Bradley Perrett covered China, Japan, South Korea and Australia. He is a Mandarin-speaking Australian.
Before joining Aviation Week in 2006 he was a macroeconomics, politics and aerospace journalist with Reuters. Perrett holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Macquarie University, Sydney. He left Aviation Week in 2020.
The CALT Long March 7 medium-heavy space launcher will go into production in 2014, according to current plans, completing a new family of Chinese rockets with new fuels and engines. Sized between the Long March 5 and 6, the new rocket will offer up to 720 tons (1,590,000 lb.) of liftoff thrust from six engines fed by liquid oxygen and kerosene. The first stage of the Long March 7 will have two YF100 engines, CALT Vice President Hao Zhaoping tells Aviation Week. The YF100 is already known to have a thrust of 120 tons.
As the global aircraft industry warily watches Comac’s progress in developing the C919 narrowbody airliner, new data suggests that the designers are not achieving the low weights expected of an advanced new design. And while Comac is promising a 10% reduction in direct operating costs, the first batch of orders reveal that Chinese state airlines are even more reluctant to buy the aircraft than expected.
Beijing—The first satellite based on the CAST DFH-5 bus should be launched in 2016 or 2017, addressing the active market for large spacecraft platforms. Development is scheduled for the next five-year economic plan of the Chinese government, covering 2011 to 2015, says Chinese Academy of Space Technology (CAST) President Yang Baohua.
