Aviation Week & Space Technology

Since unveiling plans in January to build rival networks of hundreds, or even thousands, of Internet satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), SpaceX and OneWeb are prompting comparisons with past ventures that flopped, among them Teledesic and Skybridge, two well-financed start-ups whose visions of delivering high-speed broadband to the masses were thwarted by technical setbacks.

Flying in the dark when manned aircraft are grounded for safety, Lockheed Martin’s Indago small quadcopter provides fire intelligence.

Any budget-driven delay in the Future Vertical Lift program would put at risk industry’s ability to develop an advanced rotorcraft, warns the U.S. Army.

JAXA flight-tests electric propulsion; laser images airflow over A320 in flight; 3-D printing an engine combustor casing; small UAS takes water samples; Bicycle Shop, a nod to the past with an eye on the future.

Luc Tytgat has become director of the Strategy and Safety Management Directorate at the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), Cologne, Germany. He was director of the Pan-European Single Sky Directorate at Eurocontrol. Olivier Ramsayer has been appointed EASA’s resources and support director. He was head of the Resources and Support Department at the European Food Safety Authority. Trevor Woods has been named EASA certification director, effective March 1.

Kamarudin Meranun, AirAsia co-founder, has been appointed to the new role of AirAsia X Group CEO, where he will spearhead development of the “overarching strategy” for the carrier and its new join- venture affiliates in Thailand and Indonesia.

Our editors discuss adaptive engine technology, sixth-generation fighters, threats to the F-35 and the next presidential aircraft.

NASA and its commercial crew partners open up about their plans, now that the legal hurdles have been cleared.

Small problems that blighted the helicopter in its earliest days of operation are still causing concerns as operators struggle to procure spares and get rotorcraft back into service.

U.S. military planners have now broadly accepted that the only way to meet the advanced performance needs of “sixth-generation” combat aircraft, barring changes to the laws of physics, will be the adoption of variable-cycle, or adaptive engine technology.

GE makes strides in lightweight ceramic matrix composite blade technology.

KAL appears to be proposing a design based on the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which should be developmentally cheaper than KAI’s KF-X proposal. However, Boeing reportedly has given up supporting KAL’s bid because of a serious image problem suffered by the South Korean company.

Early work is underway on an expendable version of the space shuttle main engine, which will power the heavy-lift Space Launch System.

SpaceX-USAF legal settlement offers little near-term gain for SpaceX, but it appears to serve the company’s strategic goals.

The Rise and Fall of a Launch Monopoly?

Students of post-Cold War aerospace are intimately familiar with the Last Supper.

Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have reached into their bag of tricks to keep NASA’s solar-propelled Dawn probe in good shape to enter orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, its second stop in the main asteroid belt.

Shrinking defense budgets, fewer programs, and tech developments in other industries creating incentives for A&D rivals to cooperate to win awards.

A few European airlines are seeking to expand into the low-cost long-haul market, but they are finding that a viable formula to do so is not easy to identify.

Air Canada’s Westjet edges toward long-haul market, but most North American low-cost airlines are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

Early expansion limits returns, but airline executives stress that the LCC model is sound.

Rep. Mac Thornberry, the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, plans to evaluate the costs of modernizing U.S. nuclear weapons and delivery systems and take on the Pentagon’s sluggish procurement system.

Thanks to relatively abundant power, improved data links and a unique orbit, the ISS is an attractive vantage point for instruments designed to study Earth. Researchers are taking notice.

Human-missions-to-Mars advocates cite skewed statistics; kill the notion of Exoatmosphere Kill Vehicles; flight-tracking suggestion; the many merits of women engineers; digitial edition woes; uncomfortable with Aviation Week's new app; very comfortable with new app

France seeks European partners for Musis imaging satellite program.