SpaceShipTwo heading for 2008 test flight

The era of private space travel is another step closer to reality with Virgin Galactic revealing designs for the craft set to become the flagship of the world's first spaceline. Based on SpaceShipOne, which claimed the $10 million Ansari X Prize in October 2004 by successfully becoming the first private manned spacecraft to exceed an altitude of 328,000 feet twice within the span of a 14 day period, SpaceShipTwo and its carrier aircraft WhiteKnightTwo are now approaching completion at Scaled Composites in Mojave, California, with flight testing set to get underway towards the middle of this year.

Designed as an environmentally benign space launch system, SpaceShipTwo is the world’s largest, all carbon composite aircraft and will be capable of carrying eight astronauts or other payloads into sub-orbital space flight. In order to achieve its environmental goals, Virgin is working with Pratt and Whitney - manufacturers of the PW308A engines which power the WK2 launch aircraft - to develop a bio-fuel solution for the system.

“Virgin Galactic produced a demanding output specification for the world’s first private human and payload space launch system. This required us to produce a safe but flexible design capable of multiple applications in new market sectors. I am confident that these vehicles, now in an advanced stage of construction, will achieve just that", said Burt Rutan, CEO of Scaled Composites.

The jointly owned Virgin/Scaled aerospace production company (announced in 2005 by Virgin Founder Sir Richard Branson and Burt Rutan) owns the designs of the new SpaceShipTwo and White Knight Two launch systems and licenses technology from Paul Allen's Mojave Aerospace company.

Virgin Galactic reports that there are now over 200 individuals signed up to be among the first non-professional astronauts to fly aboard the history making service, plus around 85,000 registrations of interest. This represents a deposit base exceeding $30m and more than $45m of future income to the fledgling spaceline. Eighty of SpaceShipTwo’s first passengers have already been through medical assessment and centrifuge training at the NASTAR facility in Philadelphia. Although there are no fixed deadlines for the first launch, it could be as early as 2009.

In addition to the unveil of the space launch system, a model of the final design for Spaceport America was put on public display for the first time. Situated in Sierra County, New Mexico the $200m spaceport is to be designed by architectural firm Foster and Partners.The world first private spaceport will be designed to relate to the dimensions of the spacecraft and blend with its desert surroundings with a combination of geo-thermal, solar and wind power used to create a very low carbon footprint. Visitors and astronauts enter the low-lying building via a deep channel cut into the landscape with the retaining walls forming an exhibition space that documents the history of the region and its settlers, alongside a history of space exploration. Virgin Galactic is also looking at the opportunities of operating from other locations worldwide including operating from Spaceport Sweden.

Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod gets two-way video data link

Lockheed Martin has integrated a prototype two-way video data link into the Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod, providing it with roughly twice the data range of any other fielded targeting pod. The VDL, which provides forward deployed troops with the Sniper ATP’s real-time full resolution streaming video, was successfully demonstrated at the US Air Force Sniper user’s conference.

In addition to providing troops with video, the VDL allows pilots to receive and view uplinked tactical video, and annotated images, on their cockpit displays. It uses the Rover, a ground receiving station, and is fully integrated with Falcon View, a software application that operates with the Rover.

“The imagery is recognized as critical to performing the missions,” said Byron Simpson, technical director of the Sniper ATP program. “The two-way VDL significantly improves communications between ground and air, allowing more accurate and successful missions.”

Lockheed Martin is contracted to provide up to 522 ATPs for the Air Force and National Guard. In addition to having a much lower aerodynamic drag than its predecessors, the Sniper ATP has 3-5 times better detection range. It uses a combination of FLIR and CCD to provide high quality, stable, continuous vision during day and night. The pod is 239cm long, 30cm wide, and weighs 199kg.

The Sniper is the only ATP providing critical VDL digital metadata to the ground user today, giving it an unrivaled aerial advantage on the battlefield. Its modular design allows it to be configured on the flightline for different mission needs, and allows the VDL pod to support the L, S, C, or Ku frequency bands when the two-way system is fielded. The addition of the two-way production capability is planned for 2008.

The Sniper ATP is being used in Iraq on F-15Es and F-16s, and is currently being integrated on the B-1. It uses advanced, stabilized targeting technology to generate precision coordinates for GPS aided weapons, and to guide laser-guided precision-guided munitions. Its long-range target detection and identification surveillance system is allowing aircrews to spot IEDs, weapon caches and armed individuals beyond audible detection for the first time. It features high-resolution, mid-wave third-generation forward-looking infrared and an eye-safe laser with a charge-coupled device television, a laser spot tracker and a laser marker. The imagery, and JDAM-quality coordinates, also keep aircrews out of threat air defense ranges.

"Sniper's superior stability, combined with advanced image processing algorithms, provides unequaled target detection and identification, and maximizes standoff range for our aircrews," stated Mike Donovan, vice president, Fire Control and Sensors. Equally important, Donovan emphasized Sniper's low life-cycle cost and outstanding reliability. "Sniper's modular design ensures true two-level maintenance, eliminates intermediate level support, reduces manpower, and minimizes maintenance training requirements. All of this has the dual effects of reducing support costs and streamlining flightline procedures for the crew-chiefs and avionics technicians."

Cessna SkyCatcher prototype nears completion

The Cessna SkyCatcher, which has been attracting a steady stream of attention since the program was officially launched last year, will have a prototype ready to fly in the coming months.

Designed for the sport flying and training market, the Model 162 SkyCatcher is an all-metal, twin-seater monoplane with a single engine that packs 100-horsepower. The high-wing craft can travel at 118 knots to a maximum altitude of 15,500 feet and will have a maximum range of 470 nautical miles. Other key design specs include a maximum gross weight of 1,320 pounds, a useful load of 490 pounds and 24 gallons of usable fuel. Two top-hinged cabin entry doors and forward pivoting seats give access to a 12.5 cubic-foot baggage compartment and the plane will have tricycle landing gear with a castering nose wheel and standard dual toe-actuated disc brakes.

The aircraft will feature a Garmin G300 avionics system with information presented in a single, split-screen primary flight display (PFD) or as two full-screen displays with an optional second screen. The aircraft will be capable of day and night, visual flight rules operations.

Cessna's engineering team is building three airframes: prototype, first production and a test article for American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) compliance work. The aluminum aircraft will meet the ASTM standard for F2245 light sport aircraft, and be priced at around US$100 000.

Cessna engineers have tested and tweaked the proof of concept aircraft for nearly a year, and have recently evaluated its engine cooling and propeller pitch settings. Cessna is currently selecting vendors for SkyCatcher’s optional equipment.

AeroVironment's hybrid fuel cell UAV sets flight record

AeroVironment (AV) has achieved a new long-duration flight record with its hand-launched Puma small unmanned air vehicle (SUAV). The fuel cell hybrid-powered Puma flew for over nine-hours eclipsing the previous record of seven hours set by the same craft in July 2007.

Demonstrating its low-altitude reconnaissance capabilities, the lightweight (12.5 pound) Puma relayed a streaming video feed via its two-camera payload system during the flight.

The nine-hour milestone using the onboard fuel cell battery hybrid energy storage system is also more than triple what the Puma can achieve when running on battery power only. The Pulse™ UAV fuel cell system from AV research partner Protonex Technology Corporation recharges the battery and delivers steady-state power for the plane and payload during cruise flight and a lithium ion battery to provides peak power during takeoff and dash maneuvers .

This test flight is part of in AV’s Phase II small business innovation research (SBIR) contract with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) for the development of advanced energy storage and propulsion technologies for unmanned aircraft.

“We are delighted with the performance of AV’s fuel cell hybrid-powered Puma,” said 1st Lt. Don Erickson of the Air Force Research Laboratory. “The joint AFRL, AV and Protonex team has done an outstanding job expanding the flight envelope of Puma through this research program. The successful extended duration capability demonstrated through this program has the potential to expand the utility of hand-launched UAS to address a variety of missions performed by operational units around the world.”

Providing a line-of-sight range up to 10 kilometers, Puma is the largest of AV’s portfolio of small unmanned aircraft systems - Raven, Dragon Eye, Pointer, Swift, Puma, and Wasp - all of which are designed for simple deployment and one-person launching and operation. Measuring just under 6 feet long with a wingspan of 8.5 feet, Puma operates at an altitude of between 100 and 500 ft and flies at speeds of 25–50 kmh. Raven and Wasp, Puma all share the same ground control system and are capable of autonomous flight and GPS navigation.

The Lynx: new player enters space-tourism race

March 28, 2008 Back in 2001 Californian millionaire Denis Tito made headlines as the worlds' first space tourist - shelling out around US$20 million for the privilege. Seven years on, the competition to offer such an out-of-this-world experience to a broader range of paying customers (and capitalize on what is expected to become a market worth hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade) is heating up. Earlier this year fledgling spaceline Virgin Galactic revealed designs for what will become its flagship -SpaceShipTwo, now Californian based XCOR Aerospace has unveiled a two-seater suborbital spaceship the size of a small private plane that the company expects to have airborne in 2010.

Global Hawk UAV achieves record 33-hour flight

Northrop Grumman Corporation's RQ-4 Global Hawk has successfully completed a flight lasting 33.1 hours at altitudes up to 60,000. While the milestone does not match the 54 hour flight achieved by QinetiQ’s Zephyr in 2007, it is a record for a full-scale, operational unmanned aircraft - and there was still fuel left in the tank.

The March 22 flight, which took place over Edwards Air Force Base, California, overtakes both the official and unofficial world un-refueled endurance records for operational unmanned airplanes.

"It was a picture perfect flight, landing flawlessly on centerline with enough fuel remaining to continue for two more hours," said Jerry Madigan, Northrop Grumman vice president of high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) systems. "The pilots and ground crew, as well as Edwards Air Force Base senior leadership were very impressed with the Global Hawk's performance, meeting or exceeding every flight objective."

Guardian system protects commercial flights from terrorist missile threats

Being shot out of the sky with a surface-to-air missile might not be at the forefront of your mind when traveling on a commercial airliner, but with shoulder-mounted, infra-red anti-aircraft rockets selling for as little as US$5000 in trouble spots around the world, it's perhaps surprising that it's only happened a few dozen times in recent years. Once launched, such a missile travels at twice the speed of sound towards its target, so countermeasures must be automatic and instant - which brings us to Northrop Grumman's GUARDIAN system. This anonymous-looking pod provides 360-degree laser-based missile defense for commercial airliners for a total cost of around a dollar per passenger over the aircraft's service life.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS, or shoulder mounted guided anti-aircraft missiles) have already caused as many as 1000 civilian deaths in the hands of terrorists around the world. Such weapons are easy and cheap to procure and can be set up and fired very quickly. Once fired, they follow the heat signature of an aircraft with a very effective infra-red guidance system, and a hit is almost certainly a kill, bringing the entire aircraft down.

The effective range of a MANPADS system is such that a commercial plane can be targeted and brought down from beneath the flight path up to 50 miles either side of an airport - meaning that airliners are exposed to considerable risk in hot zones around the world.

In order to effectively protect civilian aircraft against MANPADS attacks, US Defence contractor Northrop Grumman has developed a self-contained, autonomous and affordable missile defence unit that can bolt on beneath any airliner to automatically and reliably neutralize missile threats coming from any point on the ground.

The GUARDIAN system is based on Northrop Grumman's AN/AAQ-24 NEMESIS Directional Infrared Countermeasure system, which is considered the most advanced aircraft-mounted missile defence unit available, able to deal with the most recent guided missile threats.

Once attached to an airliner and activated, the GUARDIAN system constantly scans the airspace below the aircraft for threats. If one or more threats are detected, they are tracked until the system confirms that they are guided missiles. At this point, an eye-safe laser sends out a jamming signal that upsets the missile's infrared guidance system and turns the missile away from the airplane.

The NEMESIS and multi-band laser jamming technology behind the GUARDIAN system has endured extensive and highly successful testing, including over 100 successful live-fire missile engagements in combat operations aboard military aircraft from the USA, UK, Australia and Denmark.

Last week, Northrop Grumman announced that the GUARDIAN system was fully tested, FAA certified and ready to be deployed on airline fleets around the world. The system's entire life cycle, including installation, maintenance, removal and disposal costs a little under US$1 million per unit - but over the 20-year lifespan of the aircraft it protects, that comes down to around a dollar per passenger flown, or roughly the raw cost of a bag of nuts and a soda. Which would you prioritize?