Even if information is publicly accessible, should it be deliberately circulated? That is the question surrounding the National Transportation Safety Board’s decision to oust UPS and its pilots union, the Independent Pilots Association (IPA), from the investigation into the August 2013 crash of UPS Flight 1354. On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Aug.
A version of this article appears in the September 1 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology. Retired NASA astronaut and USAF Col. Steven R. Nagel died Aug. 21 in Columbia, Missouri, reportedly after a long battle with cancer. He was 67.
Flight controllers interrupted the intermittent release of 28 Earth-observing cubesats from the International Space Station’s (ISS) Japanese Kibo lab module following a spontaneous deployment of two of the small satellites. The commercial NanoRacks Small Satellite Deployer Mechanism was powered down after the Aug. 23 incident, in which two Planet Labs Flock 1B cubesats were spontaneously ejected. The satellites are being tracked and do not pose a collision threat to the ISS, NASA spokesman Dan Huot says.
The U.K. Royal Navy’s last Invincible-class aircraft carrier, HMS Illustrious, has been decommissioned. The 22,000-ton ship, which has been used as a helicopter carrier since the withdrawal of the Harrier GR9 fleet in 2010, was formally retired during a ceremony in Portsmouth on Aug. 28. The ship’s helicopter-carrying role will now be undertaken by HMS Ocean, which has just undergone a 15-month £65 million ($108 million) refit which included upgrades to the flight deck, hangar and aviation facilities. The U.K.
