AirAsia X Expands Fleet

Malaysia low-fare, long-haul operator, AirAsia X, is adding A330-200s to its fleet in 2014 under a new deal with Airbus.

The addition of three aircraft of the type brings the airline’s total A330 order to 28 widebodies. The other A330 orders are for the -300. The airline also has signed for ten A350XWBs, the eventual A330 successor.

It is only the latest in a string of A330 orders that recently led Airbus to announce plans to increase output to ten aircraft per month. The current rate is eight aircraft per month, with output to reach widebodies in 2013. AirAsia X’s firm order is the third A330 deal Airbus already booked this year.

Airbus says that AirAsia X is taking the increased takeoff weight version to carry 288 passengers to Europe from its Kuala Lumpur hub.

In a statement, airline CEO Azran Osman Rani says that “this order reflects our positive outlook for the long haul low cost market out of Asia.” AirAsiaX currently operates nine A330-300s and two A340-500s.

Discovery, Space Station Dock, Unite a Dozen Astronauts

Discovery, nose down right, docked to the International Space Station's Harmony module.  Canada's DEXTRE "robotic hand," top center, is visible atop the U. S. Destiny lab. Japan's H-2 Transfer Vehicle Kounotori, center right, extends down. Photo Credit/NASA TV
The shuttle Discovery astronauts successfully docked with the International Space Station on Feb. 26, uniting a dozen U.S., Russian and Italian astronauts for a demanding week of assembly work, cargo transfers. spacewalks and perhaps an unprecedented glam shot of the nearly fully assembled orbiting science laboratory.

Shuttle commander Steve Lindsey guided Discovery into the forward docking port of the station's Harmony module at 2:14 p.m., EST, as the two spacecraft sailed 220 miles over Australia.

As the six shuttle astronauts closed to within 600 feet of the orbital base, Lindsey clocked the winged orbiter through a slow back flip that presented the underside heat shielding to cameras trained on Discovery by station astronauts Catherine Coleman and Paulo Nespoli. The photography, 800 exposures, was transmitted to Mission Control, where imagery experts will examine the data for signs of launch debris impact damage.



Discovery commander Steve Lindsey begins the Rotational Pitch Maneuver "back flip" that exposes the underside heat shielding on the shuttle's under side to cameras aboard the International Space Station. The photography is part of the NASA's post-launch thermal protection assessment.     Photo Credit/NASA TV

"We're on our way," Lindsey radioed Station skipper Scott Kelly as Discovery neared for her 13th and final linkup with the station."What took you so long," joked Kelly.
Discovery launched on Feb. 24, nearly four months after the first attempt to embark on her 39th and final flight.  The 11-day assembly and supply mission was stalled while the shuttle program addressed small cracks discovered in the stringer section of the external fuel tank, following a Nov. 5 launch scrub.

During the linkup shuttle astronauts Eric Boe, Mike Barratt, Nicole Stott, Al Drew, Steve Bowen and Lindsey will be hosted by Kelly, Coleman, Nespoli and the rest of the station crew, Alexander Kalari, Dmitry Kondratyev and Oleg Skripochka.
NASA's Mission Management Team will attempt to complete a damage assessment using all of the imagery collected from liftoff through the docking over the next two days.
Earlier imagery revealed a piece of external tank insulation striking the underside of the forward fuselage during Discovery's climb to orbit. However, the series of three impacts occurred well after Discovery ascended through the densest region of the atmosphere, where a strike is of the most concern.

The two crews were to close out their first day together by using the robot arms aboard Discovery and the space station to hoist the Express Logistics Rack-4 from the shuttle's cargo bay and transfer the external storage device to the starboard side of the orbiting lab's long solar power system truss.

The ELC-4 secures a bulky space station thermal control system radiator, a spare part that is considered critical to the future or the orbital outpost, following the shuttle's retirement later this year.

Cargo transfers will begin Feb. 27. Discovery carried 1,500 pounds of mid-deck supplies.

The first of two spacewalks by Drew and Bowen is scheduled to begin on Feb. 28 at 11:18 a.m., EST.
By March 1, the MMT expects to have a decision on a unique photo shoot that would place three of the station's crew in the Soyuz 24 capsule with cameras and high-definition camcorders. The Soyuz crew would back away about 600 feet on March 5 to photograph the station with European, Japanese and Russian spacecraft as well as Discovery docked.
The Soyuz crew would also pursue some engineering photo documentation of the outpost during the 75-minute excursion.

Boeing The Clear Winner Of KC-X: Pentagon

Additional capabilities beyond the mandatory requirements were not a factor in the U.S. Air Force’s selection of Boeing’s 767-based tanker, now designated the KC-46A, as the service’s KC-X replacement aerial refueler, Pentagon officials said late Feb. 24.

EADS North America’s larger Airbus A330-based KC-45A, winner of the previous KC-X competition, was the losing bidder. Officials announced the Boeing award shortly after 5 p.m. EST in Washington.

Additional “non-mandatory” requirements were only to be considered if the evaluated prices of the two proposals were within 1% of each other. “Both offerors met the mandatory requirements, and there was a greater than 1% difference in total price, so non-mandatory capabilities were evaluated, but not used in the source-selection,” Air Force Secretary Michael Donley says.

“Boeing was the clear winner,” says Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn. Under the revised source-selection criteria for the restaged KC-X competition, the price proposed by each bidder was adjusted by the Pentagon based on assessments of fleet mission effectiveness and lifecycle cost. Boeing argued its smaller 767-based tanker would consume substantially less fuel.

Boeing has been awarded a $3.5 billion fixed-price incentive contract for engineering and manufacturing development and delivery of the first 18 aircraft by 2017. When Northrop Grumman/EADS North America won an earlier KC-X competition in February 2008 it was awarded a $1.5 billion development contract, including four aircraft. “This was a completely different competition,” Donley says.

The Air Force restarted the KC-X competition in July 2010, issuing a new request for proposals (RFP) that simplified the requirements, clarified the selection criteria and reduced the financial risks to the winner. The changes were made in a bid to prevent the protests that derailed the first competition.

Boeing revised its approach after losing the first competition, dropping plans to develop an aircraft combining elements of several different 767 models and basing its “NewGen” tanker bid on a 767-200 equipped with an upgraded KC-10 refueling boom and 787 cockpit displays. The company said its price would be lower the second time around.

EADS North America stayed with its winning KC-45 design, but entered the new competition as prime contractor after Northrop withdrew from the role in March 2010, arguing the revised RFP “clearly favored a smaller tanker.” EADS’ decision to lead the bid itself likely allowed the company to reduce its proposal price.

Following the protests that dogged previous attempts to buy new tankers, as well as major criticism of the Air Force’s acquisition process, Donley says the seven-month source-selection has generated an “extensive official record” of the procedures followed. The bidders had a good understanding how the evaluation was conducted, he says, clearly anxious to avoid a protest or congressional challenge this time around.

Still, the latest competition was already marred by an embarrassing data-swap mishap last fall. In the Nov. 1, 2010, data release, Air Force officials sent files containing interim Integrated Fleet Aerial Refueling Assessment (Ifara) information to the wrong industry teams. However, in an effort to level the playing field, USAF then released to both contractors the cover sheets outlining each bidder’s performance in the Ifara model so both sides now officially have the same information (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 11).

Senate Armed Services ranking Republican John McCain (Ariz.) let it be known right after the new award was announced that he awaits the Air Force’s award explanation. “I look forward to the Air Force demonstrating over the next few weeks how today’s decision was made fairly, openly and transparently,” says the senator, who helped derail Boeing’s last tanker award by exposing Air Force and Boeing malfeasance. “Only such a process will ensure that we obtain the most capable aerial refueling tanker at the most reasonable cost.”

Abrams is Model for Army Infantry Carrier

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — U.S. Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli thinks the M1 Abrams tank is a good model on which to base the service’s upcoming Ground Combat Vehicle, since the Abrams has remained relevant and useful across a range of scenarios even though it has been in service for more than 30 years.

The Abrams “has had incremental builds” while remaining “a platform that still shows great potential for growth,” Chiarelli said Feb. 23 during a speech at the Association of the U.S. Army symposium here.

This modular, elastic approach is one that the GCV infantry carrier plans on adopting in everything from its armor kits to its electronics and communications systems. BAE Systems, General Dynamics and SAIC all are leading industry teams vying for the contract. The GCV is set to be fielded starting in 2017.

“I think we learned the right lessons” from the failed Manned Ground Vehicle, the GCV’s predecessor and one of the failures of the Army’s ambitious Future Combat Systems program, he says.

The GCV’s requirements sheet instructs industry to use only mature technologies to speed production and drive down cost, which is essentially the opposite approach from the one the Army followed in its MGV program.

Meanwhile, U.S. Army testing of modernization technologies at Ft. Bliss, Texas, this year will be “one of the most important things we’ve done in a long time,” since the service now has an entire brigade whose sole purpose is to test and evaluate experimental gear before it is procured, according to Chiarelli.

New Aircraft Financing Rules Set To Unfold

During the years in which Emirates has grown from an important regional carrier to a worldwide powerhouse, rivals have often claimed—with modest proof—that the airline merely has benefited from a range of special privileges and circumstances. Soon the accusers will have the opportunity to test their hypothesis as one of those supposed perks—cheap export financing for aircraft—goes by the wayside. And judging from Emirates’ reaction, this perk, like most of the others, appears to count for less than meets the eye.

“Export credit agency (ECA) financing accounts for only about 20% of our fleet,” says Emirates President Tim Clark. The carrier has raised about $22 billion to purchase aircraft from the commercial markets and is exploring new sources, including Islamic financing. “ECA financing is a last resort for us because it tends to be more expensive,” Clark says.

And it became even more expensive as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) formally adopted new rules on export credit financing on Feb. 25. The new Aircraft Sector Understanding (ASU) will mitigate the so-called “home market rule,” which made airlines from the U.S. and the Airbus-producing countries of the U.K., France, Germany and Spain ineligible for financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States or European export credit support agencies.

Airlines from these countries contend the home-market rule tilted the playing field toward competitors not subject to the rule and allowed successful airlines like Emirates and other Persian Gulf carriers access to ECA financing. “We are at a total disadvantage and have appealed to the OECD, the European Commission and the German government to end this unprecedented advantage for airlines from these countries,” says Thomas Kropp, senior vice president for international relations and government affairs at Lufthansa.

To allay some of these concerns, the new ASU does not eliminate the home-market rule but uses a formula based on an airline’s credit rating to determine whether it can be eligible for cheaper financing. These new rules will make it considerably more expensive for carriers like Emirates to use ECA support, while preserving access to more favorable financing for airlines from less-affluent countries, explains Scott Scherer, senior vice president for strategic regulatory policy at the Boeing Capital Corp. “The new rules go some way toward leveling the playing field for both airlines and manufacturers,” he says.

Although Emirates’ Clark dismisses the importance of ECA financing for the airline, he notes European and North American airlines that lobbied their governments to push for the OECD rule change have long been claiming Emirates benefits from unfair advantages. These have included allegations that the carrier gets subsidized fuel from the government of Dubai and does not pay fees at its home airport, charges Lufthansa’s Kropp backed away from as “impossible to prove.”

“A group of airlines, mainly European, have used every trick in the book to try and contain us,” says Clark.

This protectionist impulse is extending to landing rights, particularly in two countries, Germany and Canada. Emirates has sought access to the Berlin market but has been denied. Germany, under the terms of its air service agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), allows each airline from the region to serve four cities in Germany with unlimited frequency or capacity.

Lufthansa says the current agreement meets consumer demand for travel between Germany and the UAE. Emirates currently flies to Frankfurt, Munich, Dusseldorf and Hamburg with a total of 49 flights per week. Lufthansa operates 14 weekly flights to Dubai. “If Emirates requests to exchange one of these four destinations with Berlin, they would find no opposition,” says Lufthansa’s Kropp. “Qatar Airlines has chosen to cut service to another city in order to serve Berlin,” he notes.

In Canada, the situation has escalated to a trade dispute. The bilateral air service agreement between Canada and the UAE allows Etihad Airways and Emirates to operate three flights a week to Canada; both have chosen to serve Toronto. Emirates wants to serve other cities in Canada, including Vancouver and Calgary, without giving up any of its Toronto service.

Negotiations hit a fever pitch last fall when the closure of Camp Mirage, a military base in the UAE used to support Canadian forces in Afghanistan, was linked to the air services talks. “Canada could not accept that a commercial request for landing rights was linked to use of Camp Mirage,” says Melissa Lantsman, speaking for Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon. “What the UAE was offering in exchange was not in the best interests of Canada.”

Canada’s transport ministry argues that the Canada-UAE market is well-served by the current agreement. “The rights under the current Canada-UAE air transport agreement meet the market demands of travelers whose origin and destination is either Canada or the UAE,” says Transport Canada official Maryse Durette.

And this could be the rub. “Few Canadians actually travel to Dubai as a destination and even fewer residents of Dubai travel to Canada,” says Air Canada CEO Calin Rovinescu, adding that further liberalization could result in “the UAE dumping seats into the Canadian market.” Even Robert Crandall, former chairman of American Airlines, calls this protection of the market “wise public policy on the part of Canada.”

“Canada is worried that it will be little more than a spoke to hubs in the UAE,” says William Swelbar, an economist in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Swelbar likens the challenge posed by Emirates to the battle between network airlines and low-cost carriers in the U.S. in the 1990s. “Emirates is taking advantage of its low costs and geography to force incumbents either to cut costs and get efficient or go out of business,” he argues.

Emirates’ cost advantage is partly attributable to the lower operating costs of a younger fleet, but also to lower labor costs. Deutsche Bank estimates that personnel costs at Emirates are 16% of total expenses, compared with 33% at Air France-KLM, 24% at British Airways and 22% at Lufthansa. Yet, adjusted operating margins at Emirates are 5.7%, comparing favorably with its European peers, says analyst Michael Linenberg.

But concerns that North American and European carriers could be run out of the sky by Emirates are overblown, according to a report by the Royal Bank of Scotland. Dubai’s geography gives it an advantage in traffic to South Asia from North America, as well as between North Asia and Africa. European carriers, however, have the geographical advantage for traffic between Europe and China, and the Europe-India market is well developed, notes RBS analyst Andrew Lobbenberg.

Ultimately, it boils down to fending off competition at all costs, says Clark. “Protecting domestic markets simply does not make sense in the 21st century,” he says. “We’ve been hearing these allegations for the last 18 years, but there’s plenty of flying out there for everyone, and we’re not going away.”

Discovery Soars On Final Mission

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Discovery Soars On Final Mission

Feb 25, 2011

 

By Mark Carreau

HOUSTON — Shuttle Discovery thundered away from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the last time on Feb. 24, piercing the sunny Florida skies with the final pieces of the International Space Station (ISS) and a legacy already rich in achievement. NASA’s oldest orbiter at 27 years, Discovery lifted off on its 39th flight at 4:53 p.m. EST and climbed steeply on a northeasterly trajectory that will lead to a 13th docking with the orbiting science laboratory on Feb. 26 at 2:16 p.m. EST. Liftoff came slightly later than planned after U.S. Air Force technicians corrected a glitch in a range safety computer at the last minute. Over the 11- to 12-day STS-133 mission, Discovery’s six astronauts plan to equip the station with a storage compartment and an external platform securing a spare thermal control system radiator. The shuttle carries five tons of cargo, including Robonaut 2, an experimental humanoid developed by NASA in partnership with General Motors. Mission commander Steve Lindsey’s crew includes pilot Eric Boe, Mike Barratt, Nicole Stott, Alvin Drew and Steve Bowen. Within hours of their linkup, the shuttle crew plans to secure the logistics carrier on the lab’s starboard truss using the station’s robot arm. On Feb. 28, Drew and Bowen are slated to embark on the first of two spacewalks to retrieve and vent a station pump motor that failed in late July, crippling half the cooling system. The 21-ft.-long equipment compartment will be hoisted from Discovery’s payload bay and attached to the Earth-facing docking port of the station’s Unity module on March 1, also using robot arm operations. The second spacewalk is scheduled for a day later, and Discovery’s crew will aim for a March 5 departure and return to Kennedy on March 7. Midway through the shuttle’s stay at the station, mission managers may add a day to the flight. The extension would permit three of the Expedition 27 crewmembers to board their 24S Soyuz spacecraft with cameras and back away for a space station portrait. Using cameras and high-definition camcorders, the Soyuz crew would record the outpost with a full house of docked spacecraft. The visitors include Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft, the newly arrived Automated Transfer Vehicle, and Japan’s H-II Transfer Vehicle, as well as Discovery (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 23). Discovery followed Columbia and Challenger off the Rockwell International assembly line in Palmdale, Calif., in late 1983. Named for a pair of historic sailing ships, one commanded by Henry Hudson in the early 1600s to examine Hudson Bay and the other captained by James Cook to explore the South Pacific in the 1770s, Discovery took flight for the first time on Aug. 30, 1984. Discovery and its crews led the United States back into space following the Columbia and Challenger tragedies in 2003 and 1986. During a 1990 mission, Discovery launched the Hubble Space Telescope. In 1994, Russian Sergei Krikalev joined Discovery’s crew for a mission that symbolized a post-Cold War thaw in relations between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. In 1998, Discovery ushered 77-year-old U.S. Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) back into space. Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth as a Mercury astronaut in 1962. A dozen previous station assembly flights have occupied Discovery’s twilight years.

What The Boeing Tanker Win Means

The question sweeping the U.S. defense establishment is: How low did Boeing go?

Nearly three years after the U.S. Air Force’s selection of a Northrop Grumman/EADS A330-based tanker was found by government auditors to be flawed, the service has now chosen a Boeing design to replace its aging KC-135 refuelers. The Air Force based its selection largely on life-cycle price, and Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn says: “Boeing was a clear winner.”

Three years ago, Boeing’s price was roughly $8 million more per aircraft than EADS’s and its development price was higher, according to sources close to the duel. Right up until the source selection announcement last week, many defense analysts suggested EADS would underbid Boeing in order to establish a final assembly facility for Airbus aircraft in the U.S.

“It is very fortunate for Boeing that they got a second chance because their first bid was not competitive,” according to one defense industry analyst. John Young, the Pentagon procurement chief during the last source selection, says, “The delay [in fielding the aircraft] is unfortunate and it clearly led both teams to sharpen their pencils.”

The Air Force’s decision to select Boeing will likely sidestep a protracted debate with Congress; Boeing supporters on Capitol Hill were poised to fight on the company’s behalf, further delaying USAF’s ability to field new tankers. Boeing’s lobby in Congress is far more substantial than EADS’s, which mainly relied on lawmakers from Alabama, where the A330 was to be built, for its political influence.

Dennis Muilenburg, president of Boeing Defense Space and Security, says this KC-X proposal had a “one Boeing” tactic, including a marriage of its culturally diverse defense and commercial businesses. “We worked this as one integrated Boeing company,” he says, adding that this approach drove efficiencies and value to for the most recent proposal.

During the 2008 competition, Boeing was criticized for seeking too much profit, thus allowing for a then-Northrop Grumman/EADS team to underbid. Also, Boeing Commercial Airplanes was seen as uncooperative with government cost estimators who wanted pricing details on the 767 platform.

Boeing protested, leading government auditors to find flaws in the source selection. During this period, company officials were aggressive, publicly taking their top customer to task. Internally, however, Boeing did some soul-searching. “That was always the fear—that [EADS] could underbid again,” says one former Boeing official. “This is the last major USAF acquisition program in the foreseeable future,” and this tanker work was viewed by some in the company as a must win.  

The Pentagon’s decision—if it withstands a possible protest from EADS—could repair the chasm in the Boeing/Air Force relationship. It also shores up not only decades of business with its top defense customer as military budgets begin to flatten but also steady work for the waning 767 production line. Perhaps more critical to the commercial side of Boeing, the win stunts its European commercial rival’s efforts to establish a stateside manufacturing facility for airliners.

A win for either company would have been considered strategic—EADS was hoping to substantially boost its U.S. revenue and, perhaps more critical for the future of its commercial business, was its plan to build an A330 final assembly facility in Mobile, Ala. Since establishing its North American arm in 2003, EADS has had a goal of aggressively growing its U.S. business, and winning KC-X was the largest single step in that strategy. EADS is likely to pursue other Pentagon business, including some smaller helicopter programs, but nothing that would bring with it the scale and prestige of U.S. livery on an A330-based tanker.

EADS North America officials were due receive a debriefing Feb. 28on the loss. Board Chairman Ralph Crosby said his company would not protest the decision unless there is an obvious error on the part of Air Force acquisition. EADS North America officials “expressed disappointment and concern” about the decision. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz says he hopes this decision means people will “stop talking about it” and get on with fielding a tanker on schedule. The original Boeing lease—offered in 2002—called for tankers to be delivered in 2006. Investigations into the deal found a bloated price, a situation that kicked off the more recent competitions for a supplier.

A loss for Boeing would have been a blow, ending its five-decade monopoly on the U.S. refueling business as the Air Force’s interest in C-17s continues to be nonexistent. Boeing’s other defense hurdles include a downturn in missile defense opportunities and a recent guided weapon loss to Raytheon.

Pressure is now likely to mount for EADS North America to consider a U.S. acquisition to expand its stateside market share. However, uncertainty over the company’s shareholding structure and an anticipated management shuffle next year could further hinder efforts to execute its U.S. expansion anytime soon.

Though EADS has beat Boeing in previous competitions in Australia, Saudi Arabia, the U.K. and the United Arab Emirates, other countries may now turn away from the A330-based option in favor of the 767 tanker, now called the KC-46A, to achieve commonality with the U.S. fleet.

And, with 767 business established for at least 13 lots through the U.S. buy, the platform, though older than its A330 rival, could continue to challenge Airbus in the freighter market.

Boeing’s $3.5 billion contract covers the development of the system, and purchase of 18 aircraft (including those for test purposes), which will be fielded by 2017. The buy of 179 aircraft is estimated at up to $30 billion, Lynn says. Ashton Carter, the Pentagon procurement chief, says the contract will be signed soon, allowing work to begin smartly. If a protest is launched, a stop-work order will likely be issued immediately in accordance with procurement rules.

The development contract is fixed-price, a shift from the previous competition. However the process does carry risk. Production and flight-testing will be concurrent, says Jean Chamberlin, vice president of Boeing’s tanker program; if technical problems arise in flight-test, fixes may have to be retrofitted onto the aircraft. Although a different design, Boeing experienced substantial flight-test problems with its Italian 767-based tanker.

Production is slated to start in 2015, two years ahead of the first delivery. Initial flight test is also slated for 2015, Chamberlin says. The Pentagon has restructured the Joint Strike Fighter program twice in as many years to reduce concurrency. Though this stealthy fighter is more complex than a modified 767, lessons from JSF and many past programs have pointed to the benefits of discovering flaws in flight-test prior to production.

At the suggestion that Boeing bought into the program, risking its ability to make profit, Muilenburg said “We submitted an aggressive but responsible bid.”

If the decision manages to withstand scrutiny, and neither Congress or the protest reveal problems in the procurement process, this will be a pivotal step forward for an Air Force procurement corps beleaguered by missteps. They began, largely, with the Air Force/Boeing plan nearly 10 years ago to lease 767-based tankers, and continued with a problem in a competition to buy combat search-and-rescue helicopters among others. Perhaps the KC-X decision could be a fitting end to a decade of paralysis for Air Force weapons buyers.

With Robert Wall in London.

European ATV-2 Docks With ISS

The European Space Agency’s Johannes Kepler Automated Transfer Vehicle-2 (ATV-2) successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) at midmorning on Feb. 24.

The ATV-2, launched Feb. 16, linked with the station’s aft docking port at 10:59 a.m. EST, as the two spacecraft sailed 220 mi. over the Atlantic Ocean, southwest of the Liberian coast. The linkup was delayed several minutes to correctly align a video tracking device.

The Johannes Kepler launched from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, with about seven tons of propellant, dry goods and life support equipment. At the station’s aft port, the Johannes Kepler is responsible for the station’s reboost and some attitude control. The first station maneuver with the ATV-2 is scheduled for Feb. 25, 2011.

The reboost will position the station for the March 16 departure and landing of the Soyuz 24S with station Expedition 26 crew members Alexander Kaleri, Oleg Skripochka and Scott Kelly, and the April 1 arrival of the Soyuz 26S with Expedition 27 crewmembers Andrey Borisenko, Alexander Samokutyaev and Ron Garan.

Meanwhile, following its successful liftoff Feb. 24, shuttle Discovery is scheduled to dock with the space station on Feb. 26 shortly after 2 p.m. EST.

Discovery will deliver an equipment storage module, an external rack to hold spare parts and five tons of research gear and other supplies.

Space Station To Be Run As National Lab

With the lengthy assembly of the International Space Station drawing to a close, NASA is moving to extend use of the orbiting laboratory to other federal agencies, academia and the private sector through a fast-paced competition to select a non-profit manager for oversight of the broad, cutting-edge research agenda envisioned by Congress under a National Laboratory designation.

The selection of an ISS National Lab oversight organization, which NASA intends to announce on May 31, is among the latest signs the six-person orbital outpost is reaching maturity after a dozen years of construction.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) second Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-2), a vital part of the station’s post-shuttle era supply chain, docked with the ISS on Feb. 24, about 6 hr. before shuttle Discovery lifted off on the first of three final missions to finish the assembly task.

The STS-133 mission, marking Discovery’s final flight, will equip the station’s U.S. segment with a stowage module primarily for research gear. Endeavour’s STS-134 mission to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is set for a late April departure. STS-135, a recently manifested but unfunded supply mission aboard Atlantis, would bring the outfitting phase to a close this summer.

“We are trying to maximize the value to the American public for the investments that have been made in the ISS,” says Mark Uhran, assistant associate administrator for the ISS. “We see a potential in science, engineering and commercial development. This will be an important step in making sure that productivity is realized.”

More than 100 representatives from prospective management organizations and research groups participated in the NASA ISS National Lab forum in December. Under a Feb. 14 Cooperative Agreement Notice, the agency intends to fund the management organization at $15 million annually.

NASA seeks a non-profit manager prepared to allocate at least some of the funding to expand as well as prioritize research outside of space exploration in human health, biology, physical and materials science, commercial new technologies, Earth observation and science-relatededucation.

The oversight organization will be expected to broker station resources. Applicants will be required to “respond” to hypothetical disruptions grounded in real-world possibilities, including the sudden thermal control system shutdown that hobbled the ISS in August and the prospect of a “major discovery” that merits a sudden diversion of most resources.

“The future productivity of the station will be based on organizations other than NASA.” said Uhran. “It’s extremely important we get this process right.”

The station’s National Laboratory designation grew out of the NASA Authorization Act of 2005. That and subsequent legislation sets aside half of the station’s U.S. operational segment for use by non-NASA researchers. The segment includes NASA’s Destiny lab, half the volumes of the European Columbus and Japanese Kibo labs, as well as external research platforms.

NASA will furnish transportation for national lab experiments, primarily aboard the planned SpaceX Dragon and Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Cygnus commercial spacecraft, plus electricity, thermal control and about 1,000 hr. of astronaut time annually.

The ISS National Lab manager will be expected to ramp up quickly as the Dragon and Cygnus initiate the transportation services over the next 12-15 months, according to Uhran.

Though controversial throughout its costly early development, the ISS has been transformed into a symbol of U.S.-fostered global cooperation.

The White House and Congress, along with NASA’s Russian, European, Japanese and Canadian partners, have expressed support for an extension of station operations from 2016 until at least 2020.

President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget anticipates a steady increase in funding for station operations, to nearly $3.2 billion in 2016 from $2.3 billion this year.

Meanwhile, ESA and their industry counterparts hope the successful launching of the ATV-2 will encourage member states to provide generous funding for ISS when they meet next month to approve financing for the extension.

Together with Japan’s H-II Transfer Vehicle and Russia’s Progress, the ATV will shoulder station supply duties until U.S. commercial supply vehicles enter service. Four more ATVs are currently planned.

Germany, Europe’s biggest station backer, estimates at least €380 million per year ($521 million) will be needed for the station in the next decade, including money to purchase an additional two ATVs to cover provision of another five years of NASA services, and to bankroll ATV design enhancements.

First Production F-35 Flies

The first production F-35, CTOL aircraft AF-6, made an hour-long first flight today (Feb. 25) from Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth plant, flown by test pilot Bill Gigliotti.


Photo: Tom Harvey, Lockheed Martin

AF-6 and AF-7, the second F-35A in the two-aircraft LRIP 1 low-rate initial production batch, will be ferried to Edwards AFB, where they will be used to assess the maturity and suitability of the initial flight envelope and mission-system functionality to begin training.


Photo: David Drais, Lockheed Martin

AF-6 would have flown earlier, but the post-production decision to use both it and AF-7 in the behind-schedule flight-test program meant the aircraft had first to be instrumented. Still, I am sure someone will can us how late this particular milestone is.

Meanwhile, here's the video:


Video: Lockheed Martin

Inside Embraer's KC-390 Tanker/Transport

Embraer has frozen the configuration of its KC-390 tanker/transport and plans to begin the joint definition phase in May, after the Brazilian air force - which is paying for development - has made the final decisions on the major suppliers.


Photos and graphics: Embraer

Myself, Steve Trimble of Flightglobal and John Reed of military.com got a chance on Feb. 22 to look over the full-scale cabin mockup in Hangar X-30 at the air force's CTA (Comando-Geral de Technologia Aerospacial), adjacent to Embraer's plant in Sao Jose do Campos.

The KC-390 is a big aircraft; the biggest Embaer has designed and bigger than the aircraft it is being developed to compete against - Lockheed Martin's C-130J. The cargo compartment is 17.75m long, compared with 16.9m for the stretched C-130J-30; 3.45m wide (vs 3.12m); 2.9m high forward of the wing (vs 2.74m) and 3.2m aft of the wing to make it easier to load/unload vehicles via the ramp.



One unusual feature of the mockup which we could not understand and for which I don't yet have a full explanation - a movable pressure bulkhead that retracts garage door-style into the roof and descends to seal the cargo cabin. When down, this sloping bulkhead reduces compartment length to 12.78m at the ceiling. We couldn't think of another airlifter with this feature.

The KC-390's design has changed significantly since 2007, when Embraer first revealed its studies of a military airlifter, then called the C-390, based heavily on its Embraer 190 regional airliner. At that point, using the wings, tail, engines and avionics of the E-190, the aircraft had a design payload of 19 tonnes.

C-390 (left) vs KC-390

Today, the KC-390 is an all-new aircraft with a design maximum payload of 23t, comfortably exceeding the C-130J's 21.8t. Range is 2,600nm with a 14.7t payload, 2,000nm with the 19t required by the Brazilian air force, and 1,400nm with the full 23t. Maximum cruise is Mach 0.8 and altitude 36,000ft.

Recent changes to the design have included increasing wing span in response to customer requests that the KC-390 be able to refuel helicopters, as well as fighters. This requires the ability to refuel at speeds down to 120kt and altitudes below 10,000ft. Wing span is now 35.06m. 

As a tanker, the KC-390 has two underwing hose-and-drogue pods and a refueling probe (or receptacle). Some potential customers want to equip the aircraft with a refueling boom. Embraer is looking at a removable boom that could be mounted on the ramp, but hasn't settled on a workable design yet.



The KC-390 is scheduled to fly in mid-2014 and enter service with the Brazilian air force in 2016, and Embraer says the program is on track. It's hard not to walk around the mockup and think about the challenge Embraer has taken on developing an aircraft of this size and capability - but the company says it's aware where the risks are and has taken steps to invest early in reducing them.

Navair...Early 20th Century Style

Via Northrop Grumman:A replica of the Curtiss A-1 Triad, the U.S. Navy’s first aircraft, alighted briefly from San Diego Bay on Feb. 11 to mark the start of the yearlong celebration of the centennial of U.S. naval aviation. [Watch for an Aviation Week & Space Technology special report in April.]Rebuilt specifically for the commemorative event, the Triad represents the aircraft flown by Theodore Gordon Ellyson, the first naval officer designated as an aviator. Trained at the Glenn Curtiss Aviation Camp at North Island, San Diego, Ellyson became Naval Aviator No. 1. in April 1911. A month later the Navy commissioned Curtiss to build the Triad at a cost of $5,500, marking the official start of naval aviation. Ellyson later made history in November 1912 when he made the Navy’s first successful catapult launch from a stationary coal barge at the Washington Navy Yard in DC.Photo: Alan 

The F-35 First Introduction

Lockheed Martin's first production F-35A, aircraft AF-6, made its hour-long first flight on Feb. 25, 2011, from Fort 

Lockheed Martin's first production F-35A, aircraft AF-6, made its hour-long first flight on Feb. 25, 2011, from Fort Worth, Texas, flown by test pilot Bill Gigliotti. Lockheed Martin photo by David Drais.Worth, Texas, flown by test pilot Bill Gigliotti. Lockheed Martin photo by Tom Harvey.



Lockheed Martin's first production F-35A, aircraft AF-6, made its hour-long first flight on Feb. 25, 2011, from Fort Worth, Texas, flown by test pilot Bill Gigliotti. Lockheed Martin photo by David Drais.

Boeing Wins Restaged U.S. Air Force KC-X

Overturning its previous selection, the U.S. Air Force has selected Boeing to supply its KC-X replacement aerial-refueling tanker. The company has been awarded a $3.5 billion fixed-price incentive contract for development and delivery of the first 18 of a planned 179 767-based NewGen tankers to replace U.S. Air Force Boeing KC-135s.

EADS North America, with Northrop Grumman as prime contractor, won the first KC-X competition in February 2008 with the KC-45A, based on the Airbus A330-200 and similar to the KC-30 multi-role tanker/transport under development for Australia. The program was halted in September 2008 after a Boeing contract protest was upheld.

The Air Force restarted the KC-X competition in July 2010, issuing a new request for proposals (RFP) that simplified the requirements, clarified the selection criteria and reduced the financial risks to the winner. The changes were made in a bid to prevent the protests that derailed the first competition.

Boeing revised its approach after losing the first competition, dropping plans to develop an aircraft combining elements of several different 767 models and basing its “NewGen” tanker bid on a 767-200 equipped with an upgraded KC-10 refueling boom and 787 cockpit displays. The company said its price would be lower the second time around.

EADS North America stayed with its winning KC-45 design, but entered the new competition as prime contractor after Northrop withdrew from the role in March 2010, arguing the revised RFP “clearly favored a smaller tanker.” EADS’s decision to lead the bid itself likely allowed the company to reduce its proposal price.

The Air Force substantially revamped its source selection process after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) upheld Boeing’s protest over losing the 2008 competition to Northrop Grumman and EADS. The GAO ruled the Air Force did not properly assess the relative technical and operational merits of the rival tankers.

The new RFP simplified the specification to 372 mandatory pass/fail requirements the proposals had to meet to be considered. Proposed prices were then adjusted by the Pentagon based on assessments of operational effectiveness and ownership cost. Only if the resulting total evaluated prices were within 1% of each other would the Pentagon then consider each proposal’s ability to provide additional capabilities.

A long-shot bid from U.S. Aerospace, offering a variant of the Ukrainian Antonov An-70, was rejected after it missed the deadline to submit a proposal. The company’s protest was dismissed by the GAO in November 2010.

Discovery Soars On Final Mission

Shuttle Discovery thundered away from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the last time on Feb. 24, piercing the sunny Florida skies with the final pieces of the International Space Station (ISS) and a legacy already rich in achievement.

NASA’s oldest orbiter at 27 years, Discovery lifted off on her 39th flight at 4:53 p.m. EST and climbed steeply on a northeasterly trajectory that will lead to a 13th docking with the orbiting science laboratory on Feb. 26 at 2:16 p.m. EST.

Liftoff came slightly later than planned after U.S. Air Force technicians corrected a glitch in a range safety computer at the last minute.

“We are clean on all systems,” Mission Control Center-Houston radioed the crew at 5:06 p.m. “We are not tracking anything.”

Over the 11- to 12-day STS-133 mission, Discovery’s six astronauts plan to equip the station with a storage compartment and an external platform securing a spare thermal control system radiator. The shuttle carries five tons of cargo, including Robonaut 2, an experimental humanoid developed by NASA in partnership with General Motors.

Mission commander Steve Lindsey’s crew includes pilot Eric Boe, Mike Barratt, Nicole Stott, Alvin Drew and Steve Bowen.

Within hours of their linkup, the shuttle crew plans to secure the logistics carrier on the lab’s starboard truss using the station’s robot arm. On Feb. 28, Drew and Bowen are slated to embark on the first of two spacewalks to retrieve and vent a station pump motor that failed in late July, crippling half the cooling system.

The 21-ft.-long equipment compartment will be hoisted from Discovery’s payload bay and attached to the Earth-facing docking port of the station’s Unity module on March 1, also using robot arm operations.

The second spacewalk is scheduled for a day later, and Discovery’s crew will aim for a March 5 departure and return to Kennedy on March 7.

Midway through the shuttle’s stay at the station, mission managers may add a day to the flight. The extension would permit three of the Expedition 27 crew members to board their 24S Soyuz spacecraft with cameras and back away for a space station portrait. Using cameras and high-definition camcorders, the Soyuz crew would record the outpost with a full house of docked spacecraft. The visitors include Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft, the newly arrived Automated Transfer Vehicle, Japan’s H-II Transfer Vehicle as well as Discovery (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 23).

Europe’s ATV-2, the Johannes Kepler, docked with the station’s aft docking port six hours before Discovery’s departure, removing a potential obstacle to the liftoff. The freighter launched from Kourou, French Guiana, on Feb. 16, with seven tons of propellant, dry goods and other supplies.

Discovery followed Columbia and Challenger off the Rockwell International assembly line in Palmdale, Calif., in late 1983.

Named for a pair of historic sailing ships, one commanded by Henry Hudson in the early 1600s to examine Hudson Bay and the other captained by James Cook to explore the South Pacific in the 1770s, Discovery took flight for the first time on Aug. 30, 1984.

Discovery and her crews led the United States back into space following the Columbia and Challenger tragedies in 2003 and 1986. During a 1990 mission, Discovery launched the Hubble Space Telescope. In 1994, Russian Sergei Krikalev joined Discovery’s crew for a mission that symbolized a post Cold War thaw in relations between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union.

In 1998, Discovery ushered 77-year-old U.S. Sen. John Glenn back into space. Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth as a Mercury astronaut in 1962.

A dozen previous station assembly flights have occupied Discovery’s twilight years. The STS-133 mission was stalled by a launch pad hydrogen leak on Nov. 5 and the subsequent discovery of a separation in the insulating foam that jackets the top of the external tank (ET). Additional troubleshooting revealed small cracks in the underlying metal on the ET’s stringer section.

Engineers traced the damage to an unusually brittle decade-old stock of metal alloy, forces resident in the assembly of the tank’s subcomponents and the structural contractions that accompanied the chilled propellant flow on Nov. 5. The cracks were repaired and the stringers fortified with “radius blocks” to prevent future cracking. The fuel tanks assigned to the final flights of Endeavour and Atlantis are receiving the same modifications.

Currently, Endeavour is set to lift off for the station in late April on STS-134, a two week mission to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. Though unfunded, NASA plans to launch Atlantis between late June and August on STS-135, an 11-day station supply mission.

Embraer Unveils EMB-145 for Indian AEW&

SAO JOSE DOS CAMPOS, Brazil — Embraer has unveiled the first of three EMB-145s ordered by India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) as testbeds for an indigenously developed airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system.

The first aircraft, equipped with the antenna structure for the phased-array radar under development by DRDO’s Bengalaru-based Center for Air Borne Systems (CABS), will be flight tested at Embraer before its scheduled delivery to India in August.

Once delivered, CABS will begin integration of the AEW&C mission system, which includes the active, electronically scanned array radar, electronic support measures, satellite communications, datalinks and operator workstations.

The full configuration is expected to fly next year, says V.K. Saraswat, director general of DRDO. The three EMB-145 AEW&C testbeds will be used for a range of tests including cold-weather trails in Alaska, he says.

Saraswat says the indigenous AEW&C development program has tough milestones to meet, but is on schedule. The building blocks of the mission system are undergoing simulation testing in the laboratory and rooftop tests of the S-band radar are under way at CABS, he says, adding, “The system is ready to take to the aircraft and begin integration.”

Although the antenna is mounted above the fuselage like the Saab Erieye phased-array radar on Embraer’s existing EMB-145 AEW&C, the Indian aircraft incorporates several improvements. These include an in-flight refueling probe; a new electrical generation system with a second auxiliary power unit for the mission suite; and a new cooling system.

Following development, the three aircraft are scheduled to become operational with the Indian air force under a two-pronged approach to deploying an AEW&C capability, Saraswat says.

This involves the purchase of Ilyushin Il-76s equipped with Elta’s Phalcon phased-array radar, now operational with the air force, while the indigenous AEW&C system is being developed in parallel.

As a next step, India plans to follow the three EMB-145s with development of an indigenous AEW&C system with the active-array radar mounted in a stationary rotodome. The platform for this system has not been selected, Saraswat says.

Although externally similar to Erieye, the antenna for India’s radar is shorter and deeper as it includes modules for the identification friend or foe system along the bottom of the transmit/receive array, says the director of CABS and the AEW&C program manager.

Safran To Supply A320NEO Nacelles

Safran will create an aircraft wiring joint venture with China’s Comac and supply the engine nacelle for the Airbus A320NEO family in moves that will reinforce the French engine and aero-equipment manufacturer’s position in the future narrowbody sector.

The Comac venture, announced during the recent release of 2010 full-year results, will be charged with designing, developing, producing and supporting electrical wiring interconnection systems on Comac’s C919 and, presumably, with shaving weight from the aircraft. Comac subsidiary Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing will have a 51% share in the venture, which will be located in Shanghai, and Safran’s Labinal wiring affiliate, 49%.

The deal follows a January agreement with Airbus to supply end-to-end fuselage wiring systems for the life of the Airbus A380 ultra-widebody program under a plan by the European airframer to streamline the supply chain for the aircraft and reduce lead times and costs.

The Comac move comes after the selection last November of the Leap-X engine, produced by the Safran-General Electric partnership CFM International, for the C919, and the creation of an avionics venture between GE and Comac in January. The Chinese airframer has 100 orders for the C919 and forecasts sales of more than 2,000 units over the next 20 years, although analysts expect the A320NEO and a likely upgrade to the Boeing 737 family to eat into this market.

Safran also revealed that Naxcelle, another Safran-GE company, will supply integrated engine nacelle packages for the Leap-X engines that will equip the A320NEO family. Airbus says it expects to have several hundred orders for the A320NEO by the Paris Air Show in June and expects to sell 4,000 aircraft over the life of the program.

The nacelle package already was due to be supplied for the C919 as part of the Leap-X scope of supply.

Discoverya??s Fueling Underway

NASA’s Launch Control Center team began to fuel the shuttle Discovery early Feb. 24 in preparation for the spacecraft’s 39th and final flight, while forecasters improved an already favorable forecast for a late afternoon liftoff.

Discovery’s long-delayed 11-day assembly and supply mission to the International Space Station is scheduled to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 4:50 p.m. EST. The shuttle’s three-hour tanking operation got under-way as scheduled at 7:25 a.m. EST.

The latest forecast called for a 90% chance of favorable conditions at the launch site, up from the previous 80%. There was a slight chance of a low cloud deck that could force a scrub.

Meanwhile, NASA’s Mission Management Team was closely following the impending rendezvous and docking of the European Space Agency’s Johannes Kepler Automated Transfer Vehicle-2. The cargo freighter, launched Feb. 16, was on a trajectory for an automated linkup with the station’s aft docking port at 10:46 a.m. EST, or about the time Discovery’s external fuel tank was to be fully loaded.

Mission commander Steve Lindsey, pilot Eric Boe and mission specialists Mike Barratt, Nicole Stott, Al Drew and Steve Bowen are to climb aboard Discovery at 1:35 p.m. EST.

The last time Discovery reached terminal count was on Nov. 5, when the launch bid was halted by a hydrogen leak. Subsequently, technicians found a long separation in the external fuel tank’s (ET) foam insulation and underlying cracks in the metal surface of the ET’s stringer region. Leak repairs and a lengthy troubleshooting followed to identify the cause of the metal cracks and develop a modification to prevent further damage.

Discovery’s astronauts will deliver and equip the station with an equipment storage module and an external spare parts platform. The shuttle is loaded with five tons of supplies and research gear, including Robonaut 2. The humanoid robot will undergo human compatibility evaluations by future space station crews.

Drew and Bowen will embark on a pair of maintenance spacewalks outside the station. The spacewalkers intend to recover and position a failed external thermal control system pump for a return to Earth later this year aboard shuttle Atlantis.

GE's new 747 flying testbed

Q: What’s the best replacement for a 747?

A: A 747, of course. (According to General Electric’s Victorville Flight Test Operations)

Still in its JAL colors, the former JA8910 will be converted into GE's next FTB. Note the current FTB in the background. (GE/Jason Chapman)

General Electric will modify a former JAL Boeing 747-400 into a new flying testbed as part of plans to upgrade its test facilities in preparation for Leap-X and other next generation engines. The ex-Japan Airlines aircraft, acquired in December 2010, will be converted into its new role under a $60 million plan announced by GE on Feb 24.

First flown in 1994, the CF6-80C2-powered 747-400 is a veritable spring chicken compared to the current 747-100 flying testbed which GE bought in 1992. The former Pan Am 747-100 celebrated its 40^th anniversary in 2009 and is the oldest version of the 747 still flying in the U.S. and the fifth oldest in the world.

 

Old favorite - dramatic study of N747GE rotating at Victorville with CFM56-7BE engine in No.2 test position. (GE/CFM)

Conversion work will include modifications to the wing and strut to accommodate experimental engines of varying size and weight in the No.2 inboard engine position on the left wing. The work is expected to take around two years, meaning the older 747 will soldier on until 2013 when the new aircraft will take over to lead the Leap-X test program.  

GE test crews will exchange the 'Classic' 747-100's electromechanical flightdeck for the 747-400's Arinc 429-based avionics in 2013. (Guy Norris)

And what fate awaits the venerable testbed post 2013? GE says it is looking at “all the options” which includes parting out, selling to ‘Hollywood’ for possible use in the film and television world, or passing it on to a museum or learning center. Given its vintage and the fact that the number of overhaul shops offering routine JT9D servicing has dwindled to just two, it seems the dreaded ‘parting out’ option becomes less attractive with each passing year.



The ghost of airlines past - traces of N747GE's Pan Am history linger on in the decor of the untouched first class section seating (Guy Norris).