All news – Page 6311
-
News
Globalstar sell-off
Embryonic telecoms provider Globalstar is to sell 7 million shares in a public offering aimed at accelerating its staged launch. The international consortium says it has enough cash to complete deployment of its global mobile telephony system. Globalstar is led by Loral Space and Communications of the USA. Source: Flight ...
-
News
Dassault splits
Dassault Aviation has separated its civil and military operations into Dassault Falcon and Dassault Defense. Legally, the two will remain one entity, however, following shareholder Aerospatiale Matra's July veto of them becoming independent. Source: Flight International
-
News
Standard contract
Scheduled helicopter airline Helijet Airways of Vancouver, Canada, has awarded Winnipeg-based Standard Aero of Canada a $1 million contract to overhaul 10 Rolls-Royce Allison 250 powerplants, which drive its Sikorsky S-76 helicopters. Source: Flight International
-
News
Offshore contract
Bond Helicopters has clinched a C$4 million ($2.75 million) one-year contract from UK oil company ARCO. Bond will deploy a Sikorsky S-76 from its Great Yarmouth base to fly personnel to and from ARCO's oil fields in the southern North Sea. Source: Flight International
-
News
Bell debut
Bell Helicopter Textron hopes to start deliveries of the Model 427 light turbine twin later this month at the Helicopter Association International show in Las Vegas. Deliveries are a year later than planned. The 427 received Canadian certification in November and Bell awaits US approval. Source: Flight International
-
News
Maiden flight
Wilksch Airmotive's WAM-120 CITEC diesel engine had its maiden flight on 31 December powering a two-seat Europa kit plane. Wilksch says changes to the oil cooling system and additional instrumentation will be completed before testing resumes "in the near future". Source: Flight International
-
News
Explorer order
The state police force of Baden-Wurttemberg, based in Stuttgart, Germany, has ordered three twin-engined MD Explorers, with an option on two. The first three aircraft will be handed over next year, while the optional machines could be delivered in 2002. Hanover police in Lower Saxony received three aircraft last year. ...
-
News
Spacehab contract
Spacehab has been awarded a $4.2 million NASA contract to supply an Integrated Cargo Carrier and two Spacehab Oceaneering Space Systems Boxes - unpressurised tool boxes - for the Space Shuttle International Space Station assembly flight 7A.1 to be launched in 2001. Source: Flight International
-
News
Wreckage found
Wreckage of the Japanese H2 booster, including the LE7 engine that failed in November, has been located and photographed in the Pacific Ocean by a Dolphin DK underwater imaging probe operated by the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center. The engine shut down prematurely, possibly because of propellant loss. Source: ...
-
News
UPS to fit freighter fleet with satellite navigation systems
United Parcel Service (UPS) is to equip its 229 freighters with next-generation satellite navigation systems using the global positioning system (GPS)-based wide-area augmentation system (WAAS). The equipment will be made by the US express parcels specialist's subsidiary UPS Aviation Technologies (UPSAT). Development of the GPS/WAAS combination is expected ...
-
News
Indonesia and South Korea in quest for fresh launch sites
Indonesia is considering developing a $1 billion satellite launch centre on the 52km² (20 miles²) Lembe Island, in the province of North Sulawesi, close to the port of Bitung, according to the province's governor. Two more of Indonesia's 17,000 islands - Biak Island in the Bay of Cendrawasih and ...
-
News
Uncertainties hit NASA's Space Shuttle schedule for 2000
Tim Furniss/LONDON This year's first Space Shuttle mission - the 11-day STS99 Shuttle Radar Topography Mission by the orbiter Endeavour (left) - will not be launched before 31 January, according to NASA's preliminary Space Shuttle schedule. This will be followed by STS101 Atlantis on an International Space Station ...
-
News
Pyrotechnic accident delays Rokot launch
The first commercial launch of the German-Russian Eurokot venture's Rokot - the modified SS-19 intercontinental ballistic missile with a Breeze M upper stage - is likely to be delayed following an accident at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome last month. A modified Rokot booster, equipped for the first time with a ...
-
News
NASA picks partners for race into space
NASA has selected six contractors for its Rapid Spacecraft Acquisition (Rapid II) programme, intended to reduce the time required to procure satellites for science and technology missions. "Indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity" contracts covering 14 different types of core spacecraft bus have been awarded to Ball Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, Orbital Sciences, ...
-
News
Orbital wins NASA science contract
NASA has awarded Orbital Sciences a $35 million contract to launch two science satellites in 2002, using its Pegasus air-launched booster. The US/Canadian SCISAT-1 mission to study ozone production in the upper atmosphere will lift off from Vandenberg AFB, California, in the second quarter of 2002. The Orbital-built ...
-
News
Aerospike test
Boeing Rocketdyne's XRS-2200 Linear Aerospike Engine for the X-33 Lockheed Martin reusable single-stage-to-orbit technology demonstrator was fired at full power for the first time last month. The firing, at the NASA Stennie Space Center, Mississippi, lasted 18s. Source: Flight International
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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, ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
P&WC Il-114 cleared
The CIS Interstate Aviation Committee issued the type certificate on 27 December for the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127H-powered version of the Ilyushin Il-114 twin turboprop. The 64-seater variant, dubbed the Il-114-100, started flight tests in January last year. It is produced by the Tashkent-based TAPO Chkalov plant in Uzbekistan, ...