USMC Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been chosen to receive the Stellar Award for Service to Government from the Society of Satellite Professionals International . Cartwright’s selection is based on his work to reshape the communications and informations systems of the Defense Department.
At a crucial European Space Agency meeting in March, France and Germany will offer a common agenda for launch system price support and International Space Station use, removing a big unknown from the docket.
The recent slew of fourth-quarter results produced some illuminating profits for U.S. operators, and the plaudits and platitudes that followed were mostly deserved. However, some on Wall Street remain wary that the capacity discipline that aided this recovery may be under pressure, despite some of the country’s biggest players indicating there is no need for concern.
When the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) hosts its annual state of the industry gathering in Washington on Feb. 22, the tally of 2010 deliveries is likely to be a disappointing number. Again.
Madhu Unnikrishnan’s Market Focus column, with its concise analysis of future oil prices in 2011 and their effect on airline bottom lines, covers all the bases except for one (AW&ST Jan. 10, p. 12). He overlooks an important patch of geography—the black hole where all oil price planning could disappear—the Strait of Hormuz. If it were to be closed to oil tanker traffic in 2011, then the resulting panicky scramble to secure supply by energy consumers will make $100-per-barrel oil forecasts evaporate.
All Nippon Airways has taken delivery of the 1,000th 767 and the last to receive final body join in the 40-24 bay at Boeing’s Everett, Wash., factory. The delivery allows the 767 to join the ranks of the 707, 727, 737, 747, 757 and 777 as having passed 1,000 deliveries. A win in the U.S. Air Force KC-X tanker competition will keep the line open well into the new decade, but should Boeing lose, it holds orders for only 49 undelivered commercial 767s.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) is acquiescing to a moratorium on congressional spending earmarks for fiscal 2011 and 2012, despite his own support for what he and supporters term a constitutional prerogative. “The handwriting is clearly on the wall,” Inouye says. “The president has stated unequivocally that he will veto any legislation containing earmarks, and the House will not pass any bills that contain them.
Orbital Sciences Corp. will integrate and test the 81 spacecraft in the next-generation Iridium mobile satellite system and pre-purchase capacity for the hosted payloads.
Space shuttle Discovery is back at Kennedy Space Center’s Pad 39A to begin its final flight to orbit, following repairs in the Vehicle Assembly Building. Now targeted for a Feb. 24 launch on the STS-133 mission to the International Space Station, Discovery was returned to the VAB last year after cracks were discovered in aluminum-lithium stringers which are used to strengthen the intertank region in the big external tank that separates the shuttle’s liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen compartments.
The European Space Agency has OK’d development of a higher-power version of the Alphabus large-satellite platform intended to help Europe’s satellite makers keep up with high-power models offered by U.S. suppliers such as Space Systems/Loral and Boeing or planned by newcomers like China’s Avic. ESA will spend €37.5 million ($51.8 million) on the undertaking; French space agency CNES and manufacturers EADS Astrium and Thales Alenia Space, who will market the technology, will provide matching amounts.
Some are confirmed, others merely candidates, but the bonanza that the planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has revealed in just its first four months of operations is doing exactly what scientists hoped for when it was launched—shaking up years of theories with new sets of intriguing questions about the formation of distant star fields and the possibility they might contain life.
Feb. 16-17—A&D Technology & Requirements Conference. Washington. March 8—Laureates Awards. Washington. April 12-13—MRO Military Conference & Exhibition. Miami. April 12-13—MRO Latin America Conference & Exhibition. Miami. April 12-14—MRO Americas Conference & Exhibition. Miami. May 10-12—NextGen Ahead. Washington. May 24-25—A&D Cybersecurity Forum. Washington. Sept. 27-29—MRO Europe 2011. Madrid. You can now register ONLINEfor Aviation Week Events.
Teams led by Lockheed Martin/Raytheon and Boeing/Northrop Grumman have submitted proposals for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) sustainment contract, valued at about $600 million for at least seven years of work. Boeing is the incumbent and had mixed results in its service. The last GMD test producing an intercept was in December 2008. A contract award is expected May 31.
ATR, an EADS/Finmeccanica Franco-Italian joint venture, is expected to reach the 1,000-twin-turboprop milestone in the second half of next year. The Toulouse-based company is in good shape—producing about 50 aircraft per year—and it is scheduled to boost production to 70 per year now that it has inched its way back to profitability. Last year it secured orders for 80 ATR 42/72s, but the company’s long-term future is marred by the absence of all-new products.
Saab has delivered the central and forward fuselage section for Europe’s Neuron unmanned aerial combat vehicle, marking a major step in the French-led six-nation stealth demonstration program.
Edna Lopez (see photo) has become senior vice president and general counsel for Farelogix of Miami. She was president of the Amadeus holding company in North America and general counsel to Amadeus’s North American marketing company.
The political turmoil engulfing parts of the Middle East is expected to have longer-term effects on the aerospace industry beyond the disruption in flight activity and run-up in oil prices witnessed in recent days.
Air France needs to significantly alter its safety organization and culture to be able to improve overall safety levels, according to recommendations made by a mandated independent panel of experts.
Charles Marinello (see photo) has been named vice president of Raytheon Co. ’s Radar Sensor Systems (RSS) and deputy of its Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems mission area. He was senior director of RSS for Space and Airborne Systems.
Magdi Labib (see photo) is Etihad Airways ’ new country manager for Egypt. Before coming to Etihad, he handled commercial activities for British Airways in the Central Province of Saudi Arabia.
As the Seattle manufacturer prepares to unveil the first Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental airliner, it is helping compensate for extensive delays on the -8F freighter by leasing a 747-400BCF to launch customer Cargolux.
The latest NASA heavy-lift concept (AW&ST Jan. 17, p. 18) is that of a hybrid vehicle using both shuttle and Ares I elements. However, some key senators behind the authorization act rejected the concept, urging the agency to try again. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is insisting that any exploration systems be “affordable, sustainable and realistic.” That is why the shuttle-derived Heavy Lifter I (HLI) with a third solid rocket booster (SRB) is probably the better choice.
Helicopter airspeeds have remained essentially constant for the last four decades, but that could be about to change as manufacturers explore the value of additional speed to their civil and military customers.
Fuel has declined from its price peak of 2008 and, while renewed research into open-rotor engines continues, easing economic pressures along with tenacious technical challenges could combine to delay their availability.
