears stalled because of budget uncertainties.
FLIGHTSAFETY INTERNATIONAL OFFICIALS SAY this year's simulator deliveries should outpace 2005's, when FSI delivered 54. More than 30 commercial and military simulators are now being built at FSI's facility in Broken Arrow, Okla., including units for Raytheon Aircraft Co., Bombardier, Cessna, Gulfstream, Dassault Aviation, Boeing, Embraer, Bell and Piaggio.
Kathryn O'Leary Higgins was sworn in on Jan. 3 as a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. Higgins was president and CEO of TATC Consulting. Her term expires Dec. 31, 2009. Mark Rosenker, who officially bears the title of NTSB vice chairman, will continue as acting chairman. Last month, Ellen Engleman Conners requested that President Bush withdraw her nomination for a second term as chairman. She will continue as a board member through 2007.
British Umeco is paying up to 20 million euros to buyout northern Italy-based Provest, a small Italian aerospace manufacturer of electrical and mechanical parts. The family-owned Provest, which counts helicopter-maker AgustaWestland as a client, posted 15 million euros in turnover in 2004. Umeco is paying an initial 13.5 million euros, with the deal to conclude by June 2008, depending on Provest's operating results.
DASSAULT AVIATION AND HONEYWELL have quickly settled a software contract dispute (AW&ST Nov. 14, 2005, p. 16). Filed by Dassault in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York on Oct. 11, the suit asked for $60 million in damages for the late delivery of the EASy interactive cockpit used on Falcon Jets, including the Falcon 900DX that was certified three years late. The terms of last month's settlement were not disclosed, but the two companies say they will continue to work together.
William S. Boyle and George E. Smith, the inventors of charge-coupled devices, will share the $500,000 Charles Stark Draper Prize, which is scheduled to be presented by the National Academy of Engineering on Feb. 21. CCDs are imaging sensors or optical elements that convert light to digital data and are used in telescopes and imaging satellites as well as consumer products. The two men invented them in 1969 while working for Bell Laboratories. The silicon chips can image optical, X-ray, ultraviolet and infrared emissions.
Even as the French air force is preparing to field its near-precision Advanced Air-to-Surface Missile powered bomb next year, weapons developer Sagem Defense Securite is expanding its already considerable upgrade plans for the weapon. First deliveries of the AASM to the French military are underway, although those are early production versions. The first full-rate production weapons are to be handed over to the air force this year, with deliveries to the navy to follow soon after.
