New Horizons provided what will be the only close-up images of Pluto many of us will see in our lifetimes. The new feature names from the International Astronomical Union recognize the mission’s forerunners in Earth and space mythology and history. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/iau-approves-new-pluto-feature-names-2019…
Tag: aviation
Battery-Powered Ships Next Up In Battle To Tackle Emissions
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Four Japanese companies have teamed up to build the world’s first zero-emission tanker by mid-2021 that will be powered by large-capacity batteries and will operate in Tokyo Bay, according to a statement on Tuesday. The new company e5 Lab is a venture between Asahi Tanker, Exeno Yamamizu, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and Mitsubishi. The…
NYT: Boeing Was Certifying Its Own Safety For the 737 Max
Boeing’s 737 Max was built with “effectively neutered” oversight, writes the New York Times, citing interviews with over a dozen current and former employees at America’s Federal Aviation Agency. Their damning conclusion? The agency “had never independently assessed the risks of the dangerous software known as MCAS when they approved the plane in 2017.” The regulator had been passing off routine…
Airbus A350 Software Bug Forces Airlines To Turn Planes Off and On Every 149 Hours
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Some models of Airbus A350 airliners still need to be hard rebooted after exactly 149 hours, despite warnings from the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) first issued two years ago. In a mandatory airworthiness directive (AD) reissued earlier this week, EASA urged operators to turn their A350s off and on again to…
Boeing Says It Might Have To Shut Down 737 Max Production
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg warned investors Wednesday that the company might need to further slow or temporarily halt its 737 Max production. Boeing has continued to build the 737 Max, its bestselling jet, although at a slower pace. The plane has been grounded since mid-March because of two fatal crashes that killed more…
Largest Hybrid Electric Plane Set To Take Flight
Ampair, a Los Angeles clean tech company in my neck of the woods, is set to begin accepting orders for a hybrid electric aircraft at the EAA AirVenture airshow in Wisconsin next week. Dubbed the EEL, the aircraft is in fact a retrofit of a Cessna 337, an aircraft that has a forward-mounted prop engine that pulls and a rear-mounted prop…
Boeing Falsified Records of a New 787 That Leaked Fuel
Long-time Slashdot reader Freshly Exhumed quotes the CBC: Boeing staff falsified records for a 787 jet built for Air Canada which developed a fuel leak ten months into service in 2015. In a statement to CBC News, Boeing said it self-disclosed the problem to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration after Air Canada notified them of the fuel leak. The records stated…
Airplane Contrails Will Do Triple the Damage They Do Today By 2050, Study Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Scientist: The contrails left by airplanes last only hours. But they are now so widespread that their warming effect is greater than that of all the carbon dioxide emitted by airplanes that has accumulated in the atmosphere since the first flight of the Wright brothers. Worse still, this non-CO2 warming effect is set…
PSI imaging helps with rocket launches
Rockets from the European Space Agency (ESA) fly into space with support from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI). Imaging carried out at PSI in cooperation with Dassault Aviation ensures the quality of certain components of the Ariane 5 and Vega launch vehicles. With the help of the neutrons generated at the neutron source SINQ, PSI researchers are screening so-called pyrotechnic components…
Kelly Latimer flies at the cutting edge of aviation—and soon, space
Kelly Latimer, 54, is a test pilot for Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit—two commercial space companies owned by British billionaire Richard Branson. For space tourism company Virgin Galactic, Latimer flies the giant, twin-fuselage aircraft known as WhiteKnightTwo, which carries a smaller spaceship at its belly to an altitude of up to 50,000 feet before the spaceship detaches and blasts off toward…