All aerospace news – Page 1751
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US investor to offer trips to refurbished Mir space station
US entrepreneur Walt Anderson plans to set up a new company, Mir Corp, with Energia and other investors to refurbish the Mir and offer trips to the Russian space station. Anderson, who heads the Gold & Appel investment company, will go ahead with the plan if the Russian mission ...
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Snecma and P&W seek to develop cryogenic engine
Snecma's rocket engine division, Société Europèenne de Propulsion, has agreed with Pratt &Whitney to jointly develop a new cryogenic upper stage engine for the Ariane 5, Lockheed Martin Delta IV and Boeing Atlas V. The deal is based around work by the two companies on more powerful engines to ...
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X-33 flights face delay of 18 months
Lockheed Martin's VentureStar programme president Jerry Rising has confirmed that flights of the X-33 sub-orbital technology demonstrator will "definitely not" begin in July. If the decision is made to build aluminium propellant tanks for the vehicle, to replace those made of experimental lightweight composite materials, the delay will be ...
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Bond EC135s
Bond Air Services has ordered five Eurocopter EC135 helicopters from UK distributor and completion centre McAlpine Helicopters. The instrument flight rules-equipped aircraft will be delivered over the next 12 months. Source: Flight International
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Commercial ATV
The European Space Agency is studying modification and commercialisation of the Ariane 5-launched Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) for the International Space Station. Changes include making it a reusable tug and launch on a new reusable vehicle like the proposed Lockheed Martin VentureStar. Source: Flight International
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Proteus grows with Flandre Air purchase
Proteus Airlines has completed its purchase of Flandre Air, creating one of France's largest independent airlines. The deal, revealed last October, makes Saint Etienne-based Proteus the 100% owner of family-owned Flandre Air, which has its headquarters at Lille, northern France. Twenty-three-year-old Flandre Air operates nine Embraer EMB-120 Brasilias ...
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Report into Britannia 757 crash poses questions
A fast, high sink-rate, nosewheel-first touchdown in a storm started a sequence which led a Britannia Airways Boeing 757 to swerve off a runway at Girona, Spain, and break up, says the UK Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB). There were two serious injuries in the crash last September. After ...
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Internet funds speed Delta retirements
Proceeds from the sale of stock in Internet ticket-auction company priceline.com will enable Delta Air Lines to accelerate the retirement of its Boeing MD-11s and MD-90s. The $711 million raised by selling some of Delta's stake in priceline.com will also allow the airline to repurchase up to $500 million of ...
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ISS service module delayed
Tim Furniss/LONDON Russia's Energia company has confirmed that the Zvezda service module to the International Space Station (ISS) will not be launched until August at the earliest, rather than March/April as planned. The slippage has been caused by delays in the Zvezda schedule and by concerns about the ...
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Lockheed Martin delivers Image
Lockheed Martin has delivered the NASA Imager for Magnetopause-to-Auroral Global Exploration spacecraft (IMAGE) to Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, for its launch on 15 February. IMAGE, the first of NASA's Medium-class Explorer Mission spacecraft, was developed under a contract with Southwest Research Institute. IMAGE will be launched into a ...
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Intelsat options
Europe's Intelsat is to exercise options with Space Systems/Loral for two additional Intelsat IX satellites - Intelsat 906 and 907 - to be deployed to the Atlantic Ocean region to meet growing demand for Internet services. Intelsat says that this will allow two existing satellites to be redeployed to new ...
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NASA aims for first X-34 tow tests and powered flights
NASA plans to begin ground tests of the X-34 reusable launch vehicle testbed on the dry lakebed at Edwards AFB, California, in mid-February, with flight tests planned for mid-year. The ground tests will involve towing the 17.7m (6ft)-long suborbital X-34 behind a truck for more than 3,000m across Rogers ...
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Airbus unveils details of A330 derivative
Julian Moxon/PARIS Airbus Industrie has revealed details of the A330-100 derivative it is offering airlines to replace the A310 and A300-600 medium-range airliners. Demand for a new aircraft in the 165-250-seat range is growing, and Airbus and Boeing are preparing solutions based around the A330-200 and 777 (Flight ...
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Boeing lifts space business with Hughes satellite buy
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Boeing is buying Hughes Electronics' satellite manufacturing business for $3.75 billion in cash. The deal will boost Boeing's space revenue by 35%, to $10 billion a year - a figure the company expects to double by 2009. Renamed Boeing Satellite Systems, the El Segundo, California-based unit ...
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Bigger and better
Eurocopter says its new EC155B medium helicopter is more than just a larger version of its long-established Dauphin A casual observer might think that the EC155B is just a stretched development of the AS365 Dauphin. Not so, says Eurocopter, although the manufacturer did incorporate some features from its experimental AS365X ...
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A brighter future
The Helicopter Association International's Heli-Expo exhibition promises better times ahead Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DCThe helicopter industry may reflect on the past year as a period of mixed fortunes, during which sales for some manufacturers have excelled. For others there is the hope that the Helicopter Association International's (HAI) Heli-Expo 2000, to ...
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Creatively buoyant
The USA, Russia and the rest of Europe have seen plenty of civil helicopter product developments in the past 12 months Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DCThe civil helicopter industry remained creatively buoyant last year, with the launch and certification of new US and European developments and a continuing proliferation of Russian designs. ...
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Time travel
Helicopter fractional ownership is still at the embryonic stage - but operators have bigger plans Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DCThe concept of fractional ownership has grown to be a phenomenal success with the business jet fraternity, but it is at the embryonic stage in the rotary-wing world. Selling a timeshare in a ...
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Mergers
Menzies Transport Services (MTS) has acquired the London Heathrow cargo-handling facility of Aer Lingus, with a 10-year contract to handle the airline's cargo there. Austrian Airlines, Olympic Airways and Air Algerie are other customers. MTS is the second largest cargo handler at Heathrow. Acquisitive Smiths Industries of the UK is ...
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R-R and AVIC sign collaboration deal
Rolls-Royce and Aviation Industries of China (AVIC) have signed a five-year agreement to collaborate in aero-engine research and development work. Joint projects will focus on high-pressure (HP), core engine and system integration technologies. The new contract extends the co-operation with AVIC begun by the former BMW R-R, now wholly ...