Aviation Week reports, “Despite the reopening and relaxing of China’s borders in January 2023, the country’s three state-owned airlines—Air China, China Eastern Airlines, and China Southern Airlines—all ended 2023 with losses, although these deficits have narrowed.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
Tag: engineering
Falling Chinese Space Junk Creates Spectacular Fireball Over Southern California
SPACE reports, “A big piece of Chinese space junk crashed to Earth over Southern California early Tuesday morning (April 2), putting on quite a show for observers in the Golden State.”
Full Story (SPACE)
Videos
Fireball over California
(VideoFromSpace; YouTube)
SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches Eutelsat 36D Telecommunications Satellite
Via Satellite reports, “SpaceX launched the Airbus-built Eutelsat 36D telecommunications satellite for Eutelsat Group over the weekend. It was launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 30. Eutelsat selected Airbus in March 2021 to build Eutelsat 36D. This is the 22nd Airbus-built communications satellite for Eutelsat.”
Full Story (Via Satellite)
Videos
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral
(VideoFromSpace; YouTube)
Manufacturing Strategies Highlight Key Difference Between Joby and Archer
Aviation Week reports, “In many ways, Archer Aviation and Joby Aviation are highly similar startups. The two front-runners in the nascent U.S. air taxi market are both developing piloted, four-passenger electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles with the goal of launching commercial service next year.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
Archer Performs Battery Pack Drop Test for Midnight Air Taxi
Flying Magazine reports, “Air taxi manufacturer Archer Aviation has reached what it says is a crucial milestone in its test campaign—one that could prove valuable as it pursues type certification for its flagship Midnight aircraft. The company on Friday said it successfully completed a series of drop tests on Midnight’s battery packs, an evaluation it will need to complete again during for-credit testing with the FAA.”
Full Story (Flying Magazine)
First Boeing Starliner Astronauts, Wilmore and Williams, Ready to Launch to ISS
SPACE reports, “Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams told Space.com and a small group of reporters at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) that they are excited for the first launch of Boeing Starliner, now set to fly to the International Space Station for a roughly 10-day mission set to go no earlier than May 1.”
Full Story (SPACE)
Gulfstream G700 Achieves FAA Certification
Flying Magazine reports, “Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. has obtained FAA type certification for the G700, the Savannah, Georgia-based company announced Friday. The milestone paves the way for deliveries of the long-awaited business jet.”
Full Story (Flying Magazine)
After the Concorde, a Long Road Back to Supersonic Travel
An Ars Technica report discusses the possibility of achieving supersonic flight without loud booms, noting that NASA is working on it. “The X-59 is being built to do a series of supersonic test flights over American cities to boom people living there.” Then NASA will collect feedback “from those on the ground and compile it into a data pack for the aviation authorities, the FAA and the International Civil Aviation Administration.” That data is then expected to be “part of a push to lift the ban on supersonic flight over land and replace it with an acceptable noise standard.”
Full Story (Ars Technica)
ULA Delta IV Heavy Set to Fly Once More
Ars Technica reports United Launch Alliance’s last Delta IV Heavy rocket is set to lift off Thursday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, the US government’s spy satellite agency. “Weather permitting, the Delta IV Heavy will light up its three hydrogen-fueled RS-68 engines at 1:40 pm EDT (17:40 UTC) Thursday, the opening of a four-hour launch window.”
Full Story (Ars Technica)
FAA Awards uAvionix BVLOS Contract
Unmanned Systems Technology reports, “uAvionix is to advance the commercial utilization of Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS) through a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) contract. The Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) contract aims to develop highly reliable Command and Control (C2) communications for extended Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations across challenging terrains.”
Full Story (Unmanned Systems Technology)