Tag: Aerospace

USAF’s Sixth Generation Fighter Officially Enters Development

Defense News reports that Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said during an event at the Heritage Foundation that the service’s “secretive and highly classified Next Generation Air Dominance fighter program has started its crucial engineering and manufacturing development phase.” Kendall said that the service “began early experimental prototyping on NGAD in 2015, when he was the Pentagon’s top acquisition official. This was essentially an X-plane program, he said, designed to reduce risk and develop key technologies needed for the production program.” Kendall said that the technology has continued to progress and the “NGAD effort is now envisioned as a ‘family of systems’ incorporating several elements, including a handful of autonomous drone aircraft accompanying the manned aircraft in formation.” Kendall said, “The clock really didn’t start in 2015; it’s starting roughly now. … We think we’ll have capability by the end of the decade.”
Full Story (Defense News)

Amazon Launches Aviation Maintenance Career Training Program

Aviation Week reported that Amazon has “joined widespread efforts to grow the aviation maintenance workforce pipeline.” It has “partnered with a recently launched Part 147 school in Lakeland, Florida to offer a career training program for workers interested in pursuing a new career path in MRO.” The partnership is “part of Amazon’s Career Choice program, which enables its employees to learn new skills to launch career paths internally or in other industries.” The program “includes a vertical called Pathways, in which Amazon covers tuition costs to help employees earn certifications in areas such as technology, health care, transportation, mechanical and industrial systems, and business and administration systems.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)

Aircraft Manufacturers Prepare for Uncrewed Future

Politico reports that every commercial flight “has two pilots at the controls – but some planemakers are now designing cockpits that need fewer pilots, or someday even none.” So far, their airline customers “have been quiet on the issue, but pilots’ unions across the globe are getting louder, saying any fewer than two pilots is dangerous.” The idea “is most active in Europe, where French manufacturers Airbus and Dassault are pushing for regulators to allow passenger planes to operate with only one pilot in the cockpit for the majority of a long-haul flight.” European Cockpit Association President and KLM Captain Otjan de Bruijn said, “It’s a commercially-driven initiative with enormous risks for passengers, for pilots, and for cabin crew.” At present, this is theoretical, but manufacturers “are actively developing and testing a host of autonomous flight projects, including for commercial uses.” And EASA, the European Union’s aviation regulator, “is considering a concept that would have two pilots in the cockpit only for take-off and landing.” For the rest of the flight, the second pilot “would rest outside the cockpit, swapping shifts mid-way through a long-haul flight.” EASA is “expected to sign off on this by 2027.” A FAA official “said the agency is not considering any of the proposals that EASA is weighing.”
Full Story (Politico)

United Airlines Partners with Archer Aviation for Chicago Air Taxis

CBS News Chicago reports that United Airlines “is teaming up with Archer Aviation to provide air taxi service between O’Hare International Airport and the West Loop starting in 2025, at the same time construction on the Kennedy Expressway will be causing major delays for outbound traffic. United and Archer plan to launch the city’s first air taxi route between O’Hare and Vertiport Chicago on the Near West Side close to Pilsen and the Illinois Medical District, offering 10-minute rides between the airport and the downtown area.”
Full Story (CBS News Chicago)

Pratt & Whitney’s Engine Powers New B-21

Connecticut Post reports that the B-21 “is the Air Force’s first new bomber since the 1989 debut of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, with both using a ‘flying wing’ design to reduce the odds of showing up on radar, which uses four engines from GE Aviation.” The Air Force “has yet to specify how many engines will power the B-21.” Military trade publications “have cited analyst speculation that the B-21 engine may be a variant of the F135 engine Pratt & Whitney makes for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter jet.” Pratt & Whitney recently “completed its 1,000th engine under the F135 program.” Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes said, “The F135 … is the safest, most capable and best-value, military jet engine in operation. We’re working on the F135 engine core upgrade. … This will allow the F135 to provide even more thrust, range and electrification to the aircraft.”
Full Story (Connecticut Post)

Dan Dumbacher Recognized with Allyship Award

AIAA CEO Dan Dumbacher is being recognized by Women in Aerospace with their 2024 Allyship Award. This honor is presented to an individual ‘who actively promotes and aspires to advance a culture of inclusion for women through purposeful, positive and intentional efforts that benefit women in the aerospace community’.  We are extremely proud of Dan and his ongoing efforts to advance women in the aerospace community. Congratulations Dan! The award will be presented at the WIA’s 39th Annual Awards Dinner and Ceremony in Arlington, Virginia, on 10 October.
Full Story (WIA)

NASA Says SLS Megarocket Performed as Planned in First-Ever Launch

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SPACE reports that NASA officials said the agency’s “Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket hit all of its marks during its first-ever liftoff two weeks ago.” The Nov. 16 launch “kicked off NASA’s highly anticipated Artemis 1 mission, sending an uncrewed Orion capsule on a nearly 26-day trek to the moon and back. The SLS appeared to perform exactly as planned during the liftoff, and further analyses support those initial impressions, NASA officials announced on Wednesday.” Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin said in a statement, “The first launch of the Space Launch System rocket was simply eye-watering. … While our mission with Orion is still underway and we continue to learn over the course of our flight, the rocket’s systems performed as designed and as expected in every case.”
Full Story (SPACE)

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus Cargo Freighter Arrives at ISS

SPACE reports, “Northrop Grumman’s robotic Cygnus freighter reached the International Space Station (ISS) early Tuesday morning (Aug. 6), carrying about 4 tons of supplies to the orbiting lab. The Cygnus, which launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday (Aug. 4), was captured by the station’s robotic arm on Tuesday at 3:11 a.m. (0711 GMT), as the duo were flying over the South Atlantic Ocean.”
Full Story (SPACE)

Communication Problems Cause Major US Carriers to Ground Flights

Reuters reports that top U.S. airlines including Delta, United, and American, issued ground stops on Friday citing communication issues, as a global outage roiled operations across a wide swathe of industries around the world. American Airlines, however, later said in a statement it had re-established operations. Frontier and Spirit too cancelled directives to ground planes. It was not clear if the groundings reported by the major U.S. airlines were related to outages at Microsoft, and cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike that affected “banking, healthcare and a number of other sectors globally on Friday.”
Full Story (Reuters)

NASA Rolls Artemis 2 Booster Off Factory Floor In Preparation for 2025 Launch

SPACE reports, “The core stage of the first rocket to launch astronauts to the moon in over 50 years has left its manufacturing facility, and is bound for vehicle integration and assembly ahead of its launch next year. NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) Artemis 2 booster was rolled out of the space agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility, in New Orleans today (July 16), 55 years to the day of NASA’s Apollo 11 launch to the moon.”
Full Story (SPACE)

Next-Gen Fighter Still On Tap, But More Affordable Redesign Needed, Kendall Says

Defense News reports, “The U.S. Air Force has not abandoned its program to build an advanced next-generation fighter, but it does need a redesign to get costs under control and better integrate its planned drone wingmen, the service’s secretary told Defense News. Secretary Frank Kendall also said a revamped Next Generation Air Dominance fighter platform could end up with a less complex, smaller engine than originally intended to try to hold down its price.”
Full Story (Defense News)

Boeing’s 777-9 Certification Program Paused to Address Engine Component Crack

Aviation Week reports, “Cracks in engine attachment components that have stalled Boeing’s 777-9 certification program were found in a fourth test aircraft that has not flown in nearly three years, Aviation Week has learned. The latest discovery, on WH004, is expected to help narrow down Boeing’s investigation into the failures in the thrust links—assemblies that connect the airframe with the aircraft’s GE Aerospace GE9X engines.
Full Story (Aviation Week)

India to Launch European Proba-3 Satellites on Dec. 5 to Create Artificial Eclipses in Space

SPACE reports, “A European mission that will use two satellites to create artificial eclipses in Earth orbit will launch early Thursday morning (Dec. 5) … The ESA’s Proba-3 formation-flying mission is scheduled to lift off atop an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from Satish Dhawan Space Center on Thursday at 5:42 a.m. EST (1042 GMT; 4:42 p.m. local time in India).”
Full Story (SPACE)

Early eVTOL Aircraft Deliveries Increase EHang’s Revenues

Aviation International News reports, “Early deliveries of its autonomous two-seat EH216-S eVTOL aircraft boosted EHang’s revenues in the fourth quarter of 2023. Having secured type certification from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) on October 13, the Guangzhou-based company is still awaiting clearance for the production certificate needed to advance to higher-volume series production but managed to deliver 23 aircraft in the last three months of last year.”
Full Story (Aviation International News)

T-7A Red Hawk Trainer Wraps Up Extreme Temperature Testing

Flying Magazine reports that the U.S. Air Force’s new Boeing T-7A Red Hawk advanced trainer has finished extreme temperature testing to evaluate “its endurance from hot deserts to deep-freeze conditions.” The monthlong trial, conducted at the McKinley Climatic Lab at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, included testing the aircraft’s electronics and instrumentation “in temperatures ranging from 110 degrees to minus-25 degrees Fahrenheit.”
Full Story (Flying Magazine)

RAeS Article: AI, Autonomy, and Human-Machine Teaming Become Rising Forces of Change in Aviation

By Shawn Weil, Chief Growth Officer, Aptima, and Member, AIAA SciTech Forum Guiding Coalition; and Scott Fouse, Aerospace R&D Domain Lead and AIAA SciTech Forum Executive Producer, AIAA

Originally published in the November issue of RAeS AEROSPACE

 

Aviation is where artificial intelligence (AI) and human-machine teaming with autonomy has become mainstream, beginning initially as assistance for fighter jets in terrain avoidance in the 1980s. Today we see it in commercial jet operations with automatic co-pilots.

Now it’s time to expand AI-powered machine-learning autonomy systems in aviation. There’s an opportunity to focus on applications training to help guide the human-machine teaming for improving aircraft performance and reducing pilot risk.

Engineers are tweaking the relationship between pilot and AI to address concerns about autonomy in a more complex aviation system. The early models of autonomy in aviation have given way to a much more nuanced and complex view of autonomy, where tradeoffs can be made in different ways for different circumstances.

While that autonomy work is still in its infancy, the development of vehicles with autonomous system operations actually dates back to the 1940s in the automobile industry. A blind automotive engineer invented cruise control, an autonomous system that began the process of a broader, more adaptive autonomous system for automobiles. Today, fully autonomous taxi cabs are roaming the streets of San Francisco, aggregating data and updating machine learning capabilities as they transport fares across the city.

Aviation engineers are taking a cue from the automotive industry and exploring the lessons learned about the process of AI-powered autonomy. How should it be implemented in a plane? How should a pilot interface with it? How can a pilot know and anticipate what the autonomy is actually in control of and what the pilot is responsible for?

To address those questions, engineers have honed their systems interfaces, re-designed workflow, and created other externalized cognition tools built on data collection and aggregation. Ultimately what engineers want to create is an autonomous system where they have both high levels of automation and high levels of control. They want to make autonomy a full-fledged member of the flight team that is in some sense omniscient because it’s receiving information from more sensors than the human partner could.

AI won’t replace people in the cockpit. But it may, in fact, amplify their efforts.

SciTech24_eventsMeanwhile, aviation engineers are trying out new ways of using autonomy. One example the U.S. Air Force (USAF) is exploring is the concept of the automated wingman. Here, a piloted aircraft might be flying with two or three autonomous aircraft around it, anticipating the pilot’s next move. These drones are not just reacting to the pilot’s commands, but they’re reacting to the pilot’s intent. They can anticipate the pilot’s actions. The USAF is currently ramping up plans for using 1,000 autonomous drones to assist jetfighters, calling them collaborative combat aircraft.

Aviation engineers are beginning to understand that perhaps the whole science of human autonomy interaction from a cognitive systems point of view has to be rethought. Training should be created to help the pilots know more than just how to fly the aircraft, but also how to manage, understand, and anticipate the autonomous system.

Now the real work in AI-powered machine-learning autonomy for aviation begins. Learn more during the 2024 AIAA SciTech Forum, 8–12 January, Orlando, Florida. A number of panel discussions and technical papers presented throughout the forum will help the aviation industry move the autonomy and human-machine teaming work forward.

Space Force to Test New Orbit-Switching Maneuver on X-37B Space Plane

Defense One reports, “A U.S. X-37B space plane is slated to test a new way of rapidly changing its orbit, part of the Space Force’s quest for fuel-sipping maneuverability. The spacecraft will experiment with aerobraking, which uses Earth’s atmosphere to slow down and switch orbits. “The use of the aerobraking maneuver—a series of passes using the drag of Earth’s atmosphere—enables the spacecraft to change orbits while expending minimal fuel,” the service said in a release today.”
Full Story (Defense One)