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.
Amy Butler (Orlando, Fla., and NAS Patuxent River, Md.), Bradley Perrett (Adelaide, Australia), Robert Wall (NAS Patuxent River, Md.)
Despite Australia’s abrupt withdrawal from a Pentagon-led unmanned maritime surveillance aircraft project, the U.S. Navy says it is still on course for deliveries in the middle of the next decade. Australia announced last week that it would not provide the $300 million required to participate in the development of the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) unmanned air vehicle, citing competing budget demands. The Royal Australian Air Force’s focus now is fielding the manned Boeing 737-based P-8A Poseidon to replace its AP-3C fleet.
Bradley Perrett (Beijing), Frank Morring, Jr. (Washington)
China’s first orbital station will be the national space program’s testbed for automatic docking, one of four technological hurdles that must be cleared before launching a big space station a decade from now. The small, short-life space station, already identified as Tiangong 1, will be launched as soon as next year. Its mass has grown from the 8 metric tons (17,600 lb.) previously stated and is now given as 8.5 tons, still within the capability of several members of the Long March 2 and 3 family of rockets.
BEIJING – China’s first orbital space station will be the national space program’s test bed for automatic docking, one of four technological hurdles that must be cleared before launching a big station a decade from now. The small, short-lived space station, already identified as Tiangong 1, will be launched as soon as next year. Its mass has grown from the eight metric tons previously stated and is now given as 8.5 tons.
