Efficiency remains a major hurdle to the fielding of effective laser weapons, as the power and cooling required makes them too big and heavy for all but the largest of platforms. In a bid to drive down size and weight, the U.S. Defense Department has awarded contracts to demonstrate more efficient electric lasers that can be scaled to lethal power levels. So far, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have received contracts under the Robust Electric Laser Initiative (RELI). A fourth is expected to be awarded to Northrop Grumman.
NASA is seeking industry feedback on its plans for a new five-year, $150-million program to help integrate unmanned aircraft into civil airspace. The feedback is likely to be mixed, as the agency’s last major unmanned aircraft research program was canceled before it got off the ground, despite industry backing.
Concerns over dwindling military spending and shifting priorities among key customers are forcing U.S. and European aerospace and defense companies to pay top prices for niche businesses as they look to realign their industrial footprint.
Most students ranked defense and national security as desirable career fields, but 44% saw aerospace as desirable. An interest in aircraft, defense and space was an important motivator for more than 70%. Salary was important to just over a third.
Scientists have discovered a so-called Trojan asteroid in the L5 Lagrangian point at Neptune, where the gravitational tug between the gas giant and the Sun cancel each other out, allowing smaller bodies to remain stable. Sharing a planet’s orbit, Trojan asteroids give astronomers insight into how the planet and the Solar System formed. Other Trojans have been discovered at other Lagrangian points near Neptune and Jupiter.
Yvonne Pendleton has been named director of the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) , headquartered at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. She was Ames deputy associate center director and chief of the Space Science and Astrobiology Div. Pendleton succeeds David Morrison, who is now director for the Carl Sagan Center for Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute and continues part-time as a senior scientist at the NLSI.
Thales Alenia Space has delivered its first trio of Globalstar second-generation communication satellites and is set to deliver a second group of three by the end of the month. The six spacecraft are scheduled to be launched to low Earth orbit in October on a Soyuz rocket. The company is under contract to build 48 of these satellites, each weighing 700 kg. and generating 1.7 kw. of power. They are equipped with 16 C- and S- band transponders and are expected to have a 15-year operational life.
A majority of young professionals and students view the terms “nerd” and “geek” either in a positive or neutral way. Less than 20% of young professionals and less than 30% of students see the terms as disrespectful.
Mike Shonka has been appointed to the board of directors of the Nordam Group , Tulsa, Okla. He is a former executive vice president/chief financial officer of the Cessna Aircraft Co., Wichita, Kan.
Ethiopian Airways is boosting its pilot training capacity through the acquisition of 10 Diamond DA40NG training aircraft. The first four aircraft are due for delivery in November, the rest within eight months.
Germany’s air transport industry is entangled in an increasingly bitter dispute over the proposed €1-billion ($1.3-billion) air travel tax the federal government plans to introduce in 2011, while legal experts claim the levy may not even comply with European law.
Staying Put Or Moving On? Nearly half of young professionals anticipate staying in the aerospace and defense industry for their entire careeer. And while more than a third plan to stick with their current employer, the majority anticipate switching at some point.
David Manser has been named director of technology for TASC ’s Enterprise Systems, Chantilly, Va. He was program manager and information technology director for Boeing’s internal advanced experimental network. Ken Krieg, former undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, has joined the TASC Inc. board of advisers. He now heads Samford Global Strategies
Scott Gunnufson has been appointed vice president/general manager of Rockwell Collins’ Service Solutions unit, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. LeAnn Ridgeway has been named vice president/managing director for the Americas, Ken Estelle senior director for business development and Thierry Tosi vice president-strategy and mergers acquisitions.
The percentage of people eligible to retire will rise in nearly all areas through 2014. But as 2009 figures show, only a small percentage of those eligible to retire are actually doing so. This may be due to the effect that the slumping economy has taken on people’s retirement savings.
USN Rear Adm. Walter M. Skinner has been nominated for promotion to vice admiral and assignment as principal military deputy assistant Navy secretary for research, development and acquisition at the Pentagon. He has been program executive officer for tactical aircraft programs at NAS Patuxent River, Md. Capt. Thomas H. Bond, Jr., has been nominated for promotion to rear admiral (lower half) and named director of net-centric capabilities in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington. He has been a member of the CNO’s Strategic Studies Group, Newport, R.I.
An Aug. 2 protest filed by the obscure, would-be bidder U.S. Aerospace against the Air Force on its KC-X procurement is not stopping the service from evaluating the other two tanker proposals. Air Force officials began the structured “evaluation notice” process last week on Boeing and EADS designs, in the program estimated at $35 billion to supply 179 KC-135 replacements. Through this process, all queries from the source-selection group are written to the companies and meticulously documented. And talks with the candidates are restricted to designated points of contact.
France plans to test Sagem’s Patroller unmanned air vehicle for use in fire-fighting and other civil defense tasks. The operational trials, to be run Aug. 16-31, are intended to evaluate the suitability of UAVs to support civil defense units in a wide range of missions, from fire-suppression to search and rescue. They will be conducted by the interior ministry’s civil security division over the province of Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur.
Boeing is again checking 787 horizontal stabilizers following discoveries made during the recent audit of Alenia’s work practices. The investigation, launched in June after faults were found in some of the Italian-supplied horizontal stabilizers, prompted additional checks within other areas of the same structures. Although Boeing declines to offer details of what the audit revealed, it confirms the latest problem areas are concerned solely with the stabilizer and not the fuselage sections made by Alenia.
Delta Air Lines and US Airways are citing property rights as one of the reasons a judge should overrule the conditions the FAA wants to place on their proposed swap of slots between Reagan Washington National and New York LaGuardia airports. The FAA’s conditions on the swap of the rights for landing and takeoff times would deprive the carriers of their constitutional protection against the government taking property for public use without “just compensation,” the airlines say.
Alitalia and its new local rival Lufthansa Italia are both struggling to reach financial viability, but they have plans in place to grow as the Italian economy recovers. Alitalia is making gains, slowly. Its main performance metrics show improvement, but it is still suffering deep losses.Industry sources say management may be forced to ask shareholders for another cash infusion to finance the carrier’s ongoing operations until it returns to profitability, but CEO Rocco Sabelli denies this.
China’s advances in upgrading its military capabilities are causing U.S. and Japanese military leaders to consider pushing more quickly for air-launched weapons that can hold the threat at arm’s length. Japan is signaling interest in fielding its future fighter to replace the F-4 with a beyond-visual-range missile that could provide far more than current-generation advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles (Amraam) or even Meteor missiles.
Aeronautical engineering remains one of the best-paying fields for those at senior levels. Physicists start at the top of the scale and stay there. While business process management and supply chain management are hot topics, people working in those disciplines generally make less money than peers in many other specialties.
This is the first year Aviation Week has run a survey specifically of young professionals and university students. The study was conducted in partnership with NASA and the Aerospace Industries Association, as well as four universities—Virginia Tech, Georgia Institute of Technology, California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo and University of Michigan. The universities surveyed a 10% random sample of their engineering student populations, as did eight companies of their young professionals (age 35 or younger).
