Automakers in Europe and perhaps elsewhere may soon be using fasteners developed for the International Space Station and NASA’s Mars Pathfinder mission to save weight. The European Space Agency’s technology broker, MST Aerospace, has pushed bolts containing an internal strain-measurement sensor into the auto industry, where they may have applications in drive trains and axles.
Driven partly by a surge in new engine programs including the PW800 and geared turbofan, Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) will invest more than $1 billion in research and development (R&D) on next-generation engine technology over the next five years. Spending includes a $300-million repayable contribution from the Canadian government under the Strategic Aerospace and Defense Initiative program. P&WC is recruiting more than 200 engineers to support new development programs, bringing its engineering workforce to more than 1,500 in Canada.
The British defense ministry should include in its budget an unallocated amount of funding that could be used to cover unexpected bills and thereby limit disruptions throughout the spending plan, Parliament’s public accounts committee recommends in its latest lament about the poor fiscal discipline of the department. The panel also expressed concern that the £36-billion ($56.2-billion), 10-year over-commitment in the defense budget has not been fully addressed.
Paul Murray (see photo), non-executive director and Audit Committee chair at Royal Mail Holdings, has been selected as an independent non-executive director of the Qinetiq board. He also holds directorships at Knowledge Peers and Tangent Communications. Honors And Elections
A Russian state commission investigating a Dec. 5 Proton M Block DM launch failure has cleared the Proton M vehicle as the cause of the incident, which destroyed three Glonass navigation satellites. The interim report says the three lowest Proton M launcher stages, supplied by Proton prime contractor Khrunichev, performed nominally, and the functioning of launch vehicle systems and assemblies raised “no issues.” The findings suggest the problem may lie with the Block DM, control systems or other systems linking the launch vehicle to the upper stage.
Alitalia in the coming weeks expects to take the final steps to implementing its recovery strategy, including fleet composition adjustments and additional layoffs.
Is the French Justice Department running the show? Is flight safety in the hands of lawyers? Is criminalization the right way to go? These questions, though far from new, are being re-emphasized in light of the Concorde trial. More than 10 years after Air France Flight 4590 crashed near Paris Charles De-Gaulle Airport, a French court exonerated two retired Aerospatiale executives and a former French civil aviation authorities (DGAC) official but found a Continental Airlines mechanic guilty.
Competition for the job of sending crews to the International Space Station for hire will pick up in 2011 with the addition of a new vehicle proposal from Orbital Sciences Corp. in NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) effort. If selected in the $200-million second round of CCDev, the Dulles, Va.-based company will begin work in earnest on a four-seat composite “blended lifting body” launched at least initially on an Atlas V and returning to a runway landing.
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft was due to dock with the International Space Station Dec. 17 after a Dec. 15 launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The Soyuz TMA-20 crew will spend five months on the station in an expedition that is planned to feature a flurry of multinational cargo mission activities intended to prepare the orbiting lab for the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle fleet.
Neil Siegel (see photo), VP and chief engineer for Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Information Systems Sector, has been chosen to receive the 2011 IEEE Simon Ramo Medal for his engineering work that led to the development of the digital battlefield, which uses information technology and wireless networking to improve the effectiveness of combined-arms and combat forces.
BARBARA BAKER BURROWS is director of photography for LIFE, whose books in the last year included The Royals, John Lennon, 100 People Who Changed The World, America: A Visual History and Wonders of Life. Burrows has been associated with the magazine for more than 40 years, during which she has assigned and coordinated the photography of major events from LIFE’s coverage of the Apollo program to John Glenn’s return to space, Democratic and Republican National Conventions and the Olympics.
Maggie Luciano-Williams has been named senior VP-human resources at the International Lease Finance Corp. She has been chief human resources officer for digital marketing agency iCrossing and has held human resource management positions at America West Airlines.
Chinese space contractor CASC has taken a Bolivian order for a communications satellite based on the DFH-4 bus of subsidiary CAST. The TKSat-1 satellite will be fitted with 30 transponders and be launched from the Xichang base by a Long March 3B or 3E rocket, says China Great Wall Industry Corp.
Kobe Bryant has been appointed a global ambassador for Turkish Airlines for two years . Bryant has been named Most Valuable Player of the National Basketball Association finals for the past two years and has won five NBA championships in his career.
I have just finished reading the well-written, interesting historical summary of the Space Shuttle Era (AW&ST Dec. 6, p. 48). As I was reading these articles, I happened to glance at the table that held the Sept. 10 issue, opened to a page displaying a “cluster of galaxies” as they existed “9.6 billion light years ago.” As I studied that image, I realized our efforts to explore space are like a shotgun blast. That is, while we hit one objective, each new blast reveals another mountain of data.
Capt. Clyde Romero’s letter about future cockpits (AW&ST Dec. 6, p. 9) raises another interesting question: Why are the two seats still designed as mirror images? With the advent of fly-by-wire, it would seem logical to equip each seat with duplicate throttle and sidestick in the exact same layout. That way, muscle memory and reflexes would work the same in either seat.
In “Chairman’s Cut” (AW&ST Nov. 15, p. 26), it is stated that a White House-commissioned panel recommends scrapping the Lockheed Martin F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing variant in order to help reduce the federal deficit. However, before even thinking of doing so, they should scrap the F136 alternate engine program. It is unneeded and a critical waste of money when the F135 engine is already flying. The F136 has yet to make a test flight. Furthermore, a cancellation of the F-35B would produce a critical capabilities gap once the Harrier II is retired.
Russian engine maker Aviadvigatel is targeting April to freeze the design of the first member of a new commercial turbofan family. The Perm-based company has just launched the first series of trials of the PD-14’s gas generator. The engine is being designed for Russia’s MS-21 narrowbody transport and also provides the foundation for an entire family of powerplants.
