China’s Xiaofei testbed collected this image of the Moon’s far side, with the Earth beyond, on Oct. 28 during a lunar loop-around flight aimed at validating the reentry technology for the Chang’e-5 sample-return mission scheduled to launch as early as 2017.
Manohar Parrikar, a graduate in metallurgical engineering, has become the new defense minister of India, which is in the midst of a $100 billion military modernization program. Parrikar, who replaces part-time Defense Minister Arun Jaitley, is faced with the onerous task of expediting the country’s pending defense deals as the new right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party government in India, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, tries to establish a speedier acquisition system.
While the SpaceShipTwo crash investigation continues, the full impact on the vehicle’s design and operations, as well as the effect on Virgin Galactic’s schedule, remains unclear.
A Chinese airlifter as big as the Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules will go into service in the 2020s if the factory behind the project, Shaanxi Aircraft, is given a go-ahead, as expected.
“We carried nearly a quarter more [long-haul] passengers compared to last year while increasing our load factor and revenue per seat,” CEO Christoph Mueller says. “We target further profitable growth of our long-haul business into 2015.” Aer Lingus’s long-haul revenues rose 34% in the three months through September compared to the same period last year, while short-haul revenue rose 5.5%.
Three words best describe a suite of new software tools Honeywell is building for its Primus Epic integrated flight decks: seamless situational awareness.
New launch and recovery system is designed to enable a beyond-line-of-sight, multi-intelligence unmanned aircraft, with 10-12-hr. time on station at 500 nm, to be independent of runways and flight decks.
Unmanned developments: “ambulance drone” prototyped; solar-powered, optionally piloted SunStar; Airbus VTOL UAS heads to sea; TaxiBot cleared for service trials; UAS testing expands in Wales.
Six years after its reorganization into specialist subsidiaries, Avic is handling a wide range of civil aircraft programs, with a remarkable number of mostly secretive engine developments also coming into view. It still has challenges, however, beginning with its sheer size: it has 400,000 employees, many working in fields unrelated to building aircraft.
Images of its display from the upcoming Zhuhai air show demonstrate an uncanny resemblance to another famous supersonic ASCM, the Mach 2.8-3.0 Russian-Indian BrahMos. Both share the distinctive cone-inlet air intake, a two-stage structure and similar dimensions.
Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to re-engine its Antares launch vehicle and use one or two alternate launch vehicles initially to meet its International Space Station resupply commitments to NASA after last week’s launch failure.
The lessons the Antares failure board learns will be applied to future commercial spaceflight contracts for cargo—and eventually crew—as NASA continues to shift U.S. access to low Earth orbit onto privately owned vehicles.
The nine largest publicly traded U.S. carriers made money in the quarter ended Sept. 30, with several reporting record or near-record earnings thanks to full cabins and lower fuel prices. But the industry is still largely very cautious about adding capacity to capitalize on the improved environment, even as lower fuel prices make once marginal routes more profitable. “We can’t count on $80 [per barrel] crude prices going forward,” warns Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly.
CEO Alan Joyce says Qantas is already meeting profitability targets just a few months after reporting massive annual losses. Virgin Australia, meanwhile, is completing its takeover of struggling Tigerair Australia.
The An-28 and An-38 are twin-turboprop utility/transport aircraft. First flight of the An-28 occurred in 1969, with temporary Soviet certification following in 1978 and full certification in 1986. A Westernized version of the An-28, the PZL Mielec M28, made its first flight in 1993 and received FAA certification in 2004. A stretched An-28 version, the An-38, made its first flight in 1994 and received Russian certification in 1997. The An-28 is powered by two PZL Rzeszow TWD-10B/PZL-10S engines, with the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-65B powering the M28.
