All aerospace news – Page 1748
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Young will head Mars inquiry
Former Lockheed Martin executive Thomas Young has been appointed by NASA to lead the Mars Program Independent Assessment team. It will review the failures of the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO), Mars Polar Lander (MPL) and the space agency's approach to robotic exploration. The MCO was lost on 23 September and ...
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Ariane mission rate speeds up
Last month Arianespace launched its third commercial mission in fewer than 20 days. Flight V125's Ariane 44L lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, on 21 December. It carried the world's largest commercial communications satellite - the Hughes Space and Communications Galaxy XI (right), the first of its HS-702 buses, ...
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Alenia wins Canadian observation contract
Alenia Aerospazio has won a C$74 million ($50 million) contract to design and build the satellite bus of Canada's new Radarsat 2 Earth observation satellite. Prime contractor McDonald Dettwiler awarded the deal to Alenia after a contest involving six US and European firms. Alenia will build the craft in 16 ...
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Urgent GE90 removal starts on worldwide 777-200 fleet
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC General Electric has begun removing the first of 90 GE90 engines from the worldwide Boeing 777-200 fleet after turbine blade separations caused two in-flight shutdowns and one turnback. The problems, all of which afflicted 777-200ERs operated by Saudi Arabian Airlines, were caused by ...
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KLM uk's no-frills buzz gets off the ground
Buzz, the new low-cost subsidiary of KLM uk, began operations on 4 January with promises of "strong market growth" in the European low-cost sector over the next five years. Based at London Stansted, UK, the carrier competes with the existing UK-based low-cost airlines Ryanair, easyJet and British Airways subsidiary Go. ...
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Airports
The Netherlands Government has decided that the construction of an international airport on an offshore island to serve Amsterdam is not feasible. It will instead allow Schiphol Airport to be expanded. Aircraft movements will increase from 420,000 to 600,000 in 10 years, while a sixth runway will be constructed by ...
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Repairs put Terra on target
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA has rectified major computer and antenna faults that occurred on its $1.3 billion Terra spacecraft shortly after its launch last month. The Terra, the flagship of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) programme, was launched into polar orbit on 18 December on an Atlas IIAS operated by ...
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Unhappy month
December 1999 was an unhappy month for airline safety in a year which has been better than most. In the last four weeks of 1999 there were eight fatal accidents involving airlines as diverse as small regional operators flying twin turboprops to majors flying widebodies. With Korean Air's Boeing ...
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SIA/Virgin work out fine print
Chris Jasper/LONDON Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Virgin Atlantic are hammering out the details of their recently agreed deal. Under it, the Asian giant takes a 49% stake in the UK holding company, which owns Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Holidays, Virgin Sun and cargo operation Virgin Aviation Services. The £600 ...
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Mergers
The UK's Smiths Industries has agreed to buy the US aerospace arm of UK industrial group Invensys, formed last year from the merger of engineering groups BTR and Seibe. The $175 million deal strengthens Smiths' position in supplying integrated systems for civil and military aircraft, and includes environmental control systems ...
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SAirGroup expands maintenance businesses
Maintenance giant SR Technics is to establish a US centre after signing a memorandum of understanding with Boeing to purchase a hangar at Palmdale, California. Another SAirGroup company, Crossair, is expanding its maintenance capabilities by purchasing the repair business of Switzerland's Sulzer Industries. SR Technics America will focus initially ...
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USMC holds fire on joint rotorcraft
Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC The US Marine Corps is reserving judgement on participating in the US Army-led Joint Transport Rotorcraft (JTR) programme until the joint staff's critical Overarching Rotorcraft Capabilities Assessment (ORCA) is completed. Meanwhile, the USMC is drawing up plans to extend the service life of its Sikorsky CH-53E helicopters. ...
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Gulfstream centre
Gulfstream is expanding its business aircraft completions centre at Brunswick, Georgia, USA. The project, valued at around $3 million, will include the construction of a 2,140m² (23,000ft²) completion hangar and the upgrade and lease of a 1,860m2 storage and maintenance building. The new facility will provide additional capacity to support ...
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US helicopter fractionals go for expansion despite slow market
Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC North America's pioneering helicopter fractional ownership companies, Associated Aircraft Group (AAG) and HeliFlite Shares, plan to expand operations despite slower than expected development of the new market sector. Sikorsky-owned AAG expects to add a second helicopter to its scheme by the middle of the year. The ...
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BA studies CityFlyer transfer in Gatwick route shake-up
Chris Jasper/LONDON Andrew Doyle/MUNICH British Airways is considering a radical restructuring of its London Gatwick-based operations that would see all routes of less than 800km (430nm) - or around 35% of services - transferred to its CityFlyer subsidiary. The move, among several under consideration, aims to exploit the lower ...
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Name change
Jet Aviation's Singapore centre has changed its name from Jet Maintenance to Jet Aviation (Asia Pacific). The change follows approval by the Singapore courts for the Jet Aviation Group of Companies to operate in Singapore under its worldwide trade name of Jet Aviation. Source: Flight International
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Ready for work
The European Space Agency's (ESA) X-ray Multi Mirror (XMM) space telescope has reached its operational 7,365 x 114,000km, 48h-period orbit after four thruster firings. The XMM is "behaving better in space than all our pre-launch simulations", says Dietmar Heger, ESA spacecraft operations manager. Source: Flight International
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Satcoms progress
Back in the 20th century, they said people would not want telephones on airliners; that they did not wish to be contactable while they dozed in comfort or ate a fine meal. How times have changed. In the 21st century, passengers slip on virtual reality glasses and join the crew ...
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A satnav world
The early years of the 21st century will see the start of advanced satellite navigation systems mapping the world. From the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) in North America, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) and later, Galileo, and the Multi-function Transport Satellite (MTSAT) system in the Asia-Pacific ...
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Flight of fantasy
Airline operations in the 21st century will be conducted in an integrated information environment, linking passengers, cabin and cockpit crew with the ground The airliner passenger cabin and the flightdeck are getting closer technologically. No longer are capabilities exclusively designed for the cockpit, with applications increasingly being found in ...