All news – Page 6686
-
News
South Africa ditches Hawk 100 multimode radar
South Africa has scrapped a requirement to fit its planned 24 British Aerospace Hawk 100 lead-in fighter trainers (foreground) with a multimode radar, in the face of prohibitively high integration costs and budget constraints. The South African Air Force has told competing radar suppliers Elta and FIAR that it is ...
-
News
Thomson/Dasa likely bidders for Racal
Chris Jasper/LONDON Julian Moxon/PARISUK electronics specialist Racal has become the latest target in the current wave of European aerospace and defence consolidation, with France's Thomson-CSF and Germany's DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (Dasa) emerging as likely leading bidders for the company's defence electronics arm. Increasingly acquisitive Thomson also continues to target Italy's Alenia ...
-
News
Norway threatens Nordic helicopter pact
Stewart Penney/LONDONA competition to supply Norway with air-defence warships could adversely affect the country's participation in the four-nation Nordic Standard Helicopter Programme (NSHP). Norway, with Denmark, Finland and Sweden, recently signed a memorandum of understanding covering the joint purchase of up to 90 helicopters. While Denmark, Finland and Sweden are, ...
-
News
More delays expected on ISS
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA is expected to announce further delays to the International Space Station (ISS) assembly schedule. The STS101 Atlantis mission to the ISS, which was due in December, is likely to be delayed until next year, and the major Shuttle assembly mission 3A is expected to be pushed ...
-
News
USAF selects contenders for satellite projects
Teams have been selected to bid for the USAir Force's next communications and surveillance satellite programmes. Hughes Space and Communications and Lockheed Martin have each won a $22 million contract to define the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (EHF) communications satellite system, follow-on to the Milstar programme. The Advanced ...
-
News
Hughes wins contract for two more Astra satellites
Satellite television and radio service provider Société Européenne des Satellites (SES) has contracted Hughes Space and Communications to build the Astra 2C and 2D communications satellites to help meet the growing demand for digital services. The new satellites will operate from 28.2°E in geostationary orbit, primarily serving the UK ...
-
News
NASA and Orbital revamp X-34 testing plans to reduce risk
NASA and Orbital Sciences have revised the test programme for the X-34 reusable launch vehicle technology demonstrator to reduce risk. The first airframe, vehicle A-1, will be upgraded for unpowered flight tests from Orbital's Lockheed L-1011 carrier aircraft. The vehicle has completed one captive flight on the L-1011, and ...
-
News
Kamov is key to merger moves
Russian rotorcraft specialist Kamov is to form the basis of an integrated helicopter company, with its design bureau combined with production plants at Kumertau and Arsenyev, in accordance with a government directive. The move is likely to mean the demise of Kamov's alliance with VPK MAPO. The Kumertau factory produces ...
-
News
Comsat shareholders give thumbs up to merger
Shareholders in US satellite communications service provider Comsat have approved its proposed merger with Lockheed Martin, removing one barrier to the complex deal. Regulatory approval and legislation are still needed before the merger can go ahead, but the move has been helped by a recent US Senate vote to deregulate ...
-
News
Fokker cash will finally flow to ordinary creditors
The trustees of bankrupt aircraft manufacturer Fokker expect to make initial payments to ordinary creditors in September - more than nine months later than originally planned - following settlement of a legal dispute with the Dutch tax authorities. Trustees have also reached agreement with American Airlines and US Airways ...
-
News
Tree planting role planned for C-130
Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems hopes to demonstrate a new environmentally friendly application for the C-130 military transport as a potential airborne reforestation platform. The US aerospace firm, with Boston-based Aerial Forestation (AFI), is researching development of a C-130 to drop large numbers of tree seedlings. ...
-
News
Shuttle may salvage Orion 3
Tim Furniss/LONDON Hughes Space and Communications and NASA are discussing a possible Space Shuttle mission in 2001 to capture the stranded Loral Skynet Orion 3 communications satellite. The craft was left in the wrong orbit by a failed Delta III launch in May. The mission, which will resemble that ...
-
News
NASA introduces Nanosat for New Millennium
NASA has announced its latest New Millennium programme mission - the Nanosat Constellation Trailblazer (NCT) - to be launched as a secondary payload on an expendable launch vehicle in 2003. The $23 million mission, the fifth of the programme, is designed to validate methods of operating several spacecraft as ...
-
News
Proton scheduled for launch in September
The first Proton launch since the failure of a new Proton M on 5 July is scheduled for 6 September, when two Russian Yamal communications satellites will be carried into space by a Proton K on a domestic launch. International Launch Services (ILS), meanwhile, has established an independent Failure ...
-
News
US Airways Express seeks up to 400 small regional jets
Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC US Airways Express has issued a request for proposals (RFP) for up to 100 small regional jets and options for up to 300 larger aircraft for its subsidiary and affiliate regional operators. The RFP specifies a firm requirement for an initial 100 regional jets seating ...
-
News
Skunk Works: responding to changing times
Things are no longer black and white for the Skunk Works. The still-secretive Lockheed Martin unit is having to adjust to the reality that much of its future business opportunities are in the commercial, and not the classified, arena. Not that the two worlds are so vastly different - both ...
-
News
In the works
Tailless fighters, reusable space vehicles, blended wing body transports and hypersonic strike missiles are just some of the technologies on the drawing board at Boeing's Phantom Works Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Boeing's Phantom Works appears increasingly aptly named as it becomes a "virtual" organisation linking the aerospace giant's advanced development centres. ...
-
News
Taiwan institute redesigns ARL-1 as 19-seat utility aircraft
Andrzej Jeziorski/TAIPEI Taiwan's Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST)has redesigned the five-year-old ARL-1 twin turboprop aircraft concept as a 19-seat utility after seeing the results of market research. The ARL-1 began life as a six- to nine-seat concept designed by the Aeronautical Research Laboratory of the former ...
-
News
Ground effect Sky Wing certificated
Aviation Industries of China (AVIC) is studying the development of medium and large wing-in-ground effect aircraft after receiving initial Chinese domestic certification for the DXF-100 Sky Wing - a 15-passenger amphibious aircraft developed in Jingmen, Hubei province. The first DXF-100, developed by an AVIC research institute, carried passengers on ...
-
News
Arianespace keeps commercial lead
Tim Furniss/LONDON Arianespace is maintaining its lead in the commercial launcher market with contracts to launch three more satellites, bringing to 43 the number of satellites on its orderbook, worth $3.5 billion. The contracts push Arianespace's satellite launch orders past 200 since it was created in 1980. The ...