Significant U.S. and Russian computer upgrades are part of the International Space Station Expedition 3 mission operations just getting underway and extending through November. Two Honeywell solid state memory units were launched to the ISS by the shuttle Discovery this month for integration into the station's Honeywell command and control (C&C) computers. They will first be checked out on board with a payload computer and then used to replace troublesome mechanical hard drives in the C&Cs.
Boeing's Phantom Works research and development unit is launching an aggressive thrust to acquire new technologies from outside the aerospace giant, while also stimulating innovation inside.
Knowledge and attitude are two of the key ingredients every pilot needs to fly safely. Both of these were in strong evidence during Bombardier Aerospace's Safety Stand-Down in Wichita, Kan., this month. The seminar started six years ago, after Bombardier realized the accident rate for corporate aviation was remaining basically the same year to year, while aircraft and systems were becoming more reliable.
Thales revenues for the first half of 2001 soared 31.5% to 4.33 billion euros ($3.94 billion), a jump resulting from the acquisition of Racal Electronics and Avimo, an optronics producer. Exclusive of external growth initiatives, French defense electronics group revenues increased 7.2%.
The Moscow air show gave Russia's ailing civil air transport sector few concrete indicators that its 10-year decline is over, but the industry nevertheless is planning for new aircraft and upgrades in case fortunes improve.
Freight is growing more rapidly than passenger traffic in a long-term trend that Airbus executives say should sustain the future of the all-cargo A380F. The A380-800F, which is scheduled to enter service in the second quarter of 2008, will be, by far, the biggest all-cargo commercial transport. It will carry up to 158 metric tons (348,000 lb.) of freight 5,620 naut. mi. Three early A380 customers--FedEx, International Lease Finance Corp. and Dubai-based Emirates--have concluded orders for a combined 17 all-cargo Dash 800Fs.
U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard pilots have surpassed 1 million hr. of training in F-16 flight simulators built by Link Simulation and Training, Arlington, Tex. Since 1996 the company has delivered 68 of the Unit Training Devices (UTD) to the Air Force and Air National Guard (ANG). The UTDs have been built in Block 25, 30, 40, 42, 50 and 60 configurations to match different versions of the single-engine fighter built by Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth.
Sumiko Oshima has joined Aviation Week&Space Technology's news team in Japan as a correspondent. She holds an M.S. degree from the University of Chiba and has been a Fulbright Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Oshima has specialized in science reporting at The Japan Times and is a frequent contributor to other Japanese publications.
Frederick A. Tarantino has become president/general manager of Bechtel Nevada, the management and operating contractor for the U.S. Energy Dept.'s National Nuclear Security Administration/ Nevada Operations Office. He was principal vice president-environmental, space and defense project management.
Thomas J. Renville, who has been general manager of customer service in Denver for United Airlines, will be managing director for Hawaii. He will succeed Norman F. Reeder, who will retire.
Globalstar Telecommunications said it expects to lay off 165 of its 340 workers as a way to hoard cash in an effort to avoid bankruptcy. It dropped 80 jobs from its payroll in March. The company has reported net losses of roughly $145 million in each of the last two quarters. But it said sales of its mobile satellite services are picking up: subscribers increased 27% in the second quarter and, as of the end of July, stand at 55,000.
Navy Adm. James O. Ellis, Jr., has been nominated as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt AFB, Neb. He has been commander-in-chief of U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, and Allied Forces, Southern Europe.
Pratt&Whitney and its San Antonio-based partner, Seven Q Seven, have completed the initial flight of a Boeing 707 reengined with JT8D-219s. The Aug. 9 flight, which departed San Antonio International Airport at 2:10 p.m. local time, was made by Omega Air President Desmond McEvaddy, a partner in Seven Q Seven, and Jim Lunsford. The pair piloted the aircraft to Roswell, N.M., landed, inspected the transport, then returned to San Antonio, touching down at about 5:20 p.m.
What a difference concrete makes. Crowded Narita expects to see its operations level jump from 135,000 to 200,000 flights a year with the addition of the 2,200-meter (7,200-ft.) second runway. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is taking comment on how to allocate the new 65,000 slots, with Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Japan Air System expecting to receive the bulk of the allocations among Japanese carriers. U.S. and European carriers are always interested in greater access to Narita, but China may be the big winner in this new allocation.
CombiMatrix Corp. will supply active biochips and related technology to NASA for biological research on the International Space Station under a new license deal between the company and the agency's Ames Research Center. The miniaturized test sites, based on semiconductor fabrication techniques, will allow astronauts on the station to conduct experiments, analyze the results and restructure the work based on those results, all without returning to Earth.
The Bush Administration's reviews of U.S. nuclear policies and posture comes at a critical time as senior scientists and government officials express concern about an unacknowledged strategic defense deficiency: the nation may already be close to unilateral nuclear disarmament. Some of those experts believe U.S. nuclear capabilities, while still robust, are far weaker than citizens have been led to believe.
The maiden launch of Japan's H-IIA improved booster, slated for Aug. 25, is a crucial test--not only of the nation's ability to bounce back from a string of disappointments but also of the country's 16-year, $3.25-billion bid to thrust itself into the increasingly competitive commercial launcher market.
NASA and its rocket engine contractors on the Space Launch Initiative (SLI) hope to build on 30 years of experience designing and flying the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) as they develop propulsion for the shuttle's replacement, instead of heading off in a totally new direction.
THE JOHN D. ODEGARD SCHOOL OF AEROSPACE SCIENCES at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks has acquired a Level 6 flight training device (FTD) specifically for training pilots to fly the Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet. The FTD will be used in conjunction with flight management system and virtual flight deck trainers as part of the school's transition course to fly jet airplanes.
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has secured a patent for a ``modular cargo aircraft pneumatic launch tube'' that could turn standard USAF C-141B, C-5A or C-17A transports into space launch platforms. The modular system would allow switching between the launch-vehicle carrier and normal cargo configurations in less than a day, according to Ken Hampsten, the launch tube inventor. Hampsten heads the AFRL Space Vehicle Directorate's Advanced Space Transportation Branch.
The most critical wiring upgrades and structural inspections needed to keep shuttle orbiters Discovery and Endeavour safe can be done at the Kennedy Space Center, even though other changes that would be done at Boeing's Palmdale, Calif., facility may be delayed (AW&ST Aug. 13, p. 32). One of the primary upgrades that can currently only be done at Palmdale would be the addition of new glass cockpits like those already added to Columbia and Atlantis.
The newest U.S. weather satellite has reached its operational orbit and, as a result, has a new name. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-M (GOES-M) reached geostationary orbit Aug. 12, and was redesignated GOES-12. Launched July 23, the spacecraft took 20 days and nine motor firings to reach its checkout position at 90 deg. W. Long. NASA, which managed procurement of the spacecraft, will test it for about 45 days there.
In a reversal of fortunes, a Texas appeals court has ruled that a jury erred in awarding $5.8 million to a pilot who claimed he was fired by American Eagle after refusing to fly his ATR 42 in severe icing conditions in November 1996 out of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Under a ``take-nothing'' judgment rendered on Aug.
