Will Advise And Inform The National Space Council On A Broad Range Of Aerospace Topics

NASA has established a new advisory group on behalf of the National Space Council that will represent the expertise, interests and perspectives of non-federal aerospace organizations to the National Space Council.

Firm Order Valued At $66.8 Million

Bombardier Commercial Aircraft announced today that Qazaq Air JSC of Kazakhstan has signed a firm purchase agreement for two new Q400 turboprops. Based on the list price of the Q400 aircraft, the firm order is valued at approximately $66.8 million.

Device Installed On ESO's Very Large Telescope In Chile

The Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO) has successfully made its first observations. Installed on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, ESPRESSO will search for exoplanets with unprecedented precision by looking at the minuscule changes in the light of their host stars. For the first time ever, an instrument will be able to sum up the light from all four VLT telescopes and achieve the light collecting power of a 16-metre telescope.

City Council May Spend $1.2 Million On Detection System

The number of bird strikes at Dallas Love Field is on the rise, so the city council is considering a high-tech solution that would detect birds as much as five miles from the airport. So far in 2017, there have been more than 150 bird strikes at Love Field, according to airport statistics.

Su-57 Is Not Likely To Enter Serial Production Until 2027

A policy memo drafted by a senior Russian policy analyst at Harvard University says that the Russian 5th Generation Su-57 aircraft is on hold for at least a decade.

Nearly 200 Meteorites From Mars Have Been Discovered On Earth

Researchers have performed numerical simulations to explore the launch mechanism of Martian meteorites. According to the knowledge of shock physics, a strong shock compression higher than 50 GPa is required to accelerate Martian materials up to the escape velocity of Mars (5 km/s). In contrast, detailed analysis of Martian meteorites shows that they suffer only 30-50 GPa during the ejection.

Contract Valued At An Estimated $1 Billion Or More

L3 Technologies has entered into an agreement with United Launch Alliance (ULA) to become the exclusive provider of avionics and related services for its new Vulcan Centaur rocket system, delivering an estimated $1 billion-plus in mission-critical systems and services, over a 10-year period.

Finds That Space Weather Is Not The Primary Cause For Such Events

The age-old mystery of why otherwise healthy dolphins, whales and porpoises get stranded along coasts worldwide deepens: After a collaboration between NASA scientists and marine biologists, new research suggests space weather is not the primary cause of animal beachings — but the research continues. The collaboration is now seeking others to join their search for the factors that send ocean mammals off course, in the hopes of perhaps one day predicting strandings before they happen.

Aero Linx: Airways New Zealand Airways controls all domestic and international air traffic travelling within New Zealand’s Flight Information Region (FIR), which totals 30 million square kilometres – one of the largest areas of airspace in the world. The NZ domestic FIR covers the entire country and surrounding coastline with both 'controlled' and 'uncontrolled' airspace. The Auckland Oceanic FIR covers 26 million square kilometres of the Pacific and Tasman Oceans, extending from the South Pole to 5 degrees south of the equator. We are responsible for aircraft flying between 24,500 feet and 46,000 feet in this sector. Within the FIRs, there are also areas of uncontrolled airspace, where (

Very High Frequency The frequency band between 30 and 300 MHz. Portions of this band, 108 to 118 MHz, are used for certain NAVAIDs; 118 to 136 MHz are used for civil air/ground voice communications. Other frequencies in this band are used for purposes not related to air traffic control.

"Bringing ESPRESSO this far has been a great accomplishment, with contributions from an international consortium as well as many different groups within ESO: engineers, astronomers and administration. They had to not just install the spectrograph itself, but also the very complex optics that bring the light together from the four VLT Unit Telescopes.” Source:  ESO Instrument scientist Gaspare Lo Curto, commenting on the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO) which successfully made its first observations. Installed on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, ESPRESSO will search for exoplanets with unprecedented precision by looking at the minuscule changes in the l