Mergers and acquisitions activity in the aerospace and defense industry reached a record $43.7 billion in 2011, edging out the previous high from 2007 as consolidation in the commercial supply chain gained steam and underperforming defense units were spun off. A PwC study scheduled for release Feb. 7 tallied 341 acquisitions, mergers or spin-offs worth $50 million or more announced during the year.
BEIJING — China is firming up figures on the performance of two members of its forthcoming modular rocket family, with suggestions that at least one of the launchers might be a little better than expected. The figures remain patchy, however. The Long March 6, a light rocket designed for prompt launches, will be able to deliver “not less than 1 metric ton” to a Sun-synchronous orbit of 700 km (435 mi.) altitude, says Yu Menglun, a member of the general-design section at CALT, China’s main rocket builder.
HOUSTON — Applications for a small number of openings in NASA’s astronaut corps soared to 6,372 during the last solicitation period, the second highest total ever. This is despite the fact that the U.S. is an estimated five years away from having a commercial follow-on to the retired space shuttle and nearly a decade from piloted test flights of the agency’s deep space-capable Space Launch System/Multi-Purpose Crew Launch Vehicle.
PARIS — Pushing the limits of a six-day launch window, the European Space Agency (ESA) has shifted the debut of its new Vega rocket to Feb. 13 from Feb. 9, allowing ample time to prepare the flight-qualification campaign. ESA says Vega’s flight-readiness review board met Feb. 2 to evaluate mission-preparation status and plans for the final days of the campaign. The Vega will lift off from Europe’s Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana.
General aviation groups are urging U.S. regulators to withdraw LightSquared’s conditional waiver for a broadband wireless network, saying the GPS system must be protected from all sources of interference. Their comments are in response to a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) request for input on LightSquared’s December petition for a ruling that commercial GPS receivers are not entitled to protection from interference caused by a broadband wireless network operating within technical parameters set by the government.
Space Exploration Technologies Inc. (SpaceX) has a full list of work to be completed before its first attempt to send a Dragon capsule to rendezvous and berth with the International Space Station, and probably will not meet the March 20 target date set for the mission. Michael Suffredini, NASA’s ISS program manager, says it will be “challenging” to meet the March 20 date.
NASA’s new technology-development organization is seeking proposals for low-cost, short-development, flight-test projects that will demonstrate communications and proxiimty operations with satellites weighing less than 400 lb., and for propulsion systems for cubesats.
Medical researchers at the NASA-funded National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) have identified a promising possible alternative to surgery in the treatment of kidney stones developed by astronauts on deep-space missions, or terrestrial humans plagued by the painful ailment. The new technology combines a ultrasound technique that detects obstructive stones called “twinkling artifact” with a treatment that uses a focused ultrasound wave energy to push the obstructions to the kidney’s exit.
It's amazing how much can be packed into a single, seemingly throwaway line when the context is a president's State of the Union address. President Barack Obama didn't even devote a full sentence to rural broadband service in his Jan. 24 speech, but his few words covered a lot of ground.
Alcoa is counter-attacking the rising use of composites in aircraft structures. The global aluminum giant will invest more than $90 million to build a new plant in Lafayette, Ind., capable of churning out 20,000 metric tons a year of advanced alloys that it says will allow airframers to build lighter and lower-weight aircraft. Production is slated to begin in 2014. The company also will expand output of the patented third-generation aluminum-lithium alloys at facilities in western Pennsylvania and the U.K.
It may seem a stretch to look for similarities between a C-17 or 737 assembly line and a satellite factory. The atmosphere in the two places is so different—literally. Airplane hangar doors are opened when it gets hot and machinists wear T-shirts and jeans. A satellite factory's temperatures are carefully controlled and particulate contamination is a big deal, so assemblers wear hair nets and “bunny suits” over their street clothes.
The strategy employed by Boeing to win $3.5 billion worth of missile defense work late last year reveals a willingness on the part of the aerospace giant to embrace highly aggressive pricing and low margins to hedge against the uncertainty ahead with waning Pentagon spending. And, the company's rivals are taking notice.
Europe may be mired in financial austerity, but that has not derailed the region's effort to duplicate GPS with the Galileo satellite navigation and timing constellation. Instead, it is changing the economic equation underpinning the program.
A multibillion-dollar commercial satellite imagery program and a showcase example of the Obama administration's forward-looking commercial remote-sensing space policy has been targeted for cuts that could impact U.S. military and allied operations and potentially lead to industry consolidation in the U.S. sector.
Are defense contractors earning too much money in an era of budget austerity? That question is being asked at the Pentagon after earnings results showed the industry managed to maintain and in many cases bolster profit margins in 2011, even as growth evaporated.
The first of the retired space shuttle orbiters to go on display will arrive at its final destination April 17. Discovery is due to land at Washington Dulles International Airport atop a shuttle carrier aircraft and then be delivered to the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center there two days later. NASA's workhorse shuttle will replace the atmospheric test article Enterprise in the museum display.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to distribute some of the minute samples its Hayabusa probe returned from the asteroid Itakowa. The spacecraft, which imaged its shadow against the type-S asteroid as it approached in the fall of 2005 (see photo), returned more than 1,000 asteroid particles measuring about 10 micrometers (0.0004 in.) despite control problems at its target (AW&ST Nov. 22, 2010, p. 18). The tiny samples have been analyzed by Japanese scientists and now will be available in a peer-reviewed opportunity.
The Vega launch vehicle is the first European rocket to be developed in nearly two decades. But in a departure from Europe's recent past, the small-class Vega was not designed with the commercial launch market in mind.
HOUSTON — NASA is equipping itself with a flexible strategy to push the development of cross-cutting technologies identified by a National Research Council panel as essential to the space agency’s strategic pursuits, including deep-space human exploration, according to the agency’s chief technologist. The strategy will allow NASA to adjust to the budget pressures Congress is likely to face as it considers the 2013 budget that President Barack Obama unveils on Feb. 13, according to Mason Peck, who took over the two-year-old chief technology post in January.
HOUSTON — NASA Space Station Program Manager Mike Suffredini extended a vote of confidence to the Russian space agency on Feb. 2, as officials in the partner nation sort through the recent ground test failure of a Soyuz capsule that will force a six-week delay in the launch of the next three-person crew to the orbiting space laboratory. Crew returns and future launches will likely slide throughout 2012 as well to ensure the briefest interruptions in sustained six-person station operations to keep research activities at the highest levels.
Rocket-engine testing for U.S. human spaceflight is getting off to a roaring start in 2012, with Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) announcing the first hot-fire test of its SuperDraco hypergolic engine, and NASA preparing to begin testing the powerpack of the J-2X cryogenic upper-stage engine for its planned Space Launch System (SLS) heavy lifter.
HOUSTON — NASA faces a lengthy, cash-strapped catch-up period in acquiring the range of technologies needed to achieve the agency’s strategic objectives, according to a National Research Council report released Feb. 1. “Success in executing future NASA space missions will depend on advanced technology developments that should already be under way,” says aerospace consultant Raymond Calladay, the former Lockheed Martin Corp. executive who chaired the 18-member panel that produced the report.
LUCID RETIRES: Five-time space traveler Shannon Lucid has retired from NASA after 34 years and more than 223 days in space. A member of the first class of NASA astronauts to include women, Lucid is the only U.S. woman to live and work on Russia’s Mir space station, a 188-day mission that was extended twice to last more than six weeks longer than anticipated at launch on the space shuttle Atlantis.
Luxembourg-based SES S.A. is moving its new SES-3 telecommunication satellite from an orbital slot servicing North America to one over Asia to meet growing demand there. Launched in July 2011, SES-3 will be positioned at 108.2 deg. E. Long. to serve the Middle East and Southeast Asia, where the company says it is receiving “growing” demand from commercial and government customers.
