NASA/Langley Research Center plans to conduct further experiments this autumn of an upgraded Runway Incursion Prevention System (RIPS) using the Center's Research Flight Deck and pilots from major U.S. airlines.
Albuquerque International Sunport set an all-time, single-month record for passenger traffic in July, serving 643,632 travelers. That was a 9.6% increase over July 2000 and topped the previous record set in October 1996 during the airport's rapid growth spurt. Aviation Director Jay Czar attributed the recent peak to ``great air fares and a healthy summer travel season.'' Southwest Airlines saw a 17% year-over-year increase, Continental rose 18.5%, and Frontier posted a stunning 98% jump. Delta, American, TWA and Mesa registered declines.
Israel has tested ``advanced weapons capabilities'' in the latest trial of its Arrow anti-ballistic missile system, said a senior aerospace industry official. In addition to ensuring the system's reliability, the procedure was used to gauge software changes made in the last year. The upgrades produced improvements in three areas resulting in better discrimination of targets, an expanded envelope in which it can strike enemy warheads and an increased probability of a hit within that envelope, he said.
The use of interactive streaming media to train, motivate and communicate with workers and retain customers is expected to grow 10-fold over the next five years, according to the Cahners In-Stat research group (www.instat.com). This will cut travel expenses--bad for the airlines, but perhaps good for satellite companies. Hughes and other satellite-based networks are the leading providers of streaming media to large and medium-size companies, the group said.
Although mobile digital radio services have barely started rolling out in the U.S., satellite operators are already dusting off plans for similar projects to bring clear digital audio sound to drivers in other parts of the world.
A British Airways Boeing 777-200 and a contractor's fuel truck were damaged by a fire that broke out during refueling shortly after the aircraft arrived at Denver International Airport on Sept. 5. One ground crewman involved in the refueling operation was injured and transported by helicopter to a Denver hospital.
The FAA's 10-year plan to modernize the National Airspace System, welcomed nearly three months ago as a comprehensive, meticulously diagrammed blueprint for air traffic management in 2010, has come to be viewed since then as too slow, providing too little. Criticism of the plan's substance comes in the form of faint praise. Everybody supports it, but nearly everybody thinks it can be done faster, better or both.
Orbital Sciences Corp. says it has abandoned attempts to raise BSAT-2b, a broadcasting satellite built for Japan's Broadasting Satellite System Corp., to its intended geostationary orbit. BSAT-2b, stranded by an unsuccessful Ariane 5 launch in July (AW&ST July 23, p. 38), will be written off. Artemis, a European experimental spacecraft left stranded after the same launch, is expected to be partially recovered, but with a lifetime of barely five years--half that initially planned.
To help create a widely supported library of processing routines for sensor systems, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is sponsoring the Vector Signal Image Processing Library (VSIPL) Forum (www.vsipl.org). The group is working to define industry-standard application programming interfaces for high-performance programs in real-time embedded systems, such as radar, sonar, signals intelligence, and electro-optical and infrared processing.
The booster for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization's long-range kill vehicle has completed its first flight from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., in a launch that was about 18 months behind schedule. The Boeing-developed booster now faces competition from within the program with the company's awarding of contracts to Lockheed Martin and Orbital Sciences Corp. for their concepts on a complementary and more powerful launch vehicle.
HARDWARE TO MITIGATE RADIO-FREQUENCY interference with GPS is getting smaller and is now available on the open market for civil users, as well as military. Electro-Radiation Inc. of Fairfield, N.J., has a miniature interference suppression unit that combines a commercial-off-the-shelf patch antenna and an electronics unit, which plug directly into a GPS receiver's antenna port (see p. 55). The electronics unit is a chip that uses surface-mount technology, weighs less than 1 oz. and measures 1.3 X 2.3 X 0.15 in. According to the company, it provides more than 25-dB.
Boeing and General Dynamics are considering whether to keep at the long-running fight over the cancellation of the A-12 Avenger II strike aircraft. The Court of Federal Claims ruled Aug. 31 that the Navy was justified in canceling the development of the stealthy, carrier-borne aircraft in 1991, because the contractors weren't making sufficient progress toward delivery and flight test milestones. The contractors may have to reimburse the government more than $1 billion.
AS DIFFERENTIAL-GPS SPREADS across the U.S., receivers near electric power lines could suffer interference. Enertech Consultants studied the potential problems for the medium-frequency broadcast stations operated by the U.S. Coast Guard in the 283.5-325-KHz. marine radioband, which is being expanded inland across the country as a Nationwide D-GPS (NDGPS) network. Interference is generated by corona discharges caused by conductor flaws and gap discharges from broken insulators during dry weather.
Robert Johnson, executive vice president/chief operating officer of Honeywell International, has been named to the advisory board of Entrada Software Inc., Scottsdale, Ariz.
George W. Perkins has been named vice president/general manager of the Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence and Naval Systems Div. of the Northrop Grumman Corp. Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector in Baltimore. He succeeds Robert P. Iorizzo, who is now sector president. Perkins was director of business operations for the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command.
The U.K.'s Defense Aviation Repair Agency is seeking civilian and overseas contracts, and to become more commercial has awarded a 20.5-million-pound ($29.5-million) contract for new infotech systems to Cap Gemini Ernst&Young. The systems are based on Baan Aerospace&Defense software and replace legacy systems inherited from the Royal Air Force's Maintenance Group Defense Agency and Naval Aircraft Repair Organization.
Boeing Satellite Systems, which has a long association with building satellites for PanAmSat Corp. and JSAT Corp., has been selected to build a model 601HP that will serve both of them from an orbital slot at 127 deg. W. Long. (see illustration). The satellite will carry 24 active transponders each in C- and Ku-band. Its C-band capacity will be known as Galaxy XIII and operated as part of PanAmSat's Galaxy cable system for the U.S. cable industry. It replaces Galaxy IX, a Boeing 376 that will be moved to a new position and continue to provide services.
Bernard Frattini has become chief executive and Tom Nolan vice president-sales and marketing of SkyTeam Cargo USA, a joint venture of Air France, Delta Air Lines and Korean Air. Frattini was vice president-North America for Air France Cargo. Nolan was general manager of national accounts for Delta Air Logistics.
Photograph: Photograph: HUBBLE DEEP FIELD Ed Weiler, the original chief scientist on the Hubble project, says this image collected in 342 exposures over a 10-day period is scientifically the most important ever made by the telescope ``bar none.'' ``It's still the deepest picture ever taken of the universe, and it will be until the Next-Generation Space Telescope,'' says Weiler, now associate NASA administrator for space science. Some 1,500 galaxies are visible, including the oldest ever seen.
Toby Bright has been appointed vice president-business strategy and marketing for BCAG in Seattle. He was Brussels-based vice president-sales for Europe and Russia. Bright has been succeeded by Heiner Wilkens, who was president/CEO of Cargolux Airlines.
Top leaders of the U.S. Air Force have decided against funding Lockheed Martin's X-33 reusable launch vehicle prototype and Boeing's X-37 orbital maneuvering vehicle demonstrator, effectively killing the X-33 and putting the X-37 in intensive care.
Northrop Grumman has been selected to continue development of an airborne system--involving 2-4 aircraft--that can hit moving targets with low-cost bombs from beyond the range of many of today's anti-aircraft missiles, according to government officials.
