Airbus SE is shifting its Connected Experience cabin concept into the first stages of reality with cooperative buy-in from gategroup Holding AG, Stelia Aerospace, and Recaro Aircraft Seating. Up until the partnership announcement, Airbus had been collecting extensive market feedback and refining its Internet of Things (IoT) approach to aircraft interiors, with real-time interconnected galleys, in-flight service carts, seats, and overhead bins.
Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane, SpaceShipTwo or “VSS Unity,” made its fifth powered test flight and second space flight late last week with three individuals on board. In addition to pilots Dave Mackay and Mike Masucci, Virgin Galactic’s first non-pilot passenger and the world’s first female commercial spacefarer – Beth Moses – also qualified for commercial astronaut wings from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Curtiss-Wright Corporation and Honeywell International, Inc. will co-develop a next generation “black box” device with real-time data streaming and cloud-upload capabilities. The new flight recorders device will meet an upcoming 2021 European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) mandate requiring aircraft to store a minimum of 25 hours of voice recordings.
The Raytheon Company (Raytheon), based out of Waltham, Massachusetts, is currently paying for a Joint Precision Approach and Landing Systems (JPALS) software upgrade with independent research and development funds. The company hopes to convince the U.S. Air Force to use JPALS – a system used to help aircraft land on aircraft carrier decks – in its expeditionary land operations.
Cedar Park, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace, Inc. has reached an agreement with Space Florida – the state’s aerospace economic development agency – to establish a facility at Cape Canaveral Spaceport. Through the agreement, Firefly, a spacecraft and launch vehicle developer and provider of launch and in-space services, will conduct launch operations at Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 20 (SLC-20) and create manufacturing facilities at Exploration Park, Florida.
According to the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Moscow-based United Aviation Corporation (UAC) will begin development on a supersonic passenger aircraft by 2022. The aircraft, backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, will be based on the supersonic Tupolev Tu-160 heavy strategic bomber which first flew in 1981.
As mobility software becomes increasingly complex and connected, so does the risk of human error and system safety. To combat this, New York-based software company AdaCore will work with Nvidia Corporation of Santa Clara, California to apply open-source Ada and SPARK programming languages for select software security firmware elements in highly-complex, safety-critical systems like Nvidia’s DRIVE AGX automated and autonomous vehicle solutions.
The search for ever-lower emission technology for future generations of aircraft engines is actively progressing on both sides of the Atlantic. Tucked away on a modest-size stand at this year’s Farnborough International Airshow was a highly varied collection of unconventional engine technology displays – a clear indication of radical innovation already being investigated as a part of Ultimate, the European Horizon 2020 research and innovation project.
The Terma 3D-audio system will enhance pilot situational awareness by supplementing the A-10C cockpit control panel visual warning system with audible directional signals from within the pilot’s helmet. The natural or spatially separately audio signals will be similar to what a human would hear when not wearing a conventional headset.
NASA officials and engineers are prepping to fly the agency’s F/A-18 research aircraft over Galveston, Texas, using a “quiet thump” technique designed to reduce loud sonic booms typically associated with supersonic flight. This week’s test flight sets off a series of quiet supersonic research flights off the coast of Texas to test ways to measure supersonic aircraft sound levels and the community’s response to the supersonic acoustic experience.
A team of engineers from NASA and Dallas-based Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. successfully completed the eighth and final test of the Orion spacecraft Capsule Parachute Assembly System at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Yuma, Ariz.
The X-60A is an air-dropped, liquid oxygen and kerosene propelled rocket developed by Atlanta-based Generation Orbit Launch Services under contract to the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Aerospace Systems Directorate High Speed Systems Division. The vehicle propulsion system is the 5,000 pound-force sea level thrust Hadley liquid rocket engine, produced by Colorado-based Ursa Major Technologies.
SAE International in Warrendale, Pa., has published AS13006: Process Control Methods, a new standard with guidance material to support specific aerospace engine applications, with a focus on the practical application of control methods for many different situations, to improve process control, process capability, and product quality, benefiting both the organization applying it and its customers.
Special guest Kirsten Koepsel, lawyer and engineer specializing in cyber security, talks with SAE International about how this new environment affects the planes and airports we use every day.
This month, during an ongoing review of military training for rotary-wing aircraft, the GAO published a report highlighting gaps in the Department of Defense’s approach for collecting, reporting, and analyzing aviation mishap data to inform aviation risk-management decisions.
US Army officials and engineers continue work to modernize the defense organization’s fleet of Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter with a more modern digital cockpit, conducting a Limited User Test with two prototype aircraft at Redstone Arsenal, Ala. They selected for a Limited User Evaluation (LUE) a Crew Mission Station (CMS) aligned with The Open Group Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) technical standard that combines Core Avionics & Industrial Inc.’s (CoreAVI’s) compositor and graphics suite, Avalex smart display, Intel hardware, Wind River operating system, and Presagis server.
In a major production milestone called “final body join,” Boeing teams connected the major fuselage sections of the first 777X long-range, wide-body airliner in the company’s factory in Everett, Washington.
Agencies involved in the operation obtained a special exemption from the Federal Aviation Administration’s national security flight restrictions over the airspace above the event, for purposes of keeping the crowds, drivers, and race personnel safe.
Lockheed Martin Corporation successfully completed development and testing for the heatshield that will protect NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars 2020 rover during its descent to the Martian surface. After completing the flight hardware structure, Lockheed Martin tested the heatshield’s physical integrity by exposing it to ‘flight-like’ thermal conditions.