5 AEROSPACE AMERICA - AIAA

May 2011

A P U B L I C A T I O N O F T H E A M E R I C A N I N S T I T U T E O F A E R O N A U T I C S A N D A S T R O N A U T I C S

In search of cleaner skiesStrong UAS market attracts intense competition

In search of cleaner skiesStrong UAS market attracts intense competition

5AER

OSPA

CE AM

ERICA

MAY 2011

Lows and

highsfor

SBIRS

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COVERIn a clean room at Northrop Grumman, a SBIRS highly elliptical orbit payload is prepared for delivery to Lockheed Martin.Turn to page 26 to learn about the Space-Based Infrared System.

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Aerospace America (ISSN 0740-722X) is published monthly, except August, by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. at 1801 Alexander Bell Drive, Reston, Va. 20191-4344[703/264-7500]. Subscription rate is 50% of dues for AIAA members (and is not deductible therefrom). Nonmember subscription price: U.S. and Canada, $163, foreign, $200. Single copies $20 each. Postmaster: Send address changes and subscription orders to address above, attention AIAA Customer Service, 703/264-7500. Periodical postage paid at Herndon, VA, and at additional mailing offices. Copyright © 2011 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., all rights reserved. The name Aerospace America is registered by the AIAA in the U.S.Patent and Trademark Office. 40,000 copies of this issue printed. This is Volume 49, No. 5.

May 2011

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BULLETIN

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LOWS AND HIGHS FOR SBIRS EARLY WARNING 26After early problems, the Space-Based Infrared System appears on track to replace outdated U.S. early warning satellites.by James W. Canan

IN SEARCH OF CLEANER SKIES 34Meeting the requirements for cleaner air, lower costs, and improved fuelefficiency is a difficult balancing act.by Jim Banke

COMET CHASING MAKES DEEP IMPACT ON SCIENCE 40After its close encounter with comet Tempel 1, Deep Impact added a bonus flyby of comet Hartley 2.by Leonard David

EDITORIAL 3Is the past prologue?

INTERNATIONAL BEAT 4Air traffic growth in 2010 defies forecasts.

WASHINGTON WATCH 8Out of control.

AIRCRAFT UPDATE 11A bigger and wider jetliner decade?

CONVERSATIONS 14With John Logsdon.

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 18Strong UAS market attracts intense competition.

GREEN ENGINEERING 22A green space station.

OUT OF THE PAST 46

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On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy made an impassioned speech ina special address before Congress. It followed the startling wake-up call fromthe Soviet Union in the form of the orbital flight of Yuri Gagarin, the first per-son in space, on April 12. Just over three weeks later, that call was answeredby Alan Shepard’s May 5 suborbital flight—the first American in space. In that speech, with soaring rhetoric, Kennedy issued a challenge to the

citizenry: “First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving thegoal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returninghim safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration ofspace; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”To emphasize that last point, Kennedy called on the Congress to supply

the financial resources necessary to make that challenge a reality—which itdid. And just nine short years later, Neil Armstrong stepped down onto thesurface of the Moon, taking that “one giant leap for mankind.”Now, 50 years later, the U.S. stands at another watershed moment. The era

of the space shuttle is drawing to an end, and the decisions needed to createits replacement or its successor are mired in the slough of partisan politics.The looming menace of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Unionis no more—in fact, the two nations are partners in many space efforts. TheU.S. role in the current ‘space race’ is now driven by economics, not by aneed for world leadership. Is this why the passion for the human explorationof space seems to be gone?Some legislators are calling for NASA’s development of a new heavy-lift

rocket and crew vehicle, as a replacement for the space shuttle, but are lessready to acknowledge the ongoing financial commitment such developmentswould require. Others, including President Obama, are looking to commercialenterprises to provide the way forward. But nowhere can be found the aweand excitement that accompanied the early days of the race to the Moon, therallying call that will inspire a nation.There is no question that the U.S. is facing serious economic issues, and

demands on the country’s purse strings come from all directions. But theheart of what we are as a people still remains: a commitment to discoveryand growth, perhaps best exemplified by our achievements in space. Humankind throughout its history has been a curious species. The desire

for exploration has been a driving force since we first emerged from the cave.As Americans we have a history of always striving to be the best. And whilethis drive has often been fueled by global competitiveness, it is truly in ourcollective DNA. As we reflect this month on the golden anniversary of the flights of those

two brave men and all the many men and women who followed them, weshould also remember some other words in Kennedy’s speech that day, amessage as true now as it was 50 years ago: “For while we cannot guaranteethat we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make thiseffort will make us last.”

Elaine CamhiEditor-in-Chief

is a publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Elaine J. CamhiEditor-in-ChiefPatricia JeffersonAssociate EditorGreg WilsonProduction EditorJerry Grey, Editor-at-LargeChristine Williams, Editor AIAA Bulletin

CorrespondentsRobert F. Dorr,WashingtonPhilip Butterworth-Hayes, EuropeMichael Westlake, Hong Kong

Contributing WritersRichard Aboulafia, James W. Canan,Marco Cáceres, Craig Covault, LeonardDavid, Philip Finnegan, Tom Jones, DavidRockwell, J.R. Wilson

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EDITORIAL BOARDNed Allen, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics;Jean-Michel Contant, EADS; Eugene Covert,Massachusetts Institute of Technology; L.S.“Skip” Fletcher, Texas A&M University;Michael Francis, United Technologies;Christian Mari, Teuchos; Cam Martin,NASA Dryden; Don Richardson, DonrichResearch; Douglas Yazell, Honeywell

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Can the past be prologue?

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Air traffic growth in 2010 defies forecasts

4 AEROSPACE AMERICA/MAY 2011

Airbus and Boeing through carefulmanagement of the supply chain, andthrough increasing production levelsonly moderately during the demandpeak. In the high-level view, the re-turn to strong growth has merely con-firmed that, on average, since the endof WW II passenger traffic is increas-ing at around 4.9%.

But beneath the macro figuresthere are some new trends emergingthat will have wide repercussions forthe manufacturing sector.

A rapid riseThe first is the speed and strength ofaviation growth in the Far East, espe-cially in China and India, which con-tinue to defy all expectations.

“You could say that 2009 was aturning point marking, on one hand,the rise of emerging market airlinesand, on the other, the growing ambi-tions of these countries’ aircraft manu-facturers in a market hitherto domi-

nated by Airbus and Boeing,”explains Karine Berger, chiefeconomist at the credit insur-ers Euler Hermes.

According to the Centrefor Asia Pacific Aviation, AirChina, which has a marketcapitalization of $18.9 billion,now is valued more on thestock exchange than U.S. car-riers United-Continental, USAirways, JetBlue, HawaiianAir, AirTran, American Air-lines, Republic Airways, andSkyWest combined.

In its 2009 forecast, Air-bus predicted that by 2028,14 of the top 20 large aircraftairports will be in Asia-Pa-cific, with Hong Kong han-dling the biggest number andLondon Heathrow in secondplace. But at current growthrates, Hong Kong will over-take Heathrow in just five

Airlines and manufacturers havewidely underestimated the speed andstrength of recovery. IATA airlinesrecorded net profits of $16 billion in2010; in September 2009 the associa-tion was predicting a loss of $3.8 bil-lion for 2010, with a possible return toprofit in 2011. In September 2009 Air-bus was also predicting the ‘best case’scenario of a 4.6% rise in passengernumbers for 2010. The strength of theglobal economic crisis that hit NorthAmerica and Europe particularly hardin 2009 suggested the recovery wouldtake longer to emerge than it actuallydid. But the degree to which trafficsurged in the Far East, Latin America,and the Middle East also took manyforecasters by surprise.

Teasing out trendsThe aerospace industry works in longeconomic cycles, and the recent dra-matic short-term fluctuations in supplyand demand have been dealt with by

THE RELEASE OF 2010 TRAFFIC FIGURESwill make forecasters at Airbus andBoeing rethink their long-term predic-tions. It seems the speed of airlinegrowth in Asia has been seriously un-derestimated while the speed at whichEurope is emerging from recessionhas been seriously overestimated.

In 2010 air traffic grew much fasterthan most forecasters expected. Ac-cording to figures from ICAO (Interna-tional Civil Aviation Organization), theworld’s airlines carried approximately2.5 billion passengers last year, up6.3% over 2009. Airports Council Inter-national, the global airport association,also reported a 6.3% rise in passen-gers, along with a 15.2% increase incargo but just a 1% increase in airtransport movements in 2010 over2009. The world scheduled airline in-dustry body, the International AirTransport Association (IATA), reportedan 8.2% increase in passengers and a20.6% increase in freight.

According to ICAO,by 2030 there willbe a severe shortfallin training capacityfor sorely neededairport personnelsuch as air trafficcontrollers.

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years, and Beijing has already over-taken London in terms of internationaltravellers.How long will these growth rates

continue, and what will be the impli-cations for manufacturers?With the Chinese economy in dan-

ger of overheating, the government istrying to redress the economic situa-tion by enlarging the domestic con-sumer market within the overall econ-omy. So, for example, south China cityplanners have agreed to merge thenine cities around the Pearl River Deltainto a ‘mega city’ of 42 million peopleacross an astonishing 16,000-mi.2 ur-ban area. The development of mega cities is

one of the prime market drivers in thevery large aircraft (VLA) market, a sec-tor in which Boeing with its new 747-8Intercontinental and Airbus with theA380 are competing head to head.The one area of major disagree-

ment between the two manufacturersinvolves the shape and size of the fu-ture market. Airbus believes that 1,700VLAs will be required over the next 20years; Boeing believes only about halfthat number will be needed. Over thepast few years sales of VLAs havebeen slow: Airbus sold 32 A380s in2010 to Emirates, with possibly fourmore to Japan’s Skymark—an orderconfirmed in February of this year—while Boeing sold just a single B747-8in 2010, though Air China ordered fivein March of this year. The announce-ment of the new Pearl River mega citywill therefore be music to Airbus’s ears.

In March, Airbus’s Chris Emerson,senior vice president for product strat-egy and market forecast, predicted thatAsia-Pacific operators will acquiresome 3,360 new widebody aircraftover the next two decades, with thedeployment of larger planes expectedto help reduce flight delays and easeair traffic congestion, especially be-tween huge urban clusters. Airbusforecasts that more than 50% of theworld’s VLAs will be operated by air-lines in the Asia-Pacific region.So far, in terms of assessing the

VLA market, the more conservativeBoeing predictions have been closerto the mark. But as airlines in Chinaand India contemplate over the next18 months how they can better linktheir burgeoning economies to theoutside world, it will become clearerwhich of the two has made the betterforecasts.

There are signs now that theremight be a limit to Chinese aviationgrowth. To rebalance the economy,Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has set atarget of economic growth of 7% peryear for 2011-2015, against a figure of11% for the past five years. While thisis still very high, it shows the govern-ment has started to consider ways ofcontrolling growth—reducing the flowof credit to consumers and increasingtaxes on consumer goods, for exam-ple. China also recently embarked ona 2-trillion yuan ($292.9-billion) in-vestment program to increase its high-speed rail network by 16,000 km by2020, which will strongly affect do-mestic airline growth.However, these measures are un-

likely to have an impact on aviationgrowth in China over the next fiveyears.The real shock to forecasters has

been the performance ofIndia. Aviation growth ratesthere are currently touching50% per year increases, arise driven mainly by low-fare airline growth. This isfar higher than any forecast-ers had imagined. Most ofthis growth has come fromdomestic services, and it islikely this will be followedby a new wave of aircraftacquisitions from Indian air-lines for intercontinentalservices.

AIRPORT TRAFFIC GROWTH IN 2010Percent Percent Percent

Regions Passengers change Cargo, tonnes change Movements change

Africa 126,950,421 8.8 1,107,764 9.4 1,998,532 3.7Asia Pacific 1,171,232,331 11.5 30,568,352 18.6 1,048,632 5.0Europe 1,409,464,291 4.3 17,337,248 17.0 17,596,411 (0.4)Latin America

and the Caribbean 360,994,685 12.1 4,335,375 14.1 5,631,185 6.2Middle East

and Africa 125,775,339 11.5 4,500,502 11.8 1,144,824 6.1North America 1,457,930,721 2.4 25,021,564 11.2 27,999,158 (1.2)

Total 4,652,347,788 6.3 82,870,805 15.2 64,418,742 0.8

Source: ACI.

Beijing has already surpassed London in numbers of international travellers.

AEROSPACE AMERICA/MAY 2011 5



bers were up just 0.8%. Yet the airportfigures do not tell the whole story. Ac-cording to ICAO, aircraft movements—which included overflights—increasedthe most in Latin America-Caribbean(up 6.2%), the Middle East (up 6.1%),and Asia-Pacific (up 5%) but contin-ued to decline in Europe (down 0.4%)and North America (down 1.2%).

According to the Brussels-basedair traffic management agency Euro-control, the total number of flights inEurope in 2010 was 9.49 million, anincrease of just 0.8% over 2009.

“Flight growth was concentrated ina few states: Turkey, Italy, Ukraine,and Germany were the states addingmost traffic to the European network.The economic crisis and a series ofgeneral strikes reduced traffic inGreece overall; and the U.K. and Ire-land both ended the year with fewerflights than the already reduced levelsof 2009. Russia was a clear source ofgrowth this year, and indeed for onemonth during the summer passed theU.S. as the main external partner forEurope.“

Exceptional factorsIn 2010, Europe was also hit by anumber of extraordinary events, mostof which are unlikely to be repeatedoften—ash-clouds, snow, and strikes.But even taking these issues into ac-count, the U.K., traditionally one ofthe key market drivers within Europe,is in serious aviation decline. Statisticsfrom its national regulator, the CivilAviation Authority (CAA), suggest U.K.airports handled 3.4% fewer passen-gers in 2010 than in 2009 and that pas-senger numbers have now fallen con-secutively for three years, to a levellower than that in 2004.

According to Iain Osborne, CAA’sdirector of regulatory policy: “TheU.K.’s fragile recovery is not yet driv-ing increases in passenger numbers.Although the decline in businesstravel levelled out last year, leisuretravel continued to fall in 2010. With-out the year’s exceptional events, withsnow, strikes, and volcanic ash all af-fecting aviation, passenger numbersoverall would likely have been levelwith 2009.

The personnel shortfallIt is not just the demand for aircraft it-self from China and India that is fuel-ing business for Western builders. Un-like the aircraft replacement market,which dominates sales in Europe andNorth America, the market for new air-craft brings with it the need for train-ing and for maintenance, repair, andoverhaul facilities. Boeing predicts thatthe Asia-Pacific region alone will re-quire 180,600 pilots and 220,000 main-tenance technicians over the next 20years, with China needing 70,600 pi-lots and 96,400 engineers.

According to an ICAO study pro-duced in March, at current aircraft de-livery forecasts, by 2030 there will bea shortfall of training capacity equiva-lent to 160,000 pilots, 360,000 mainte-nance personnel, and 40,000 air trafficcontrollers, driven in the main by de-mand for air travel within Asia.

“If no action to increase trainingcapacity is initiated early, shortages in

qualified aviation personnel are likely,”says Raymond Benjamin, ICAO secre-tary general.

Adding new training capacity toAsia will be relatively easy, but theconsequences will be to speed furtherthe relative importance of China andIndia as aviation and aerospace busi-ness hubs. According to Airbus, NorthAmerica and Europe—which togethermade up around 59% of global rev-enue passenger kilometers in 2008—will see their share of the global mar-ket decline to 46% by 2028, with Asiabecoming the leading region, account-ing for a third of the world’s traffic.

A faster fallBut the current trends point to aneven faster shift in the market. Whatmost forecasters have not envisaged,in terms of aviation activity relative tothe global market, is the rapid fall ofEurope. Another unforeseen elementin the 2010 traffic figures has been thespeed with which Europe’s share ofthe overall aircraft market also appearsto be in free fall.

In terms of traffic growth, theworld is now operating on two differ-ent tracks: the slow lane—Europe andNorth America, where aircraft move-ments actually fell in 2010—and the fastlane, everywhere else.

According to Angela Gittens, ACIWorld director general, “2010 also pro-nounced the shift and divergence ingrowth across the regions. While NorthAmerica and Europe have struggled toreach precrisis passenger volumes,Asia-Pacific, Latin America-Caribbean,and Middle East sustained a strongmomentum and gained market sharethrough double-digit growth.”

In Europe, airports registered 4.3%growth in 2010, but actual flight num-

FORECAST DEMAND FOR PILOTS, CONTROLLERS, ANDMRO PERSONNEL

Current PopulationPersonnel population needed Training Trainingcategory (2010) (2030) needs* capacity* Shortage*

Pilots 463,386 980,799 52,506 44,360 8,146Maintenance 580,926 1,164,969 70,331 52,260 18,071 Controllers 67,024 139,796 8,718 6,740 1,978

*Estimated on an average annual basis. Source: ICAO.

The need for trained MRO personnel and facilitiesin the Asia-Pacific region will continue to grow.



“Overall, the outlook for aviationis still uncertain. A return to robusteconomic growth should see in-creased passenger numbers, but thiswill be affected by other costs thatbear on the sector, such as high oilprices and taxation, and by the avail-ability of capacity. Congestion in thesoutheast could also see more cus-tomers flying from regional airports, orvia other European hubs to travel to orfrom the U.K.”

Airport capacity laggingEurope is now starting to suffer from asevere lack of airport capacity. Ac-cording to Eurocontrol, an estimated175,000 scheduled flights were can-celed during 2010, and this summer islikely to feature further delays and dis-ruption in Europe. The lack of runwaycapacity at major hubs exacerbates thesituation, as there is very little addi-tional capacity to cope with disrup-tions to flight schedules.

Eurocontrol is now predicting airtraffic growth will rise between 1.6%and 3.9% in Europe between 2011 and2030, with growth limited by airportcapacity. According to the agency’sforecasts from January of this year,“Between 0.7 [million] and 5 millionflights will be unaccommodated in2030, representing from 5% to 19% ofthe demand. In addition to unaccom-modated demand, airport capacityconstraints have an effect on the flowof operations in the network. The de-cline in traffic in 2008 and 2009 haseased the pressure on airport capacity,but in the longer term the demand willgrow, and airports will not always beable to fully respond.”

QQQ

It is highly probable that, despite thecurrent steep price of fuel, this yearwill see airline growth return againmore vigorously to Europe and theU.K. But aviation businesses lookingfor new opportunities in manufactur-ing, maintenance, and training willlook at these global trends and drawtheir own conclusions.

Philip Butterworth-HayesBrighton, U.K.

[email protected]

Events CalendarMAY 2-5Reinventing Space 2011, Los Angeles, California.Contact: James R. Wertz, [email protected]

MAY 9-12IAA Planetary Defense Conference, Bucharest, Romania.Contact: William Ailor, 310/336-1135, [email protected]

MAY 10-12IEEE/AESS/AIAA Integrated Communications, Navigation and SurveillanceConference, Washington, D.C.Contact: Col. John C. Gonda III, [email protected], www.i-cns.org

MAY 11Inside Aerospace, Washington, D.C.Contact: Steve Howell, [email protected]

MAY 18-20Sixth Argentine Congress on Space Technology, San Luis, Argentina.Contact: Pablo de Leon, 701/777-2369 (U.S.); www.aate.org

MAY 23-26Twenty-first AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems Technology Conference and Seminar, Dublin, Ireland.Contact: 703/264-7500

MAY 27-29European Air Surveillance Expo 2011, Bitburg Airport, Germany.Contact: Richard Ayling, [email protected]

MAY 30-JUNE 1Eighteenth St. Petersburg International Conference on Integrated Navigation Systems, St. Petersburg, Russia.Contact: Prof. V. Peshekhonov, +7 812 238 8210; [email protected]

MAY 30-JUNE 1Second International IAA Symposium on Private Human Access to Space,Arachon, France.Contact: Christine Bonnal, www.avantage-aquitaine.com

JUNE 2Aerospace Today...and Tomorrow: An Executive Symposium, Williamsburg, Virginia.Contact: 703/264-7500

JUNE 5-8Seventeenth AIAA/CEAS Aeroacoustics Conference, Portland, Oregon.Contact: 703/264-7500

JUNE 6-8The Space Shuttle: An Engineering Milestone, Atlanta, Georgia.Contact: [email protected]

JUNE 9-11Fifth International Conference on Recent Advances in Space Technologies,Istanbul, Turkey.Contact: 703/264-7500

JUNE 13-17International Conference on Aircraft and Engine Icing and Ground Deicing, Chicago, Illinois.Contact: Frank Bokulich, [email protected]


longed campaign over Libya would bea challenge.

From the start, many in Washing-ton questioned the need for the U.S.to take the lead role in the no-fly cam-paign aimed at neutralizing Gaddafi’sair defenses and air force.

The first aircraft lost in what wasquickly named Operation OdysseyDawn was an F-15E Strike Eagle of the48th Fighter Wing, based at RAF Lak-enheath, England. The pilot and theweapons systems officer bailed outand were rescued—the pilot in thefirst-ever combat rescue performed bya V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor. It was the sec-ond time the 48th Wing had ham-mered Gaddafi’s homeland. Equippedin an earlier era with F-111F Aard-varks, the wing led the mission knownas Operation Eldorado Canyon, theApril 15, 1986, attack on Libya in retal-iation for its support of the Abu Nidalterrorist organization.

Both in 1986 and in 2011, U.S. of-ficials denied that the purpose of airraids was to kill Gaddafi. Retired AirForce Col. Arnold Franklin, leader ofthe 1986 mission, told this author thatno one had ever said to aircrews thatGaddafi was their target—but that oneof Gaddafi’s residences, also used as amilitary headquarters, was. PresidentBarack Obama says the U.S. positionin 2011 is that “Gaddafi has to go” butinsists that the Libyan leader is not be-ing targeted for death from the air.

Supporters of the strikes say theywere long overdue in protecting thewave of protesters sweeping the Arabworld. Critics, including many in bothparties on the Hill, say the aerial cam-paign lacks a clearly defined mission.Said Adm. Michael Mullen, chairmanof the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Therehave been lots of options which havebeen discussed, but I think it’s veryuncertain how this ends.”

In late March, NATO agreed to takeover command of the Libyan mission,

In Washington, March 20, the first dayof spring, was the day a U.S.-led coali-tion began air and missile strikes onLibya, U.S. aircraft and space assetswere being used to assist a disaster-torn Japan, and U.S. federal agencieswere still without an FY11 budget. Itnow appears that the government willcontinue to operate on a series of con-tinuing resolutions (CRs) until the endof this fiscal year. The administrationhas produced a proposed budget forFY12, which begins October 1, but itis unclear when, whether, or howCongress will act on the proposal.

At press time, the government wasoperating on the sixth, short-term CRof the year. The resolution cut discre-tionary spending by $6 billion andwas slated to last until April 8. The re-sult of a split Congress being unableto agree on a full spending plan, itwas expected to be followed by a sev-enth CR. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Me.)blamed “a complete budget break-down in the Senate” and an “absenceof presidential leadership,” saying “thegovernment is running on an unsus-tainable patchwork budget by whichno business in America would everdream of operating.” Rep. Nancy Pe-losi (D-Calif.) said, “This is not any

Resolutions, but few solutions


way to run a government or a busi-ness.” Added Pelosi, “It certainly is nota way, as the military generals, leader-ship, have told us, to protect the na-tional security of our country, on aweek-to-week basis.”

As legislators spar over the annualdeficit and the overall national debt,the debate revolves around small por-tions of the 14% of government spend-ing that is considered discretionary.No one on Capitol Hill is demandingany cut in the so-called entitlements—Social Security and Medicare—and notmany are suggesting serious cuts indefense.

Libya campaignThrough it all, the Pentagon is contin-uing operations. Just before the U.N.ordered a no-fly zone in Libya, hopingto prevent Muammar Gaddafi’s forcesfrom crushing a fledgling rebellion inthe country’s east, USAF Chief of StaffGen. Norton Schwartz surprised manyby predicting that establishing a no-flyzone would not change the outcomeof Libya’s internal conflict. Schwartzsaid “enormous resources” would berequired and that the U.S. F-22 Raptorsuperfighter—which has not partici-pated in the Iraq and Afghanistanwars—might be needed. Schwartz hassaid privately that the U.S. military isstretched too thin and that any pro-

Sen. Olympia Snowe

A CV-22 Osprey was part of the rescue operationafter an F-15 Eagle crashed in no-fly zone inLibya. Photo by Lance Cpl. Santiago G. Colon Jr.

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including the air strikes on Libyanground units, and on March 27, NATOplanes began patrolling the no-flyzone. In a speech on March 28, Presi-dent Obama described a narrower rolefor U.S. troops in this NATO-led effort.

A friend in needIn Japan, ravaged by the worst earth-quake ever to strike that country (onMarch 11), by the resulting tsunamis,and by nuclear power concerns, theU.S. launched Operation Tomodachi(Japanese for friend). USAF SpecialOperations command used a combattactic intended to gain access to an ad-versary’s airfield—sending in an MC-130H Combat Talon II aircraft to landon the battered runway at Japan’sSendai Airport and unloading speciallyequipped troops who reopened thefacility.

Air Force transport planes thenjoined Japanese aircraft and airliftersfrom other nations to haul relief sup-plies and emergency equipment intoSendai, which is at the epicenter ofthe tsunami that inflicted widespreaddevastation. U.S. Marines used agingCH-46E Sea Knight helicopters to haulmore than 100,000 lb of humanitariancargo to devastated areas far from theairport. The Air Force has deployedWC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft tocollect atmospheric samples to helpmonitor radiation levels around thedamaged Fukushima nuclear plant.

Leaders in Washington, while de-bating the Libya operations, expressedbipartisan support for efforts to assistJapan.

Drowsy at the FAAFAA boss Randy Babbitt says it willnot happen again:

Just after midnight on March 23,two jet airliners were forced to land atRonald Reagan Washington NationalAirport without help from the controltower after their calls for instructionswent unanswered. American Airlinesflight 1012, a Boeing 737-800 flyingfrom Miami with 97 on board, andUnited Airlines flight 628T, an AirbusA320 carrying 68 people—a total of165 crew and passengers—toucheddown safely after pilots took mattersinto their own hands, communicatingwith a different facility and makingwhat amounted to visual landings.

In Washington’s follow-up to theincident, it became known that onlyone air traffic controller had beenscheduled for duty at Washington Na-tional, also known as DCA, during thetime in question. The airport is con-stantly used by members of Congressand cabinet officials and is in a sensi-tive location just a few miles from theWhite House, the Capitol, and thePentagon. According to press reports,the controller, who was rated as a su-pervisor, initially blamed his silenceon a ‘stuck mike.’ Even though he wasworking alone, the postmidnight workslot in the control tower is reserved fora supervisor.

Officials later confirmed that thecontroller had fallen asleep. Babbitt

said the controller was drug-tested byfederal authorities (apparently a rou-tine procedure) and was suspendedfrom his job. Babbitt’s boss, Trans-portation Secretary Ray LaHood, im-mediately directed that two people beon duty in the early morning hours. “Itis not acceptable to have just one con-troller in the tower managing air trafficin this critical airspace,” LaHood saidin a statement. He then tasked Babbittto study staffing levels at other airportsaround the country.

Many question the size of towerstaffing and wonder whether hard-pressed controllers are sometimes toodrowsy to perform their jobs. At least25 other ‘controlled’ U.S. airports cur-rently have just one air traffic con-troller on duty between midnight and6 a.m. The issue of tower staffingarose back on August 26, 2006, whenComair Flight 191, a Canadair CRJ-100-ER preparing to take off, turned ontothe wrong runway at Blue Grass Air-port in Lexington, Kentucky. The craftcrashed when it ran out of runway be-fore it could take off, killing all 47 pas-sengers and two of the three crew,with the first officer the only survivor.Investigators concluded that there wasonly one air traffic controller in thetower. On that occasion, having a solocontroller was a violation of the air-port’s own policy.

The abilities of controllers cameinto question again on December 24,2007: A supervisor controller at Wash-ington National left his swipe-cardpass key behind when he steppedoutside the tower’s secure door andwas unable to get back in.

Sea Knights delivered humanitarian cargo.

An MC-130H Combat Talon II makes a successful landing at Sendai Airport, Japan, bringing speciallyequipped troops to help open the facility. Photo by Staff Sgt. Samuel Morse.



For the past few years the MarineCorps focus—and its top priority—hasbeen STOVL operations from land andfrom assault ship decks. Originally, thecorps planned to acquire only the F-35B model, to continue the long tra-dition begun with early versions of theAV-8B Harrier II. Until recently, Mar-ines were not expected to operate thecarrier-based F-35C at all.Now, under an interservice agree-

ment signed by the Navy and Marines,the ‘program of record’ calls for theMarine Corps to acquire 80 F-35Cs.Marine pilots serving aboard carrierswill fly the same C version as theirNavy compatriots. Following severalrestructurings of the program, the firstNavy F-35C carrier squadron is set tostand up in December 2015, with thefirst Marine F-35C squadron to followa year later.The Navy has 11 carriers and 10

carrier air wings (CVWs) with 44 strikefighters in each, broken into squadronsof 10-12 aircraft each. Eventually, eachCVW will have two F/A-18E/F SuperHornet squadrons and two F-35Csquadrons. The Navy will then have35 carrier-capable strike fighter squad-rons along with the Marines’ five. TheNavy has long said it would buy 680JSFs but had not previously disclosedthe mix; now the service will use 260F-35Cs, while the Marines will operate80 more, with the remaining 340 air-craft being STOVL F-35Bs. The Navyrecently increased its planned pur-chase of Super Hornets from 471 to556, and has 418 in inventory today.

Robert F. [email protected]

number of flights it can accommodateand the distance they can travel. Noone is seriously proposing further re-strictions, let alone closing this promi-nent airport, but its operations arelikely to face greater scrutiny in thecoming months.

STOVL fighter endangeredThe viability of the short takeoff andvertical landing (STOVL) version ofthe Joint Strike Fighter, known as theF-35B Lightning II, is being questionednow that plans have been disclosedfor the ‘mix’ of F-35B and carrier-based F-35C versions that the MarineCorps will operate.Gen. James F. Amos, Marine Corps

commandant, defends the F-35B butacknowledges the STOVL plane willhave to prove itself affordable to re-tain its place in the U.S. inventory.Doubts arose about the viability of theF-35B when the British canceled theirplans for the STOVL version. The U.K.is shifting to the F-35C model as partof a dramatic downsizing of its forces.The only other STOVL user, Italy,

wants 22 F-35Bs for its navy for thecarrier Cavour and 40 more for its airforce. Observers in both Washingtonand Rome, however, are doubtful the40 air force aircraft will be built. If not,overall purchases of the F-35B wouldbe cut in half at a time when questionsabout the cost of the STOVL are in-creasing. Whether the unique missionof the Marines—ship-to-shore amphibi-ous warfare—justifies the cost will bethe focus of future F-35B debate.Amos has given several public

talks in support of the STOVL fighter,including a speech at an industry din-ner. He testified before the SenateArmed Services Committee that thegross weight of the F-35B, long a trou-bling issue, is “getting under control”and that the number of test flights sofar this year is “140% of where we ex-pected to be” in the program.But he also confessed, “I’d like to

see it further along in the test program,but we are where we are. This is acomplicated airplane, and we’re goingto work our way through the issues.”

The latest incident is expected toprompt congressional hearings. Rep.John Mica (R-Fla.), chair of the HouseTransportation and Infrastructure Com-mittee, said in a statement that thisand other recent aviation performancefailures are a “serious concern.” Micasaid his committee will investigate theincident. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W. Va.),ranking Democrat on the committee,called the event “troubling.” Said Ra-hall, “We must deal with the immedi-ate safety and security concerns of thiscritical airspace, so I welcome Secre-tary LaHood’s decision to increasepersonnel at the airport and examinestaffing levels at airports around thecountry.”Built on landfill in the Potomac

River in an area of high air traffic con-gestion and population density, DCAhas severe limitations with its runwaylength of just 6,869 ft. Although it han-dles about 18 million travelers a year,some skeptics say the airport wouldnot exist if it were not so handy to thelawmakers who hold airport fundingpurse strings. Two larger airports alsoserve the area but are more distantfrom the capital and more difficult fortraveling lawmakers to reach. DCA op-erates with severe restrictions on the The viability of the STOVL version of the F-35 is

once more being called into question.

The incident involving the sleeping air trafficcontrol supervisor at DCA triggered calls for con-gressional hearings.

Gen. James F. Amos



The first source ofgrowth will be new-genera-tion jets. After a very dam-aging series of delays, Boe-ing’s 787 is now expectedto enter service later thisyear, with a very aggressiveramp-up plan to 10 aircraftper month. Also, the new747-8 will reach an antici-pated two-per-month ratewithin the next two years.

At Airbus, current planscall for A380 rates to rampup to at least three permonth. The new A350XWB, slated toenter service in 2013, is scheduled toramp up to 10 deliveries per monthwithin a few years of the aircraft’s an-ticipated in-service date.

Yet while these new productsramp up, the two companies are alsoplanning considerable legacy productoutput increases. In December 2010Boeing announced that it was increas-ing monthly production of the 777family from the current goal of 7 permonth to 8.3 per month starting in thefirst quarter of 2013. The current mini-mal rate of 767 output is also expectedto rise, possibly doubling to two permonth. And at Airbus, in February thecompany announced that A330 pro-duction would increase from 8 to 10per month by early 2013.

These plans are not taking up theslack from any kind of single-aisle ratereduction. In fact, both manufacturersare planning further single-aisle rateincreases. Airbus’s current plan is toincrease A320 series production from36 to 40 per month by 2012, and it iscurrently surveying the supplier baseto investigate the feasibility of furtherrate increases. Boeing increased 737series production rates to 31.5 permonth last year, a new record. Later in2010 it announced plans to reach a 35-per-month rate starting January 2012,and a rate of 38 per month in the sec-

ond quarter of 2013. In addition, Bombardier is sched-

uled to enter the main-line twin-aislejetliner market in 2013 with its newCSeries family.

Adding all single- and twin-aisleoutput plans produces market growthnumbers equating to a record “supercycle.” The plans imply a CAGR of 9%in 2003-2014, a remarkably long-livedupturn. Even more remarkable, theplans imply a market CAGR of 13.3%in 2010-2014. In other words, the jet-liner market grew during economicnumbers that should have precipitateda cyclical downturn, and is now plan-ning for the kind of growth numberstypically associated with a strong re-covery from a severe downturn.

Positive signsThe most encouraging reason to be-lieve these manufacturer deliverygoals is that twin-aisle jetliners havebeen considerably underrepresentedby the present market upturn. Duringthe last decade, single-aisle outputgrew by 50.3% by value (comparedwith the previous decade, 1991-2000),while twin-aisle output actually fell by6% by value.

However, passenger growth im-plies a mismatch here. Between thetwo decades, domestic market passen-ger count increased by 30%. Yet inter-

A bigger and wider jetliner decade?

THE JETLINER INDUSTRY STANDS ALONEas the only major world manufacturingsegment that actually saw output growduring the great recession of 2008/2009. Although there was a program-related output reduction in 2010, ag-gregate jetliner output rose by a 5.3%CAGR (compound annual growth rate)between 2008 and 2010. Consideringthat this was the worst year for theworld economy since WW II, that in-dicates a very healthy level of jetlinerdemand.

There are solid reasons for the jet-liner market’s impressive performance.But not content with this success, Air-bus and Boeing are planning a remark-able production upturn, starting froma very high base. This phase of growthwill see a focus on twin-aisle jets, butthere are valid reasons to doubt thatthe market, and supply factors, will beable to support all of these new pro-duction goals.

Ambitious goalsAirbus and Boeing have announcedambitious plans to increase twin-aisleproduction rates greatly over the nextthree years. Last year, just 191 twin-aisle jets were delivered. In 2014, themanufacturers plan to deliver morethan 450, a record level of twin-aisleproduction. Using aircraft value multi-pliers, this equates to a 137% produc-tion output increase relative to 2010deliveries.

A350XWB

777

AIRCRAFT0511_Layout 1 4/6/11 12:27 PM Page 3


fuel prices will return to low, or evenmoderate, levels any time soon. Thisimplies a continued market preferencefor new equipment and a willingnessto dispose of older jets, even at pre-mature aircraft ages. The single-aislemarket has come to depend on this dy-namic, and as new technology comeson line the twin-aisle market couldwell follow suit.

Market and production risksThe biggest risk to the manufacturers’objectives, of course, is that economicgrowth could be derailed, causing atraffic drop and a demand drop. Whilethe past few years have seen deliver-ies conform to economic growth trendlines, there are no global growth fore-casts that would justify a 13.3% CAGRin 2010-2014. Indeed, given the fragil-ity of the economic recovery, there areno guarantees of any kind of addi-tional deliveries growth at all.In similar fashion, anything that

impacts commercial or government fi-nance for the new jets could keepproduction plans in check. The newAircraft Sector Understanding agree-ment, signed in February 2011, clearlyimplies that government-backed exportfinance will come at more expensiverates. Government export finance hasrisen in importance, supporting over

nation of safety and profit. As hard as-sets, they are a solid hedge against in-flation. Over one-third of orders in2010 came from financial entities. Thishas tracked a broader economic trendtermed “excessive demand” for safeassets, although financiers’ demandfor jetliners arguably has not risen toexcessive levels.Most financial-company demand

for jets over the past few years has fo-cused on just two single-aisle aircraftfamilies, Airbus’s A320 and Boeing’s737. As twin-aisle output and demandincrease (hopefully), it is possible thatthe financial players will shift their in-terest to twin-aisle jets.Finally, it does not look as though

500

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0

BIG TWIN-AISLE PLANS, FOR NEW AND LEGACY PRODUCTSA 137% value increase in four yearsUnits

national passenger count—traffic muchmore likely to be flown on twin-aislejets—increased by 75%.Program delays, as we mentioned,

provide much of the reason for this di-vergence. Both Airbus and Boeing in-tended to have produced far moreA380s, 787s, and 747-8s at this point.According to the original plans, wellover 200 of these new-generation jetsshould have entered service by now.Instead, the market has only received40 A380s—and 2010 was the first yearsince 1969 to see zero 747s delivered.Meanwhile, Boeing, acknowledg-

ing that slumping air cargo numbers in2008/2009 were impacting demand forcargo aircraft, decided to reduce 777Fproduction rates. This was the onlylegacy jetliner program, 747 excepted,to actually see a deliveries reductionin 2010. The cargo market’s remark-able 2009/2010 recovery clearly sup-ports increased 777F output.Another reason the new goals

might actually happen is that marketfundamentals are quite strong. Bothairline traffic and profits have comeback very strongly in 2010, which im-plies additional demand for aircraft.But a key factor behind the recoveryin airline profits has been capacity dis-cipline. Airlines avoided losses, andthen went on to earn respectable prof-its, largely because most of them haveavoided adding too much capacity.Many successfully cut fleet sizes.Another reason that these ambi-

tious plans might succeed concerns fi-nance. For many investors, jetlinershave come to embody an ideal combi-

787



one-third of jetliner transactions in2010, but given its higher costs underthe new ASU its appeal will likely di-minish. We do not know what impactit will have on the market, or whetherprivate capital will ramp up as govern-ment finance ramps down.

A strong economy and financeoutlook are necessary for more thanjust deliveries. The manufacturers willneed to book additional orders forseveral products that are key to theirproduction plans. Counting all currentfirm and option orders, existing A330and 777 backlogs sustain planned out-put into 2013. But all orders and op-tions cover just about 60% of plannedoutput for both planes in 2014, just af-ter both aircraft reach their current an-ticipated maximum rates.

Also, even though there was a mis-match over the last decade betweenhigher international market growthand lower twin-aisle jetliner produc-tion, it is quite possible that currenttwin-aisle jet backlogs reflect a certainirrational exuberance by the airlines. Alarge number of carriers have centeredtheir plans for future growth aroundinternational traffic, particularly pre-mium passenger traffic. There mightnot be enough of this traffic to justifyeveryone’s fleet growth ambitions.

Similarly, a considerable segment

of the twin-aisle backlog is for Mideastcarriers competing with global legacyairlines. A remarkable 32% of Airbus’stwin-aisle backlog, and 46% of its A380backlog, is for carriers in this region.Almost all of these numbers are forjust three carriers, Emirates, Etihad,and Qatar. The three carriers are bas-ing their ambitious growth plans ontraffic between two other places,rather than origin and destination traf-fic to or from the Mideast. This in-evitably raises concerns about backlogoverlap. There’s only so much trafficto go around, and a jet delivered to aMideast carrier often means a jet notdelivered to a European or Asian car-rier pursuing the same global traffic.

The next risk is the supply chain.A production ramp-up of this magni-tude and duration always carries risks,but high materials prices make the sit-uation more challenging. Will subcon-tractors and prime contractors success-fully pass higher costs to the airlineswithout affecting demand? As in thebroader economy, there is a risk of astagflationary crunch, where demandsoftens yet input prices stay high.Given strong demand in emergingeconomies such as India and China, itis quite possible that materials and oilprices will go higher still.

Also, the new jets that are a keypart of the ramp-up—Boeing’s 787 andAirbus’s A350XWB—both require ex-tensive use of new composite materi-als and a much greater use of titaniumand other expensive metals. There isalways a cost and manufacturing pro-cess adaptation risk in moving to newmaterials. The latter factor has alreadyplayed a key role in delaying the 787program.

QQQ

Our forecast, balancing all of theseambitions and risks, is optimistic. Weanticipate continued robust growth inthe jetliner industry, with deliveriesgrowing from a 2011 peak of $68.8billion to an impressive $100 billionby the end of the decade. But this im-pressive achievement implies slowergrowth than the two big manufactur-ers currently have in mind.

Richard AboulafiaTeal Group

[email protected]

$110

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DO YOU BELIEVE IN SUPER CYCLES?OEM plans for commercial transport deliveries by value

‘59 ’63 ‘67 ’71 ‘75 ’79 ‘83 ’87 ‘91 ’95 ‘99 ’03 ‘07 ’11ƒ ‘14ƒ

(Value in 2011 $billions)

‘84 –’9116.5% CAGR

‘95 –’9919.1% CAGR

‘03 –’149% CAGR;‘10 –’1413.3% CAGR

A380


tion to it was very positive. What Ken-nedy concluded in the immediate aftermath of the Gagarin flight wasthat the United States could not standby and let the Soviet Union do all thedramatic “firsts” in space. The Cold

War was on, and U.S.-Soviet competi-tion was fierce on all fronts.

Did U.S. embarrassment at Cuba’sBay of Pigs in that same month influ-ence Kennedy’s decision to go to theMoon?

To some extent, it did. But I be-lieve that the basic decision to com-pete in space was made before theCuban fiasco. After the Gagarin launchand the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy wrote aclassic memo asking his advisors tofind him “a space program that prom-ised dramatic results with which wecould win.” His set of requirementswas clear: space, dramatic, win. Hemade the fundamental decision in theimmediate aftermath of the Gagarinflight that the U.S. had to get into theleading position in space.

It is important to realize that Ken-nedy brought to the presidency theconcept of “Americanexceptionalism”—thatthe U.S. rightly wasand should be theleading nation in theworld. He was willingto expend nationalresources and to de-mand national sacrifice to make surethat the United States was the leadingnation.

NASA’s Mercury program was underway at the time. How did it figure inKennedy’s outlook on Apollo?

A condition necessary to Apollohappening was the success of the sub-

orbital [Mercury] flight of Alan ShepardMay 5, 1961, just as the president’s ad-visors were preparing to give himtheir recommendations on accelerat-ing the space program. If the Shepardflight had been a failure—and there

was great con-cern about therisks involved—it is doubtfulthat Kennedy

could have gone to Congress threeweeks later and said we are going tosend people to the Moon even thoughwe just killed an astronaut.

When was the Moon landing adven-ture recommended to Kennedy?

The recommendations from hisadvisors were prepared over the week-end of May 6 and 7, 1961, and em-bodied in a May 8 memorandum thatfirst went to [Vice President] LyndonJohnson, which Johnson endorsed. Itwent to JFK the same day. It was a re-markable document, mainly for thelanguage that was used to justify set-ting a lunar landing as the centralgoal. It said men, not machines, cap-ture the imagination of the world, andthat, basically, the national prestige thatcomes from large-scale space achieve-ments, even though it may not havemilitary or economic value, is “part of

the battle along the fluid front of theCold War.”

How does that set of circumstancesrelate to the current debate over thepriorities of today’s space program?

One of the problems today is thatthere is no question of high politicalsignificance, the answer to which is go

Fifty years ago, President Kennedyannounced his decision to send U.S.astronauts to the Moon. You have ob-served the U.S. space program formost of those 50 years and havewritten extensively about it. Take usback to that presidency.

Kennedy came into office Jan. 20,1961, not knowing much about thespace program. Nobody could havepredicted that, only four months later,he would make the historic decisionto mobilize really immense nationalresources in an effort to send Ameri-cans to the Moon.

What was the situation as JFK en-tered the White House in regard toU.S. space plans?

In the late 1950s, NASA, the mili-tary, and some elements of the techni-cal community had ideas for ambitiousfuture space programs. NASA had al-ready chosen a lunar landing as itslong-term goal, and these plans werebriefed to President Eisenhower, whowas unenthusiastic about humanspaceflight. Eisenhower said, no wayam I going to send people to theMoon. Then Kennedy’s [presidentialtransition] task force on space down-graded the importance of humanspaceflight, and the biomedical peo-ple in his scientific advisory groupcould not assure him that humanscould survive in space. So the futureof human spaceflight was very muchin doubt as Kennedy took office.

So what happened to influence hisdecision?

At first, Kennedy said he didn’tknow what kind of a post-Mercury hu-man spaceflight program he wanted,and needed time to make up his mind.He also said, in his inaugural address,that his first preference was to cooper-ate with the Soviet Union in space.Then came the historic launch of [So-viet cosmonaut] Yuri Gagarin into or-bit in April 1961. The worldwide reac-


John Logsdon

“Human involvement in spaceflight is still an essential element of using the space program as an element of U.S. ‘soft power.’ ”

“[The recommendation] said men, not machines,capture the imagination of the world.”

AA-layout CONVERS0111_AA conversations 4/6/11 12:36 PM Page 2

to Mars or even go back to the Moon.Kennedy concluded that space leader-ship was essential to U.S. leadership.And how could the United States be-come the space leader? Kennedy’s an-swer was: send people to the Moon. Itworked, and now in 2011, 50 yearslater, the United States remains thespace leader, although potentially indanger of losing that position.

Can you draw a parallel with thecontemporary space issues?

I happen to think that today thereis a similar answer to the question ofhow to assure U.S. leadership in space:Send humans somewhere out thereand explore, but this time as the lead-ing partner in a cooperative undertak-ing. Human involvement is subject toreasonable debate, but my conclusionis that the line in the recommendationto Kennedy—that men, not machines,capture the imagination of the world—

still has validity. Machines also captureour imagination now—Mars Roversand the Hubble telescope, for exam-ple—but I think human involvement inspaceflight is still an essential elementof using the space program as an ele-ment of U.S. ‘soft power.’

Many American astronauts havegone into orbit since the Apollo pro-gram, on Skylab, the shuttle, the in-ternational space station. Does thatcount for something?

Over 500 people have gone intospace, but relatively few of their mis-sions have captured the public imagi-nation to anywhere near the extent ofApollo. Repetitive missions to Earthorbit really aren’t all that exciting.

Do we have to be in competition witha rival nation in order to do the kindof things we did in Kennedy’s time?

I think our bitter competition withthe Soviet Union made it possible toconduct the peaceful but warlike mo-bilization of resources to win the race

to the Moon. People tend to forgetwhat was involved in that mobiliza-tion. After Kennedy’s decision, NASA’sbudget went up 89%, and the nextyear, it went up 101%. This was thelargest peacetime mobilization of hu-man and financial resources in U.S.

history. Even the Panama Canal andthe Manhattan Project cost consider-ably less.

I now think that the set of circum-stances that made the Apollo programpossible—a new, young president atthe beginning of his time in the White


Interview by James Canan

John M. Logsdon is professor emeritus ofpolitical science and international affairsat George Washington University’s ElliottSchool of International Affairs. Prior toleaving active faculty status in 2008, hewas on the GW faculty for 38 years. Beforethat, he taught at the Catholic Universityof America for four years.

Logsdon was the founder and long-time director of GW’s Space Policy Institute.From 1983 to 2001, he was also director ofthe Center for International Science andTechnology Policy. He is also on the facultyof the International Space University.

During 2008-2009, Logsdon held theCharles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace

History at the National Air and Space Museum. He was the first holder of themuseum’s chair in space history and hasserved on its Research Advisory Committee.

His book John F. Kennedy and the Raceto the Moonwas published in January2011. He is also the author of The Decisionto Go to the Moon: Project Apollo andthe National Interest, and is general editorof the eight-volume series Exploring theUnknown: Selected Documents in theHistory of the U.S. Civil Space Program.

Logsdon was a member of the NASA Advisory Council from 2005 to 2009 and remains a member of the council’s Exploration Committee. In 2003, he servedas a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.

He is a recipient of the Exceptional PublicService, Distinguished Public Service, andPublic Service medals from NASA, the2005 John F. Kennedy Astronautics Awardfrom the American Astronomical Society,and the 2006 Barry Goldwater Space Educator Award from AIAA. He is a fellowof AIAA and AAAS and a member of the International Academy of Astronautics andnumerous other space-related institutions.

Logsdon is on the editorial board of the international journal Space Policy andwas its North American editor from 1985to 2000. He is also on the editorial boardof the journal Astropolitics. He holds a B.S.in physics from Xavier University and aPh.D. in political science from NYU.


Soviet Union, because that would al-low the U.S. to do anything it wantedto do in space. There was a great dis-parity in rocket lifting power betweenthe U.S. and the Soviet Union. The So-viet rocket, the R-7, which had alreadybeen built as the first Soviet ICBM,turned out to be a terrible ICBM butwas a very good, very powerful spacelaunch vehicle, now called Soyuz andstill in use in much-improved form. Itgave the Soviets a great weight-liftingadvantage.

How did Kennedy and his advisorsassess the importance of the R-7?

Their calculation was that the So-viet Union, using that launch vehicle,could be first in doing almost every-thing dramatic in space, including pos-sibly sending one cosmonaut aroundthe Moon.

So it was obvious at the time that theU.S. needed to build a much morepowerful space launch rocket?

That’s right. Saturn V. In simplisticterms, the Saturn V rocket was a veryscaled-up V2 rocket. Wernher vonBraun started the V2 in Germany andthe V2 led to Saturn V. But von Braundidn’t originate the F1 engine for Sat-urn V. The USAF did.

Back to the Apollo decision. Whathappened after Kennedy made it?

What made Kennedy’s involve-ment with Apollo so remarkable wasthat not only did he set the goals andallocate the resources, but that hestayed with it. When faced in 1962and especially in 1963 with criticismand concerns about the burgeoningcost of the program, he had his stafflook very carefully at the pros andcons of backing off or going ahead,and his decision was to go ahead. Soit was not only his original decisionbut also a series of reinforcing deci-

sions that made Apollo possible andultimately successful.

Compare then to now.The setting is much different. In

1961, the U.S. decision on what to doin space was tied to the U.S. positionin the world. That’s not true anymore, for better or for worse. We arenot spending anywhere near the samelevel of national resources on space,either. The NASA budget in the lastyears of the Kennedy administrationwas about 3.5% of the federal budget.Now it’s 0.6%. So we are not askingfor the same level of support out ofthe political system that Kennedyasked for.

You noted that Kennedy, in his inau-gural address, called for coopera-tion with the Soviet Union in space.Tell us more about that. What hap-pened along the way?

Kennedy kept returning to theidea that cooperation was better thancompetition. He proposed space co-operation again in his first State of theUnion message 10 days after his inau-gural. But all of that was trumped bythe Gagarin flight and Kennedy’s deci-sion that the United States reallyneeded to take the leading position in

space. Even so, very shortly after theMay 25, 1961, announcement of his de-cision to go to the Moon, he met with[Soviet Premier Nikita] Khrushchev inVienna—on June 3 and 4—and pro-posed going to the Moon together. Ba-sically, Khrushchev said no.

Was that the end of it?No, it wasn’t. I find it remarkable

that very few people in the space com-munity know or remember that Ken-nedy went to the United Nations Sep-tember 20, 1963, just two monthsbefore his assassination, and asked,

House, a powerful rival, no big na-tional debt or budget deficit, no tech-nological breakthrough required, justlots of good engineering—were uniqueand will not be repeated.

Tell us more about Kennedy’s deci-sion in the context of the Cold Warand what it means for U.S. space de-cisions today.

It is hard to recreate the sense ofdire U.S.-Soviet competition, of realfear, of bomb shelters and civil de-fense. The possibility of nuclear warwith the Soviet Union was very real,and there was the perception that theU.S. was in danger of losing its posi-tion as the world’s leading nation.

What about China? Its successfulASAT test and its space programsand ambitions in general are said tobe cause for concern.

The parallel between U.S.-Sovietcompetition in the Cold War and U.S.-Chinese competition for global leader-ship in the 21st century has some va-lidity, but I don’t think it’s totally valid.Since the U.S. has made space centralto its warfighting capability—maybeexcessively so—it is entirely logicalfrom the Chinese point of view to de-velop the capability to counter that.

But I don’t think that necessarilymeans that China is intent on using itsmilitary power directly counter to U.S.interests, in the way that the SovietUnion during the Cold War developedmilitary power to counter U.S. inter-ests in Europe and in other locations. Idon’t agree with the notion that spaceis or will be an area of U.S.-Chinesecompetition in the same way that itwas with the Soviet Union during theCold War.

As I recall, we were worried aboutthe clear Soviet advantage in heavy-lift launch vehicles. How did thatplay into Kennedy’s decision to pre-pare to go to the Moon?

After careful study of what led toKennedy’s decision, I came to believethat his number one concern was hav-ing a more powerful rocket than the


“What made Kennedy’s involvement with Apollo so remarkable was that not only did he set the goals and allocate the resources, but that he stayed with it.”


why shouldn’t the United States andthe Soviet Union—and indeed all othercountries—pool their efforts in thisgreat adventure. It is fascinating tospeculate what might have happened ifKhrushchev had accepted Kennedy’sproposal—as it seems he was willing by1963 to do—and if Kennedy had lived.

The Apollo budget eventually cameinto question, though, didn’t it?

It did. For the first couple of yearsafter Kennedy announced his decisionto go to the Moon, Congress was sup-portive. But in 1963, there was in-creasing skepticism of the value of thelunar landing program. That year, theCongress cut NASA’s budget by 15%.But after Kennedy was assassinated,Apollo became a monument to him,and that momentum carried the pro-gram through the Apollo 1 accidentand on to its successful completion.President Johnson did nothing to de-lay Apollo, but he was not committedto a space exploration program be-yond Apollo. In fact, it was Johnsonwho made the initial decision to shutdown the Saturn V production line.Skylab was the last Saturn-fired launch.

So would you say that there was anegative aspect to Apollo’s success?

One of the problems with Ken-nedy’s rationale for going to the Moonwas that it wasn’t sustainable. It wascast as a race, and once we won therace, with Apollo 11, the race wasover. There was enough residual mo-mentum for six more missions to theMoon, five of them successful, butthree additional missions were can-celled. Kennedy’s decision to go theMoon was something really great inAmerican history, but it wasn’t goodfor the space program after Apollo.

Go ahead and elaborate on that.Apollo created a large organiza-

tion in NASA, lots of great new capa-bilities, lots of jobs for people, and,thus, lots of political interest in partic-ular congressional districts. In mymind, the main sustainment of thespace program in the 40-plus years

since Apollo has been the relativelyparochial political interests in main-taining jobs, maintaining contracts,and maintaining the economic impactof the space program at certain facili-ties around the country, not fully com-mitted presidential leadership.

Will we see anything like Apollo everagain?

It seems to me that the circum-stances and context that made Apollopossible cannot be repeated, and willnot be repeated. And so, in thinkingthrough what is required for a sustain-able space exploration program, we

have to develop a rationale that doesnot depend on geopolitical competi-tion or public entertainment or excite-ment. The problem is that all attemptsto do that since Apollo have come uprelatively empty. In my opinion, weneed to develop a single, clearly artic-ulated, widely supported rationale forhuman exploration of space, and weneed to understand that expandingour experience, doing things we havenot done before, is part of our respon-sibility as a leading society, and is partof our being human.

Do you think it will happen? I think ultimately there is going to

be human travel beyond Earth orbitthat will be lasting, not just for dec-ades but for centuries. We just have tofind something of economic value outthere, and be able to live off the land


once we get there. We can’t continueto send everything from home. At themoment, the question is whetherthere is the political will among ourcountry’s leadership to allocate suffi-cient resources—in a very difficult, re-sources-constrained environment—forleadership in space.

If the U.S. doesn’t lead, will anothernation fill the gap?

I think even back in the early1960s Kennedy saw that in the longrun, human space exploration anddeep-space development should be acooperative enterprise transcendingnational military and geopolitical rival-ries. That imperative hasn’t changed.The space program today is global. Itis a very, very different world fromthe one in which only the two global superpowers had space capabilities,as was the case back then. Now thereare nine countries—and counting—thathave space launch capability, 50-somecountries with space agencies, andhigh-quality technical space capabili-ties in a number of nations.

Whether the Obama administra-tion and Congress can put the UnitedStates in position to be a reliable part-ner in a global program of space ex-ploration is the key space policy issueof the next few years, I believe, and isstill to be determined.

What is the salient connection be-tween Apollo and the formulation ofU.S. space policy today?

Apollo turned out to be an exam-ple of how not to do a sustainablespace program. Apollo is constantlyreferred to as the golden age of theU.S. space program, and in someways, it was. We did exciting, grandthings in Apollo. But it was not amodel for a sustainable 21st centuryprogram. And I think that’s what theObama strategy proposed last year isall about—let’s get off the Apollo para-digm and create a space program thatis appropriate for the 21st century.The debate since then has certainlybeen confusing, and unfortunately,the way forward is still not clear.

“The question is whetherthere is the political will among our country’s leadership to allocate sufficient resources—in a very difficult, resources-constrained environment—for leadership in space.”


Strong UAS market attractsintense competition


and $721 million in R&D and procure-ment funds to the Future Year DefensePlan through FY16 to support thisjoint mission. In the FY12 request, 12Fire Scouts are requested, compared tothree in the original FY12 plan andthree in the FY11 budget.

The MQ-4C BAMS (broad area mar-itime surveillance) derivative of theRQ-4 Global Hawk sees an increase inR&D funding to $548 million in theFY12 request, up from $529 millionthe previous year. Procurement re-mains at 15 throughout the multiyearplan, with the first three to be pur-chased in FY13. The Navy’s small tac-tical UAS also holds as planned in therequest, with 20 procured throughoutthe multiyear defense plan, includingeight systems in the FY12 request.

The longer viewTeal Group’s 2012 UAS forecast, re-leased in February, sees strong U.S.and worldwide UAV funding continu-ing throughout the next decade. The2011 market study estimates that UAVspending will almost double over thenext decade, from current worldwideannual UAS expenditures of $5.9 bil-lion to $11.3 billion, totaling just over$94 billion in the next 10 years.

Medium-altitude long-endurance(MALE) UAVs such as the Predator andReaper, which have proved their valuein Afghanistan and Iraq, are projectedto represent a particularly large por-tion of the market, approximately 35%,or $22.8 billion. High-altitude long-en-durance (HALE) UAVs such as GlobalHawk are predicted to represent 23%of the market, or $15.2 billion.

Of course, these are two marketsegments that are currently dominatedby one manufacturer. MALE is domi-nated by General Atomics with thePredator family, which the Air Forceand the Army are purchasing. HALE isdominated by Northrop Grumman’sGlobal Hawk, which is being pur-

Hawk is funded at about $1.7 billion,the same level as 2010.

The Navy has long been less en-thusiastic than the other services aboutUAS, having voiced skepticism aboutthe safety of operating these systemsoff carriers. In the FY12 budget, how-ever, it gives them strong support, forthe first time requesting $121 millionin research funding for the UCLASS(unmanned carrier-launched airbornesurveillance and strike) aircraft. Thegoal is to have at least some UCLASSsystems operating off carriers by 2018.In the budget request, funding for theNavy unmanned combat aircraft sys-tem demonstrator was set at $198 mil-lion, down from $266 million in FY11.

The Defense Dept. selected theMQ-8 Fire Scout as the medium-termSpecial Operations Forces intelligence,surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR)solution, leading the Navy to add 32extended range and payload airframes

COMPETITION IN THE UNMANNED AER-ial systems (UAS) market, already oneof the hottest sectors in the U.S. aero-space industry, promises to intensifyeven more in the coming years.

Not only is the field crowded, butnew players also continue working toenter the market both in the U.S. andinternationally. Companies spendfreely on R&D and acquisitions to bol-ster their positions in the market. Newtechnologies could reshape UAS lead-ership in the future.

One reason for this intense interestis that the UAS market offers a refugefrom anticipated pressures on defensebudgets overall, both in the U.S. andabroad. In the U.S., the Army releasedits most recent UAS Roadmap lastyear. It predicted that over the next 25years, Army aviation would shift fromusing mainly manned to mainly un-manned aircraft, including optionallypiloted types.

FY12 funding requestThe FY12 budget request unveiled inFebruary also gives UAS companiesgood reason for optimism. The basebudget UAS procurement is $4.8 bil-lion, with Global Hawk, Reaper, andFire Scout all receiving strong fundingrequests. For Predator and Reaper sys-tems the figure rose from $1.6 billionin FY10 to $2.5 billion in FY12. Global

Fire Scout

Global Observer

AA-layout-INSIGHTS0111_Layout 1 4/6/11 12:42 PM Page 2

$120

100

80

60

40

20

02011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Millions

2011 UAV FORECAST

Source: Teal Group


chased by the Air Force and the Navy.Other segments represent smaller

dollars, but opportunities in emergingfields may be great. Naval UAS is aparticularly dynamic area. This seg-ment is projected to grow from $60million annually in 2011 to $588 mill-ion by 2020, according to Teal Group.Over the same period, worldwidenaval UAS sales are projected to reach$3.5 billion, or 5.3% of the market.

Another potential growth area isthat of unmanned combat air vehicles(UCAVs). The uncertainty of long-termsupport for such programs makes it ahighly speculative sector, but the TealGroup estimates it could reach $8.6billion, or 13.1% of the market, overthe course of the decade.

Other areas of the market wherethe military already has establishedUAS inventories appear more likely toface pressure in coming years. TacticalUAS, a sector dominated by theShadow in the U.S., faces a projecteddecline over the 2011-2020 timeframe.

Competition promises to increase,because the market remains wide openwhen it comes to new missions suchas maritime and cargo UAS. DARPAeven issued a request for proposals inOctober for a $47-million persistentclose-air support project. This couldinclude a demonstration that wouldinvolve modifying an A-10C into anoptionally piloted vehicle.

Companies are also hopeful thatDOD’s drive to increase competitionwill translate into increased opportuni-ties to displace incumbents in UAS.

New approachesAnother factor that keeps competitionintense is the potential for technologi-cal breakthroughs that upset the exist-ing market structure. For example,AeroVironment was flying its GlobalObserver in a joint concept technologydemonstration led by Special Opera-tions Command. The goal was to dem-onstrate the ability to fly for sevendays with a 400-lb payload at up to65,000 ft. If successful, it would meansubstantially fewer UAS would be re-quired to maintain continual coverageof an area, dramatically lowering thecost of coverage. Unfortunately, thecraft crashed about 18 hr into its ninthflight; the cause is under investigation.

Other companies are working todevelop their own approaches to alonger endurance UAS. Boeing andEADS, for example, are working onhydrogen-powered UAVs.

DARPA has an even more ambi-tious project to develop a five-year en-

durance UAS. Under an $89-millioncontract awarded in September, ateam consisting of Boeing and Qinetiqwill create a solar- and electric-pow-ered prototype for DARPA. By 2014,the team seeks to prove that it canachieve 30 days of flight.

Optional piloting is emerging asanother area of tremendous techno-logical interest. Sikorsky is investingheavily in developing an unmannedversion of the Army Blackhawk heli-copter, while L-3 Communications hasthe Mobius. Smaller companies suchas Aurora Flight Systems and Israel’sAeronautics are developing their ownoptionally piloted versions of the Dia-mond Aircraft 42.

The prospect of new approachesand new technologies also levels theplaying field for smaller companies.Aurora Flight Systems beat LockheedMartin to win the Air Force ResearchLaboratory’s MAGIC (medium-altitudeglobal ISR and communications) joint

Shadow



counts for about half of the company’sannual $1.9 billion in UAS revenues.Senior Dept. of Defense officials havecriticized the cost of the program, say-ing it threatens to become unafford-able. Northrop Grumman is makingchanges to ensure the program’s con-tinued viability.Still, they have tremendous breadth

that goes beyond Global Hawk. FireScout procurement is ramping up. TheBAT, a family of tactical UAVs now indevelopment, will be used to chal-lenge tactical systems such as the ScanEagle, the Integrator, and the Shadow.Northrop Grumman is also the marketleader in synthetic aperture radar pay-loads for UAVs.Other companies are working to

challenge the leading players, and notjust with breakthrough technologiesinvolving hydrogen- and solar-pow-ered UAVs.MALE programs are attracting in-

tense interest from major companieseager to break into the next decade’slargest UAS segment. The Navy’sUCLASS program is expected to attractinterest from Northrop Grumman,Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and GeneralAtomics. The Air Force’s next-genera-tion MQX effort to build a stealthy, jet-powered MALE UAV that can survivein contested airspace is expected tobring bids from Raytheon, NorthropGrumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin,General Atomics, and Israel AerospaceIndustries (IAI).In the international markets, IAI’s

Heron and Heron TP are alreadymounting a successful challenge toGeneral Atomics, winning fee-for-ser-vice contracts in Canada, Australia,and Germany. Elbit Systems is plan-ning its own challenge with its newHermes 900, which has just been pur-chased by the Israeli Air Force.

QQQ

In coming years, the leaders of today’sindustry may find that the strength andfluidity of the UAV market will make ita difficult one in which to maintaincontinued leadership.

Philip FinneganTeal Group

[email protected]

ing’s tactical UAS operations.Northrop Grumman, the world-

wide leader in UAS, has achieved itsown position through a combinationof heavy investment in R&D and cru-cial acquisitions, including Ryan Aero-nautical, developer of the GlobalHawk. Most recently, Northrop Grum-man purchased Swift Engineering’sKillerBee UAS family. It is also work-ing with Bell in a jointly funded effortto develop the Fire-X, a UAS based onthe commercial Bell 407.Lockheed Martin also has been in-

vesting heavily in efforts to build upits position in UAS. This has includedthe use of company funds to developand build the $27-million P-175 Pole-cat UAV demonstrator. The companyhas a relatively low-visibility position,partly because it has lost some keyprograms, and partly because its mostimportant effort, the Air Force RQ-170—a stealthy MALE UAS that hasbeen deployed to Afghanistan—re-mains highly classified.L-3 Communications has been a

leader in making acquisitions of UASbusinesses, purchasing three differentoperations in recent years, includingGeneva Aerospace in 2007 and BAI in2004. In addition, in August 2010 itpaid $18 million for Airborne Tech-nologies, a small UAS manufacturerthat developed the Cutlass UAS. Thisis a small, foldable UAS that can beaircraft launched.

Challenging the leadersWith so much investment in new tech-nologies and acquisitions, it is uncer-tain which companies will be the in-dustry leaders in the future. GeneralAtomics Aeronautical Systems, the sec-ond largest company, is benefittingfrom soaring sales of the Predator/Reaper. In coming years, the ramp-upin U.S. funding for the aircraft prom-ises to yield revenues for the com-pany, enabling it to challenge North-rop Grumman, the long-establishedUAS revenue leader.Northrop Grumman owes its lead-

ership largely to the Global Hawk andresearch funding for its BAMS variant.But there have been problems withthe Global Hawk program, which ac-

capability technology demonstrationcompetition.

Investments, acquisitions riseAs companies seek to establish them-selves in these segments of the UASmarket, they are spending freely. Atthe May 2010 unveiling of the Phan-tom Ray, Boeing officials noted thatthis technology demonstrator, whichwas fully financed by the company, isa symbol of Boeing’s commitment tobecoming a major player in UAS. “Phantom Ray represents a series

of significant changes that we’re mak-ing within Boeing Defense, Space &Security,” explained Darryl Davis,president of Phantom Works, at theunveiling ceremony. “For the first timein a long time, we are spending ourown money on designing, building,and flying near-operational proto-types. We’re spending that money toleverage the decades of experiencewe have in unmanned systems thatspan the gamut from sea to space.”Boeing, now the third largest U.S.

company in UAS, has built up its posi-tion by making such investments andacquiring two key UAS companies—Frontier Systems in 2004 and Insitu inJuly 2008. Insitu, manufacturer of theScanEagle and Integrator, is particu-larly important because of its rapidgrowth in the market. It reported ap-proximately $375 million in sales lastyear, compared to only several milliondollars in 2003 and $50 million by2006. Insitu was put in charge of Boe-

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THROUGHOUT THE U.S. COMMERCIALand residential construction commu-nity, environmentally friendly ‘greenbuildings’ are all the rage. Inside thefive-bedroom-equivalent public hous-ing unit known as the internationalspace station, NASA has staked itsclaim for green building leadership bydevoting significant resources to anambitious engineering project calledECLSS, the integrated regenerative en-vironmental control and life supportsystem.

ECLSS includes an oxygen genera-tion system delivered in July 2006 bythe space shuttle Discovery. Througha process called electrolysis, this sys-tem uses electricity from the ISS solarpanels to generate breathable oxygenfor crewmembers by breaking downwater into hydrogen and oxygen. TheECLSS also uses a water recovery sys-tem (WRS) that recycles potable water,water for technical uses from humid-

ity, used wash water, and crewmem-bers’ sweat and urine. The WRS em-ploys an extensive distillation and pu-rification process to produce about sixgallons every six hours. The systemwas delivered in November 2008 bythe Endeavour shuttle.

Augmenting the ECLSS is HamiltonSundstrand’s Sabatier reactor system,delivered to the ISS in April 2010 bythe shuttle Discovery. Sabatier takescarbon dioxide that is removed by thestation’s carbon dioxide removal as-sembly and combines it with hydro-gen produced by the ECLSS waterelectrolysis systems. This combinationproduces both water, which is fed intothe station’s wastewater recycling sys-tem, and methane, which is ventedinto space. NASA has yet to figure outa way to use the waste methane, butnotes that future experimentation onboard the ISS may be useful in deter-mining if the methane can be recov-

ered for use as rocket fuel for deepspace exploration.

ECLSS also features two devicesfor monitoring and ensuring atmo-sphere quality. One is the major con-stituent analyzer, a mass spectrometerthat samples air quality. The other is asystem of filters called a trace contam-inant control subassembly, which re-moves over 200 atmospheric chemicalcompounds generated by equipmentoff-gassing and human functions. Tomonitor and ensure water purity, theWRS uses conductivity sensors and adevice called the total organic carbonanalyzer, which measures the amountof organic and inorganic carbon in sta-tion water samples, as well as their pHand conductivity.

A philosophical shiftNASA’s ECLSS venture is important forseveral reasons. First, from a practicalstandpoint, it relieves the ISS partners

of requirements for costlywater and consumables re-supply missions, reducingannually the need for about6.8 tons of upmass to theISS. Second, it simply wouldnot have been possible todouble the station’s crewsize from three to six with-out the 2008 mission thatdelivered the WRS.

ECLSS also represents amajor shift in design philos-ophy from open-loop life-support systems, favored inthe first half-century of hu-man spaceflight, toward amore functional closed-loopsystem.

With the older, open-loop systems, nearly all con-sumables were brought byspacecraft flown in Earth or-bit or to the Moon. With theclosed-loop approach, de-pendence on ground sys-

A green space station

Green Engineering

Kwatsi L. Alibaruho, ECLSS officer, monitors data at his console in the station flight control room in NASA Johnson’s Mission Control Center as Expedition 9 heads toward its final days.

AA-layout-GREENeng2011_AA Template 4/6/11 12:45 PM Page 2


tems for consumables is increasinglylimited, a vital criterion for future hu-man missions to the Moon, near-Earthasteroids, or Mars.

Ron Ticker, manager for space sta-tion development at NASA Headquar-ters, refers to the ISS as a self-con-tained, life-sustaining ecosystem, or‘biodome.’ By that he means that thestation “is largely dependent on recy-cling. We do have resupply ships com-ing up there, but the more that we cando on board, [the more] it cuts our lo-gistics requirements, and cuts our costsup there. So when I say it’s a bio-dome, it is for the most part self-con-tained, or tries to be self-contained.That was the genesis, for example, ofgoing to a more regenerative ECLSS totry to close those loops even more.”

With ECLSS, “We’re learning a lotabout life support,” says William Ger-stenmaier, NASA’s associate adminis-trator for space operations. “We areclose to an 85% level of regenerationwith recycling urine into potable wa-ter, and we’re learning a great dealabout how to maintain systems in amicrogravity environment.”

“Sometimes the systems are toughto operate,” adds Gerstenmaier. “Withthe oxygen generation system, for ex-ample, small particles clog up filtersmuch more easily in microgravity. Sowe’re learning to make the filter holeslarger to avoid this problem.”

Surprises in microgravityNASA engineers responsible for thedesign and management of the ECLSSsay that while it works well in space,the agency has had to deal with unex-pected surprises simply because Earth-bound tests of the refrigerator-sizedoxygen and water regeneration equip-ment could not duplicate the station’smicrogravity environment.

One example occurred in the re-cycling of urine into potable water, aneffort never before attempted in space(since Mir, and on the ISS, the Rus-sians have worked strictly on recyclinghumidity into drinkable water, thoughthey have used recycled urine for re-generation of oxygen). The task is eas-ier to accomplish on the ground than

in microgravity conditions, explainsMonsi Roman, project manager for lifesupport and habitation systems atNASA. While it has been known foryears that astronauts shed calcium intheir urine, the mineral’s high concen-tration added a layer of impurity to therecycling process, and it proved moredifficult to filter out in space than inon-the-ground testing. “That’s givingus a challenge we did not expect,” Ro-man explains.

“With the rest of the process [fordistilling humidity and waste waterinto drinkable water],” she adds, “youcan recycle 100% of what you put in.But the urine you can’t. That precipi-tant of water that you lose in thebrine—contaminants from urine leftover after water is boiled off in a largetank—is your net loss of how muchyou’re actually recycling.

“Originally we thought we couldrecycle 93% of everything we put in[from the urine], but because of thishigh concentration of solids, we arenot at this level….So it’s a challenge,it’s something that we needed to learnabout on the space station. Distillationin itself is a very old technology. Mak-ing it work in microgravity is whatmakes it complicated. That’s what thespace station is there for—for us tocheck all these things we had neverknown in the past. If we had knownthem, of course we would have de-signed for them. If we go to Mars, wedon’t want to find out this informationfor the first time.”

To improve the efficiency of thewater recycling system, Roman saysNASA advanced life support engineersare testing a number of concepts, in-cluding “concentrating all the waterand distilling everything together, in-stead of distilling just the urine,”which might make the recoveryprocess “a little bit more effective.”

Once the urine is fully distilled andprocessed, the potable water productis treated with iodine “to keep anyresidual microorganisms that might stillbe in your product water from re-growing and becoming a microbiolog-ical hazard,” notes Robert Bagdigian,branch chief in NASA Marshall’s Engi-

neering Directorate. He says iodine isfavored over chlorine as a disinfectantbecause “chorine is harder to handle,especially in a closed spacecraft envi-ronment.” Because of medical con-cerns about the long-term effects of io-dine on humans, Bagdigian adds thatin a final filtration process the iodine isremoved from the drinking water.

Earthbound applicationsWhile recycling water in space haslong-term human spaceflight implica-tions, it also has immediate earth-bound applications.

Ticker notes that Water Security, aprivate company, has used the tech-nology NASA developed for this sys-

An oxygen generation system uses electricityfrom station solar panels to generate breathableoxygen through electrolysis.


tem to make “a product you can usein disaster recovery in the third-worldareas where water purification is a bigissue after earthquakes and other dev-astating events.”

The system has been used to pro-vide purified water for Kurdish vil-lages in Northern Iraq and for earth-quake relief in Pakistan. Adds Bag-digian, “We’ve gone out and talked tomunicipal water system operators, andbusinesses such as the pharmaceuticalindustry that want to learn how toproduce high-purity water.”

Operational lessons learnedA current challenge of operatingECLSS and other vital ISS systems is tomake them more efficient. Regardingthe filtration of dust, Roman notes,“The carbon dioxide removal systemhas issues with dust that we are tryingto resolve by using a different kind ofzeolites [molecular sieves] mix. Origi-nally they put in a mesh that was too

brid of “basic chemical systems, andbiological systems” such as “a green-house or system that will take the car-bon dioxide out of the air using al-gae.” She notes, though, that in-spacegreenhouses are not perfect solutions,because the carbon dioxide producedby humans will have to be scrubbedbefore it is absorbed by plants, andprovisions must be made to providethe plants “with the right temperatureand light. That’s a lot of power thatyou need there, and a lot of area.”

She adds that planners will needto figure out what to do with decom-posed plant waste. “Greenhouses adda level of mass that you have to ac-count for.” Roman concludes, “I donot think NASA will send people toMars completely dependent on onesystem or the other. I can tell you thatregeneration is the right way to go. Ifyou try to put together a trade studywhere you look at what it will take tokeep a group of humans alive, it is stillworth having a regenerative system inflight despite all the challenges.”

Ed [email protected]

small. There was no flowof air. Now we have re-designed the mesh, so weshould have a longer timein microgravity without theproblem of dust cloggingthe air flow. As we learn towork the systems, they getmore robust, and it takesless time for the crews todo repairs in flight.”

NASA engineers arealso seeking to make WRSequipment more efficient.“You would think we’dknow how to make long-life pumps,” says Bagdi-gian, “but in these applica-tions, where we are tryingto make these pumps assmall as possible—rela-tively low-flow-rate pumpswith high-pressure dropcapabilities—you wind uphaving fairly uniquepumps. So even with mun-dane things like pumpsand valves, operating withthis kind of complex wastewater can be quite a challenge for us.”

Regarding long-duration missionsbeyond LEO, NASA would also like todevelop a way of efficiently launder-ing crew clothing in a closed-loopsystem. Bagdigian says this has notbeen an easy task: “Station crewmem-bers have taken some of their clothes,like socks and underwear, and ontheir own have been experimentingwith putting them in bags and using alittle water to push the clothesaround. Operationally, we do nothave the ability to do laundry. For ex-ploration beyond space station, weare looking for technology to enableus to do it. We’d very much like to beable to reduce the amount of clothingwe put on the vehicle.” But for that tomake sense, he says, they have to besure any resulting weight savings“aren’t more than offset by the weightthat you’d add to the vehicle for allthe equipment and supplies you’dneed to do that laundering. There’s atrade there.”

Turning to the future of humanspaceflight, Roman foresees regenera-tive life-support systems that are a hy-

Green Engineering

The WRS provides clean water through the reclamationof waste waters.



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26 AEROSPACE AMERICA/MAY 2011 Copyright ©2011 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

The first decade of this century broughtmounting anxiety to defense officialsresponsible for alerting the U.S. and

its allies to impending missile attacks. Earlywarning satellites in geosynchronous orbitwere old and wearing out. The Air Forceprogram for developing new and bettersatellites to augment and replace them wasfoundering amid cost and technical prob-lems. A dangerous gap in missile warningcoverage lay ahead.

At the heart of the problem was theSpace-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) pro-gram, undertaken by the Air Force in 1996to develop the next generation of heat-sensing sentinels in space. SBIRS had fallenfar behind schedule and was verging onfailure. Ballistic missiles were coming intoplay in more and more countries, mostmenacingly in North Korea and Iran.

Now things are looking up: The SBIRSprogram, with Lockheed Martin as primeSBIRS GEO-1 undergoes work at

Lockheed Martin Space Systemsin Sunnyvale, California.

CANANlayout0511_Layout 1 4/6/11 12:47 PM Page 2


contractor and Northrop Grumman as pay-load integrator, finally seems to have hit itsstride. The first dedicated SBIRS satellite,GEO-1, is scheduled for launch from CapeCanaveral into geosynchronous orbit atopan Atlas 5 rocket this month.

Many missions, more coverageThree additional GEO satellites are sched-uled to follow in the near future to form aSBIRS constellation that will support multi-ple missions: missile warning, missile de-fense, technical intelligence, and battle-space awareness.

SBIRS will consist of more than just itsdedicated GEO satel-lites, which are highlysophisticated, stabilizedplatforms featuring tele-scopes, supersensitiveinfrared sensors, andpointing/aiming mirrors.The system will also in-clude four infrared sen-sor payloads on classi-fied, multipurpose hostsatellites in highly elliptical orbit (HEO).SBIRS spacecraft transmit data to fixed andmobile ground stations and, by relay, to themission control station at Buckley AFB, Col-orado, which currently operates the De-fense Support Program (DSP) satellites.

“SBIRS offers improved sensor flexibil-ity and sensitivity compared to DSP,” an AirForce paper claims. SBIRS sensors “covershort-wave infrared, expanded midwave in-frared, and see-to-the-ground bands, allow-ing them to perform a broader set of mis-sions,” it says.

In recent months, GEO-1 and its sen-sors and associated systems have passed allprelaunch tests with flying colors. In late

January, a major flight operations test of theperformance characteristics and ground sta-tion linkage demonstrated that GEO-1 isready to go, marking “one of the most sig-nificant milestones to date on the path tolaunch,” Lockheed Martin announced.

Two SBIRS sensor payloads currentlyaboard a classified HEO satellite are said tobe performing spectacularly. SubsequentSBIRS sensor payloads slated for launch onanother HEO satellite have met the require-ments of the National System for GeospatialIntelligence, which has officially acceptedthem for the technical intelligence mission.

Reasons for success“We have confidence in the GEO sensors,in part due to their similarity in design tothe HEO sensors,” says Jeff Smith, Lock-heed Martin’s SBIRS vice president and pro-gram manager. “We fully expect SBIRSGEO-1 to meet or exceed our customer’sexpectation, and we are confident in deliv-ering this first-of-its-kind spacecraft to meetour scheduled spring 2011 launch date.”

Smith attributes the latter-day successof SBIRS development to “sound programfundamentals and rigorous, disciplinedtesting,” and to the “accountability, trust,teamwork, and commitment” of the AirForce and its contractors. He says that

SBIRS early warning

by James W. CananContributing writer

Just as more nations began building ballistic missiles and acquiringnuclear weapons, U.S. early warning satellites were starting to wearout. Plans to replace them, however, proved overly ambitious, anddefense officials redoubled efforts to overcome mounting problems.The resulting Space-Based Infrared System now appears to be exceeding expectations.



satellite in 1970. Since then, 22 more havebeen launched. The early versions report-edly weighed about 2,000 lb and had a verybrief design life. Those launched in the pasttwo decades are said to have weighedmore than 5,000 lb and were designed tokeep operating much longer. The last oneto be launched—DSP 23, about two yearsago—reportedly lost contact with groundcontrol not long after launch into GEO (“Itjust disappeared,” said one official).

“When a satellite no longer has the re-dundancy left to cope with a parts or circuitfailure, it is said to have become a ‘single-string’ bird. It appears that some birds in thepresent [DSP] constellation have becomejust that as the government has waited forSBIRS to mature,” Thompson observes.

DSP satellites were the first line ofstrategic defense for the U.S. through muchof its Cold War nuclear standoff with theSoviet Union. The satellites were built bythe erstwhile TRW and then by NorthropGrumman to detect the intense infrared sig-natures of ICBM launches and nuclearbursts, and not necessarily to sense the lessdiscernible signatures of shorter range the-ater, or tactical, ballistic missiles on the rise.

During Operation Desert Storm in1991, a DSP satellite perched in GEO sur-prisingly picked up the heat from launchesof Iraq’s Scud tactical ballistic missiles. Thisdrew praise from Gen. Thomas Moorman(then head of Air Force Space Command),who called it “enormously important” to thesuccessful outcome of that conflict.

Long road to replacementBy the time of Desert Storm, the Air Forcehad shelved its plan for the AdvancedWarning System, a constellation of satellitesto replace the DSP system. Instead the Pen-tagon devised a more ambitious plan for aFollow-on Early Warning System (FEWS) todetect the launches of both theater ballisticmissiles and ICBMs. FEWS was designed toimprove on the DSP satellites but to haveless capability and lower cost than thehighly elaborate warning-and-targetingsatellites envisioned in the Strategic De-fense Initiative (SDI) program of the 1980s.

FEWS became too expensive and fellby the wayside. In 1994, after yet anotherstudy of missile threat and advance warn-ing prospects, the Air Force incorporatedan SDI early warning concept called Bril-liant Eyes in plans for a newly conceivedSpace-Based Infrared System, or SBIRS, fea-turing sentinel satellites in various orbits.

steps taken in developmentand testing over the pastyear “have reduced pro-gram risk significantly, giv-ing us great confidence inachieving mission success.”

The Air Force and itscontractor team adopted amore rigorous approach tothe program in recent yearsin an attempt to reduce riskin technology developmentand control costs. Therewas concern in some de-fense circles that thiswould severely compro-mise the capabilities of thesystem as it was originallyplanned. By all accounts,this has not happened.

Over the past twoyears, the Air Force and itscontractors have eliminated“almost all of the develop-mental risk associated withthe first-time integration ofa new satellite design,” and

“made major strides in restoring confidencein the program team’s ability to execute [theactivity] on plan and produce quality prod-ucts,” says Brig. Gen.-selectee RogerTeague, SBIRS program director and wingcommander with Air Force Space and Mis-sile Systems Center (SMSC).

In the process of developing SBIRS, thecenter is also focused on sustaining the DSPconstellation. “Our goal,” Teague says, isthe seamless replacement of DSP withSBIRS, and “we are working closely withAir Force Space Command to ensure thatthe SBIRS satellites are available for launchto support their operational mission.”

Last legs for DSPThe SBIRS program seems to have made acomeback in the nick of time—DSP satel-lites are almost out of gas. Defense officialsdo not openly discuss the operations or sta-tus of DSP spacecraft, but acknowledgethat some of those still in operation are indanger of going dark.

Loren Thompson, a longtime nationalsecurity observer and analyst with the Lex-ington Institute, recently observed, “there isevidence that some satellites in the [DSP]constellation are on their last legs. In fact, afew are already functioning well beyondtheir nominal design lives.”

The Air Force launched its first DSP

DSP 23, the last satellite in thatconstellation, reportedly lostcontact with ground controlshortly after launch.



Brilliant Eyes was renamed the Space andMissile Tracking System and then SBIRSLow. The DSP replacement element of theprogram was named SBIRS High.

Ten years ago, SBIRS Low was trans-ferred from the Air Force to the nationalBallistic Missile Defense Organization, nowthe Missile Defense Agency. This was doneto emphasize the program’s dedication toballistic missile defense and to distance itfrom SBIRS High, which even then wasrunning into troublesome cost and techni-cal problems. SBIRS Low was renamed theSpace Tracking and Surveillance System,and SBIRS High became simply SBIRS.

Air Force Space Command in Coloradocontrols the SBIRS and DSP satellites. TheSMSC’s Infrared Space Systems Directorateis in charge of SBIRS development. Lock-heed Martin’s original SBIRS High contractwith the Air Force called for two HEO pay-loads, two GEO satellites, and the ground-based assets to receive and process the in-frared data from space.

Early last year the SBIRS contract wasmodified to cover two additional HEO sen-sor payloads—HEO 3 and HEO 4—and fol-low-on production of two more GEO satel-lites. This increased the estimated programcost from $11.5 billion to $15.1 billion. HEO3 is scheduled for delivery next year,Teague says.

An indication that the additional cost ofthe SBIRS contract will be well justifiedcame in March 2010: An Air Force/Lock-heed Martin preliminary design review ofthe third and fourth GEO satellites was pro-nounced highly successful.

“This represents an important step” inthe SBIRS program, said Col. John Mueller,vice commander of SMSC’s SBIRS wing.“Now we are ready to dig into the detailson the design of the third and fourth space-craft in preparation for production.”

The Air Force had apparently over-reached in devising the SBIRS High pro-gram, setting out to do much more thanmerely replace DSP satellites with SBIRSHigh spacecraft in the early warning mode.It had planned to adorn the SBIRS sensorswith cutting-edge sensor technologies thatwould enable the satellites to perform mul-tiple missions: warn of ballistic missilelaunches, anchor an advanced, digitally in-tegrated system of ballistic missile defense,and provide technical intelligence and bat-tlefield awareness data to combat com-manders. This was asking too much of thesensors too soon, as it turned out.

SBIRS High quickly got into difficultybecause the program was improperly struc-tured, initial testing of parts and compo-nents was inadequate, and the investmentin building and integrating hardware waspremature and excessive, according to AirForce acquisition officials. In 2005 the ser-vice, under pressure from the Dept. of De-fense, began work on a possible SBIRSbackup program called the Alternative In-frared Satellite System (AIRSS).

At the time, Air Force officials seemedhopeful that corrective measures were be-ginning to give the SBIRS program ‘sometraction,’ as one put it. But they acknowl-edged that SBIRS had a long way to go, andwould remain suspect.

Back to basicsIn mid-2006, Gary Payton, then the chief ofAir Force space acquisition, told AerospaceAmerica: “In the beginning of the SBIRSHigh program, everybody said ‘we’re goingto take a grand and glorious big leap for-ward to replace the old DSP missile warn-ing satellites that are old and not goodenough any more.’ The problem was thatwe didn’t have the technology that wouldbe needed...but we went ahead anyway.”The Air Force and its SBIRS High contrac-tors “began doing the design work withouthaving the technology in hand for the sen-sor that was supposed to go on the space-craft,” he explained.

“We’ve gone back to basics, simplifiedthings,” Payton said. “We’re letting the tech-nology catch up.” He expressed hope thatlaunches of SBIRS High GEO-1 and GEO-2would take place in October 2008 and Oc-tober 2009, respectively, and that the costestimate for the program had peaked andstabilized at roughly $10 billion.

A year later, in 2007, SBIRS was in trou-ble again—the Air Force announced an ad-ditional cost overrun of around $1 billion.The cause was a problem with the GEO

Work on the GEO-2is well under way.



for funds to start work on yet anotherspace-based early warning program, theThird Generation Infrared Surveillance(3GIRS) system, an outgrowth of AIRSS,with Raytheon and SAIC the contractorteam for both programs. The AIRSS/3GIRSendeavor was undertaken as a less costlyalternative to the faltering SBIRS program.But now, with that effort apparently backon track, it is seen as a possible supplementto SBIRS if needed.

DOD’s Operationally Responsive Spaceoffice, which considers options for prevent-ing or closing a coverage gap in the U.S.space-based missile warning system, re-portedly continues to pursue future possi-bilities for the use of AIRSS/3GIRS sensors.The first such sensor is said to be scheduledfor launch this year on an Orbital Sciencessatellite as part of a commercial space pay-load experiment.

Rising prospectsSteady progress in the development andtesting of SBIRS sensors has given the pro-gram a big lift. Sensors on the host satellitecurrently in HEO have performed admir-ably, officials claim. The second HEO sen-sor payload and associated ground systemswere certified for missile warning opera-tions by Strategic Command last August.

At the time, Teague called the certifica-tion “another major operational achieve-ment” in the program. “The HEO system isdelivering revolutionary new surveillancecapabilities to combatant commanders, andwe look forward to continued strongprogress,” he declared.

The SBIRS infrared staring and scan-ning sensors are said to be demonstrablysuperior to those on GPS satellites in thescope, flexibility, and sensitivity of theircoverage. The staring sensor “has highagility to rapidly stare at one Earth locationand then move to other locations” and “willbe used for step-stare or dedicated-stareoperations over smaller geographic areas”than the scanning sensor can monitor, theAir Force claims.

Late last year, the Air Force and its con-tractors completed the final integrated sys-tem test of GEO-1, the first geosynchronousSBIRS satellite. The test verified that thespacecraft will perform as advertised, theAir Force announced.

Lockheed Martin’s Smith described thetest as “disciplined and thorough” andcalled it “a major program milestone on thepath to mission success.” Lockheed officials

satellite’s ‘safe-hold’ system, which takescontrol of basic functions such as position-ing when the satellite runs into operational

anomalies, and puts iton hold, in effect, un-til ground controllerscan assess and rectifythe situation.

That glitch wasovercome, and theprogram went aheadbut remained dubious.A General Accounta-bility Office reportnoted that the cost es-timate for the programhad ballooned to$12.2 billion, that thenumber of satellites inthe planned SBIRSconstellation had beenreduced from five tofour, and that thelaunch of the firstGEO satellite wouldtake place many yearslater than originallyscheduled.

Hedging its betson SBIRS, the AirForce asked Congress

The final integrated systemtest of GEO-1, a major programmilestone that verifies thespacecraft's performance andfunctionality in preparation fordelivery to the launch site, wascompleted on December 13.

The second HEO payload, a critical element of SBIRS,undergoes final inspectionprior to delivery.

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also hailed another milestone: the success-ful baseline integrated system test of thefirst GEO satellite’s updated flight softwaresubsystem (FSS), in conjunction with satel-lite hardware.

Bringing the FSS software up to snuffand ensuring its stability required nearlytwo years of painstaking development, theAir Force says. FSS performs many tasks,such as operating and controlling the satel-lite’s health, operational status, and safety;power management; fault detection and re-covery; thermal control; and telemetry.

Development of the SBIRS stations onland also seems to have come along nicely,given last summer’s successful system-leveltest of their interfaces with the satellites.According to the Air Force, that test vali-dated the GEO satellite’s command andcontrol capability, demonstrating that thesatellite and its ground stations are wellable to transmit and receive data while fre-quency-hopping as planned.

Testing “validated the functionality, per-formance, and operability of the SBIRS GEOground system” and demonstrated that “theground system is on track to support launchof the first…GEO-1 satellite in the constella-tion,” the Air Force claims. The test coveredmore than 1.5 million source lines of soft-ware code and 133 ground segmentrequirements, the service says.

With the launch of SBIRS GEO-1 nearly at hand, the outlookfor the SBIRS program seems moreupbeat than ever before. LexingtonInstitute’s Thompson is amongthose who express that. CallingSBIRS “an absolutely essentialspace asset,” he says that the AirForce and its contractors “suc-ceeded in building SBIRS as origi-nally envisioned,” and that the re-duction of SBIRS capabilities in theprogram’s corrective retrenchment“did not happen.”

The Space Tracking and Surveillance System,formerly named Brilliant Eyes, was an SDIearly warning concept.


Praise for Fundamentals of Aircraft and Airship DesignThis book is a fantastic collection of history, philosophy, analysis, principles, and data relating to the design of aircraft. I predict it will become a ‘classic’ and will be found on the desk of anyone concerned with aircraft design.—Dr. Barnes W. McCormick, The Pennsylvania State University

This book will be a very useful textbook for students of aeronautical engineering as well as for practicing engineers and engineering managers.—Dr. Jan Roskam, DARcorporation

A genuine tour de design, skillfully delivering cogent insights into the technical understanding required for designing aircraft to mission.—Dr. Bernd Chudoba, University of Texas at Arlington

AIAA EDUCATIONS

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Fun

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Desig

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Volu

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Aircraft D

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FUNDAMENTALS OF AIRCRAFT AND AIRSHIP DESIGNVolume I—Aircraft Design

Leland M. Nicolai

Grant E. Carichner

AIAA EDUCATION SERIES JOSEPH A. SCHETZ

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF American Institute of

Aeronautics and Astronautics

ABOUT THE BOOK

The aircraft is only a transport mechanism for the payload, and all design decisions must consider

payload fi rst. Simply stated, the aircraft is a dust cover. Fundamentals of Aircraft and Airship Design,

Volume 1: Aircraft Design emphasizes that the aircraft design process is a science and an art, but also a

compromise. While there is no right answer, there is always a best answer based on existing requirements

and available technologies.

CONCEPTS DISCUSSED

The authors address the conceptual design phase comprehensively, for both civil and military aircraft,

from initial consideration of user needs, material selection, and structural arrangement to the decision to

iterate the design one more time. The book includes designing for

• Survivability (stealth)

• Solar- and human-powered aircraft systems

• Very high altitude operation with air-breathing propulsion

This book revises and expands the 1975 classic aircraft design textbook that has been used worldwide

for more than 30 years. Completely updated with the latest industry processes and techniques, it will

benefi t graduate and upper-level undergraduate students as well as practicing engineers.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Step-by-step examples throughout the book, including designing a wing

• Lessons captured from historical case studies of aircraft design

• Full-color photographs of multiple aircraft (see end of book)

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

LELAND M. NICOLAI received his aerospace engineering degrees from the University of

Washington (BS), the University of Oklahoma (MS), and the University of Michigan (PhD), and an

MBA from Auburn University. His aircraft design experience includes 23 years in the U.S. Air Force,

retiring as a Colonel, and 30 years in industry (Northrop, Republic, and Lockheed). An AIAA Fellow,

he is currently a Lockheed Martin Fellow at the Skunk Works.

GRANT E. CARICHNER received his BS and MS in engineering from UCLA. His 45-year career

at the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works includes SR-71, M-21, L-1011 Transport, Black ASTOVL,

JASSM missile, hybrid airships, stealth targets, Quiet Supersonic Platform, and ISIS airship. Named an

“Inventor of the Year” in 1999, he holds the JASSM missile vehicle patent.

“This book will be a very useful textbook for students of aeronautical engineering

as well as for practicing engineers and engineering managers.”

—Dr. Jan Roskam, DARcorporation

“A genuine tour de design, skillfully delivering cogent insights into the technical

understanding required for designing aircraft to mission.”

— Dr. Bernd Chudoba

University of Texas at Arlington

“This book is a fantastic collection of history, philosophy, analysis, principles, and

data relating to the design of aircraft. I predict it will become a ‘classic’…”

— Dr. Barnes W. McCormick,

Pennsylvania State University

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

1801 Alexander Bell Drive, Suite 500

Reston, VA 20191-4344 USA

www.aiaa.org

ISBN: 978-1-60086-751-4

10-0030nicolai_v2_revised.indd 1

6/28/10 1:44 PM

10-0430

FUNDAMENTALS OF AIRCRAFT AND AIRSHIP DESIGNVolume I– Aircraft DesignLeland M. Nicolai and Grant E. Carichner

The aircraft is only a transport mechanism for the payload, and all design decisions must consider payload fi rst. Simply stated, the aircraft is a dust cover. Fundamentals of Aircraft

and Airship Design, Volume 1— Aircraft Design emphasizes that the aircraft design process is a science and an art, but also a compromise. While there is no right answer, there is always a best answer based on existing requirements and available technologies.

This book is a revision and expansion of the 1975 classic aircraft design textbook that has been used worldwide for more than 30 years. Completely updated with the latest industry processes and techniques, it will benefi t graduate and upper-level undergraduate students as well as practicing engineers.

2010, 883 pages, Hardback ISBN: 978-1-60086-751-4AIAA Member Price: $89.95 List Price: $119.95

CONCEPTS DISCUSSEDThe authors address the conceptual design phase comprehensively, for both civil and military aircraft, from initial consideration of user needs, material selection, and structural arrangement to the decision to iterate the design one more time. The book includes designing for

■ Survivability (stealth)

■ Solar- and human-powered aircraft systems

■ Very high altitude operation with air breathing propulsion

SPECIAL FEATURES ■ Step-by-step examples throughout the book,

including designing a wing

■ Lessons captured from historical case studies of aircraft design

■ Full-color photographs of multiple aircraft

Order online at www.aiaa.org/books

Featuring a new internal page design


Long gone are the days when weekendairplane watchers could visit an airportand see a Boeing 707 take to the skies,

its four Pratt & Whitney JT3C jet enginesbelching soot and smoke out the rear as theairliner roared down the runway. Propul-sion technology advances introduced byNASA working with many others during thepast 50 years have markedly reduced harm-ful engine emissions. But more still needsto be done.

NASA is collaborating with its govern-ment, industry, and university partners ona number of environmentally beneficial, or‘green,’ aviation initiatives designed to elim-inate as much potential harm to the eco-sphere as possible while still making airtravel as efficient and economical as it canbe. Emissions, nuisance noise, fuel burn ef-ficiency, air traffic management, and theuse of alternate fuels all are on NASA’s‘home improvement‘ radar.

Clearing the airDepending on their chemical composition,the potentially harmful jet engine emissionsof greatest concern to NASA researchers af-fect either the global atmosphere or the airquality in airport neighborhoods.

For the past 50 years, NASA

and its partners have made

steady progress in reducing

hazardous aircraft emissions.

But environmental restrictions

have grown stricter just when

requirements for lower costs

and improved fuel efficiency

have also increased. Balancing

these needs will take precision

and persistence, but current

research projects hold promise

for meeting the challenge.

In search of

Aircraft and the environment

BANKElayoutREV 0511_Layout 1 4/6/11 12:49 PM Page 2


formed as a result of jet engine water vaporemissions often spread out to become high-altitude cirrus clouds. “We are finding thatin areas where there is air traffic, either lo-cally over airports or on the nation’s jetways, there is an increased frequency ofcirrus clouds,” Minnis says. “What we don’tknow yet is the extent to which these cirrusclouds are having an effect on the totalamount of radiative energy that is trappedin the atmosphere.

“The impact of these contrails may beno worse than what we see with [CO2], orit may be many times worse. We just don’tknow enough yet,” says Minnis.

NASA’s aeronautics innovators are turn-ing to the science community to develop abetter understanding of the atmosphericimpacts of aircraft emissions, because thatwill directly affect the technical direction offuture aircraft and engine design changesintended to help the environment.

“Because of the uncertainty about thetrue impact of emissions on the global en-vironment, future aircraft engines designedto eliminate one type of emission, such asNOx, could create a bigger problem withsomething like contrails or water vapor,”says Jay Dryer, director of NASA’s Funda-

by Jim BankePublic Affairs writer,NASA Headquarters;President, MILA Solutions,a NASA subcontractor

Landing and takeoff emissions—foundon and around airport property—include ni-tric oxide and nitrogen oxide (collectivelycalled NOx), plus sulfur oxides and partic-ulates, also known as soot, smoke, or aero-sols. Both NOx and particulate emissionscreate hazards for humans. In the lower at-mosphere, smog is the primary concern.NOx also contributes to atmospheric ozonedepletion, which increases potential expo-sure to ultraviolet solar radiation, a situationlinked to skin cancer. Particulates con-tribute to respiratory problems. Sulfur ox-ides can mix with airborne moisture andfall as acid rain, which can erode vehiclepaint finishes, irritate exposed skin, anddamage crops.

At altitude, carbon dioxide and watervapor contrails are the chief concerns. CO2traps excess heat from the Sun, exacerbat-ing the greenhouse effect in the atmo-sphere. Water vapor from engine exhaustalso traps solar radiation, but scientists havenot yet determined whether that contrib-utes significantly to the greenhouse effect.

Using data from NASA’s atmosphericresearch satellites, Patrick Minnis, a seniorresearch scientist in the Science Directorateat NASA Langley, has found that contrails

cleaner skies



The continuing challenge for NASA re-searchers is to design aircraft and enginesthat not only meet stringent new goals foremissions, but also will satisfy simultaneousgoals for noise reduction and fuel burn ef-ficiency—no matter what type of fuel, alter-native or otherwise, is in vogue 20-25 yearsfrom now.

Burn, baby, burnThe amounts of chemicals and particulatesspewing from a jet engine exhaust nozzlehave everything to do with the combustionprocess involving fuel and air. Change anyone of the many variables that affect com-bustion and the resulting emissions get bet-ter or worse. An engine’s internal geometry,its operating pressure and temperature, thefuel injection method, the ratio of fuel to airand how well they are mixed together in-side the combustor before ignition are justa few of the top-level variables. The type ofaviation fuel used, whether fossil fuel basedor not, also can affect the amounts andtypes of emissions.

Right now, NASA researchers and theirindustry colleagues are focused on reduc-ing the amounts of landing and takeoffNOx and particulate emissions, which arethe direct result of burning standard avia-tion fuel inside today’s combustors. To thatend, NASA has three teams—two from in-dustry and one from government—lookingat new ideas for reducing engine emissions.“The new concepts resulting from this

mental Aeronautics Program in Washington,D.C. “We just don’t know enough yet aboutwhat is really happening, so there’s a lot ofdiscovery still to come.”

Setting new standards For now, based on what is known and al-ready established in terms of national andinternational standards (landing and takeoffNOx is regulated while carbon dioxide isnot), NASA has set several goals for en-abling technology that will reduce emis-sions during the next decade or so. Thesegoals are based on standards set forth bythe Committee on Aviation EnvironmentalProtection, or CAEP, which is part of the In-ternational Civil Aviation Organization.

The CAEP meets every three years.During the 2004 meeting, members set newemissions standards for aircraft engines.These standards—labeled CAEP/6 becausethe 2004 meeting was the sixth in the orga-nization’s history—took effect in 2008.NASA’s goals, related to the current stan-dard, are to create technology enabling en-gines that emit 60% less NOx by 2015, 75%less by 2020, and over 75% less by 2025.

Although there are no carbon dioxideemissions standards or restrictions, the 2010CAEP/8 committee members expressed adesire to develop a new CO2 standard by2013, when they meet again. If they reachan agreement at CAEP/9, new CO2 stan-dards would apply to all new aircraft en-gines in the 2016-2017 timeframe.

General Electric’s GEnx-1B engineincludes the company’s TAPScombustor technology to reduceemissions. Credit: General Electric.



teaming will be tried out in a partial enginetest in a ground test facility, as well as a fullengine test on the ground or in flight, in or-der to conduct research at an integratedsystem level and demonstrate the benefitsin a relevant environment,” says Fay Collier,manager of NASA’s Environmentally Re-sponsible Aviation Project at Langley.

Ruben Del Rosario, project manager ofthe Subsonic Fixed Wing Project at NASAGlenn, says the agency and its industrypartners “have some concepts that showpotential for meeting our goals for reducingemissions,” but notes that “we’re very earlyin the process” of developing cleaner burn-ing engine technology. “Now, as we con-tinue to develop our concepts, we may findsome of the ideas won’t work as well as theothers,” Del Rosario says.

Of the three concepts now under de-velopment, General Electric is leading thefirst, Pratt & Whitney the second, and NASAthe third, in-house. In each case, the de-signs are not necessarily brand new, butcould best be described as evolutionaryversions of concepts already flying. And ineach case, engineers are concentrating onthe mechanics and the resulting fluid dy-namics of mixing the fuel and air more effi-ciently before it is ignited in the combus-tor—albeit with slightly different designphilosophies.

“Our job is very difficult, because wehave to reduce emissions regardless of howmuch pressure you operate at. So the keyfor NOx reduction is to improve the fuel in-jector design to create a homogeneous mix-ing of fuel and air,” says Chi-Ming Lee, headof the Combustion Branch at NASA Glenn.

A swirl of ideasThis NASA/GE technology program willfurther advance the industry’s knowledgeof ultra-high-pressure ratio engines, whichGE considers to be the future of gas turbineengines in aviation. One area where thecompany has made great strides is in theengine combustor. GE has developed aconcept called the twin annular premixingswirler, or TAPS. The company has beenworking on the concept for almost a dec-ade and has recently introduced the tech-nology on its GEnx engine, which powersBoeing’s new 787 and 747-8, marking thefirst time TAPS is being used on a commer-cial product.

TAPS takes air from the engine’s high-pressure compressor and directs it into apair of ring-shaped, high-energy swirlers lo-

cated next to the fuel nozzles. The swirlers,configured concentrically, create turbulencein the air flowing through the engine tohelp the air mix better with the fuel. The in-ner swirler operates when the airplane isidling or taxiing. The outer swirler operatesat higher throttle settings. Combustion isstaged. Fuel and air mix together at thefront of the combustor and ignite. As hotgases move through the combustor, moreair is added and the resulting mixture ig-nites again. This process distributes com-bustion to alleviate the hot spots responsi-ble for unwanted emissions.

Tests have shown that swirling createsa more homogeneous and leaner mix offuel and air, which then burns at a lowertemperature and promotes fewer emissionswithout sacrificing overall engine stability.Operating the TAPS combustor at a lowertemperature than would be the case with afuel-rich mixture minimizes wear and tearon the combustor liner and other enginecomponents further downstream.

Pratt & Whitney’s approach calls for im-provements to its long-established technol-ogy for advanced low NOx, or TALON X,combustor. This design relies heavily on itsability to maintain a certain temperatureprofile that allows the emission reductiongoals to be achieved. In this case, the initialmix of fuel and air in the combustor is fuel

Pratt & Whitney’s PurePower1000G engine uses the TALON X combustor.



“That’s a very complex environmentwhen you’re talking about combustors. Weare spraying fuel, mixing it with air. Weneed to understand how fuel flows andmixes, and be able to model it well so wecan design newer, more efficient systems,and at the same time invent and test newmaterials. There’s just a variety of ways wecan work to reduce emissions in our en-gines,” Dryer says.

Changing the fuelAnother way to change what is coming outof the engines is to find something differentto put into the engine in terms of fuel. Us-ing some types of alternative fuels could in-stantly eliminate whole categories of harm-ful emissions. Yet the cost to develop thosefuels, in terms of price and their impact toother areas of the environment, makes itunclear what their ultimate value will be tothe aviation industry.

“I think they are promising, but we area long way from having these alternate fuels available at the airport pumps,” saysBruce Anderson, project scientist for the Al-ternative Aviation Fuel Experiment (AAFEX)at Langley. Through AAFEX, NASA hasbeen working with the FAA, the U.S. mili-tary, industry, and universities to help char-acterize the potential value and effects ofalternative sources of fuel on the environ-ment and on aircraft systems.

The most comprehensive examinationto date of alternate fuels was performed atNASA Dryden’s Aircraft Operations Facilityin Palmdale, California, in 2009. The exper-iment, known as AAFEX 1, used Fischer-Tropsch fuel, which is aviation fuel derivedfrom coal and natural gas instead of theusual oil. Researchers used a DC-8 aircraftwith four workhorse GE CFM-56 engines ina ground test. They equipped two of thefour engines with sensors and put themthrough their paces with alternative fuel,running the engines at power levels repre-senting idle, taxi, takeoff, climb out, ap-proach, and landing.

The team showed that the fuel burnedwell and that particulates and NOx weregreatly reduced when pure Fischer-Tropschfuel or blends of Fischer-Tropsch and stan-dard JP-8 fuel were burned. Carbon dioxideemissions remained unchanged, and re-searchers noted problems with engine sealsleaking when the aircraft fuel tanks werefilled with pure Fischer-Tropsch fuel andnot the JP-8 blend.

In March, researchers planned to con-

rich. Combustion gases combine rapidlywith more air in what Pratt & Whitney callsan ‘advanced quick quench zone,’ whichcools the hot gas and makes the mixtureleaner. This is possible because of the com-bustor’s ability to direct the flow of air andmanage the overall heat load. As with theTAPS combustor, the TALON X minimizesoperating temperatures, NOx emissions, andengine wear and tear.

NASA’s in-house concept is called leandirect injection. As the name implies, thiscombustor design is meant to operate witha fuel/air mixture that is leaner, thus lower-ing the operating temperature and makingit more difficult for NOx to form during thecombustion process. In this case, a jet ofliquid fuel is injected at high speed into arapidly swirling airflow that promotes themixing of fuel and air across the shortestpossible distance. For this concept to work,the fuel and air must be mixed perfectly be-fore combustion takes place.

Additional research contract awardsare expected soon to further these com-bustor concepts and deliver hardware toNASA, says Dan Bulzan, the agency’s tech-nical lead for the clean energy and emis-sions subproject at Glenn. “The hardwareis going to be different from what’s outthere, but the specific configurations anddesigns for the injectors, the pilots, theswirlers—all of that is considered propri-etary right now.”

NASA is working to get this technologymature enough for entry into service by2025, but when it actually might see use ina commercial setting is not clear, accordingto Lee. Much will depend on what new reg-ulations or standards are set on NOx andcarbon dioxide emissions in the near fu-ture, and on whether or not additional re-search on the hardware will be necessary tomeet those goals.

In the LDI process, air flowsthrough the swirler (shown asstreamtubes, colored by velocitymagnitude), producing atoroidal recirculation zone. Fuelis injected at the center of theventuri. The hot combustionzone (red isosurface) is shapedby the recirculation zone, whichis critical to combustion stability,but also produces NOx. AnthonyC. Iannetti, NASA Glenn.



the Subsonic Fixed WingProject at Lang-ley. “Thelandscape of the futureof fuels is wide openright now, and whensomeone buys an en-gine, they’re going touse it for decades; sothey’re going to need tobe able to use it withwhatever fuels get devel-oped in the future,” hecontinues. “Fuel flexibility is key.”

Achieving cleaner engines and cleanerskies rests on smart navigation through thelandscape of possible solutions in the nearterm. What is clear for now is that propulsiontechnology is on the path to change.

Editor’s note: This is the second of four fea-tures describing the challenges associatedwith trying to invent a truly ‘green’ air-plane. The first feature (March 2011) cov-ered research into reducing nuisance noisearound airports. Future articles will coverwork on technology to boost fuel efficiencyand enable the nation’s air traffic manage-ment system to handle aircraft in a moreenvironmentally responsible manner.

A maze of wires and tubing that connects data-collection instrumentation to the control centersis laid out on the pavement beside the DC-8 flying laboratory during synthetic fuels emission andperformance testing.

Test instrumentation is set up behind the inboard engines ofNASA’s DC-8 airborne science laboratory during alternativefuels emissions and performance testing. Image credit:NASA Dryden/Tom Tschida.

duct a second round of ground tests, re-peating many of the AAFEX 1 measure-ments of gas emissions and particle size,number, distribution, and composition withthe same aircraft engines but with differentfuel. This time, they planned to use a bio-fuel derived from the oil of algae or anothernatural source.

Competing demandsComplicating the picture for green aviationengine designers is the need to balance allthe demands of increased fuel burn effi-ciency, reduced emissions, and quieter air-craft and engines—all with the promise andchallenges of a new alternative fuel dan-gling in front of them.

It is easy to reduce NOx emissions bylowering the temperature and the pressurewithin the combustor, but doing so de-creases fuel efficiency. The reverse is trueas well: Fuel burns more efficiently athigher temperatures, but more soot andcarbon dioxide escape into the atmosphere.

“With the increasingly realistic expecta-tion that alternative fuels will be adoptedand served up at every airport, you can’texpect to pick just one blend and stick withit,” explains Rich Wahls, project scientist for


deep impact

by Leonard DavidContributing writer


More bang for the buck: That is a fit-ting legacy for NASA’s Deep Im-pact spacecraft. Launched in Jan-

uary 2005, it accomplished its primarymission later that year, in a celestial July 4fireworks encounter with comet Tempel 1.

Deep Impact consisted of two parts:the Impactor and Flyby spacecraft. TheFlyby segment unleashed the 815-lb cop-per-core Impactor that plowed into thecomet, excavating debris from the interiorof its nucleus. Images captured by camerasaboard both spacecraft caught the action: Alarge dust cloud billowed out from thecomet but masked a clear view of the re-sulting impact crater. Still, the imagery re-vealed Tempel 1 to be far dustier and lessicy than expected.

While Deep Impact’s tangle with Tem-pel 1 was a history-making IndependenceDay event—one that delighted not justspacecraft designers but also comet special-

Comet chasingmakes deep impact on science

After a historic 2005 encounter with comet Tempel 1, the Deep Impact spacecraft took onan extended mission that would provide a bonus for space scientists—and great savings totaxpayers. Its observations are helping astronomers recognize other Earth-like bodies andshedding light on the origin and history of our solar system.

ists around the world—it was also a prel-ude of things to come.

Good to goIn the aftermath of the encounter at Tempel1, mission scientists won approval fromNASA to make use of the still healthy Flybyspacecraft—loaded with a ‘good to go’ setof instruments: two telescopes with digitalcolor cameras and an infrared spectrometer.

In its extended mission mode, DeepImpact’s name morphed into EPOXI—anabbreviation combining EPOCh (extrasolarplanet observations and characterization)and DIXI (Deep Impact extended investiga-tion—the flyby of comet Hartley 2). Thespacecraft is still called Deep Impact.

During the initial phases of EPOXI,Deep Impact’s EPOCh campaign thatended in August 2008 also provided scansof the Earth, in both visible and infraredwavelengths. Its observations are intended

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to help gauge how to recognize Earth-likeworlds around other stars. It was also oneof three spacecraft to find clear evidence ofwater on the Moon.

The total cost of Deep Impact was $267million (not including the launch vehicle)—$252 million for spacecraft developmentand $15 million for mission operations. TheEPOXI extended mission price tag, $42 mil-lion, covers operations from 2007 to theproject’s ending at the close of FY11. Thisincludes mission and science operations forboth EPOCh and DIXI operations.

Stunning as well as surprisingOn November 4, 2010, the spacecraft’s on-board cameras captured spectacular imagesof comet Hartley 2 as part of the EPOXImission. This was a much-heralded first: thefirst time in history that two comets—Hart-ley 2 and Tempel 1—had been imaged bythe same spacecraft, by the same instru-

ments, with the same spatial resolution.The overall objective of the Hartley 2

flyby was identical to that of the trip toTempel 1: to discover more about the ori-gin and history of our solar system bylearning more about the composition anddiversity of comets. These objects hold ma-terial from the early days of the solar sys-tem, before the planets formed. Delvinginto the makeup of comets could help un-ravel the mysteries of planetary formation.

Moving from fuzzy to full-frame clarity,images of Hartley 2 took shape as DeepImpact drew closer to the surface, reorient-ing itself to maintain its focus on the cometnucleus. At the same time, the craft contin-ued to point its high-gain antenna at Earthto begin downlinking nearly 5,800 images.

Hartley 2 proved stunning as well assurprising. Deep Impact flew through astorm of fluffy particles of water ice spewedout by the comet. Imagery relayed back to


Close-up view of Hartley 2was taken during the flybyon November 4, 2010, bythe spacecraft’s medium-resolution instrument.Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD.



the rough areas, resulting in a cloud of iceand snow. “Underneath the smooth middlearea, water ice turns into water vapor thatflows through the porous material, with theresult that close to the comet in this areawe see a lot of water vapor.”

A’Hearn points to evidence of largechunks around comets such as Hartley 2having been found with the powerfulArecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. Butthe Arecibo telescope is not able to detectindividual particles or to determine themakeup of the chunks. Around Hartley 2,Deep Impact clearly imaged clouds of iceparticles ranging in size from golf balls tobasketballs.

Recalls EPOXI mission coinvestigatorPeter Schultz of Brown University, “Whenwe first saw all the specks surrounding thenucleus, our mouths dropped.” Stereo im-ages disclose that there are snowballs infront of and behind the comet’s nucleus,“making it look like a scene in one of thosecrystal snow globes.”

Sunshine notes that it was previouslythought that water vapor from water icewas the propulsive force behind jets of ma-terial coming off a comet’s nucleus.

“We now have unambiguous evidencethat solar heating of subsurface frozen car-bon dioxide, directly to a gas—a processknown as sublimation—is powering themany jets of material coming from thecomet,” Sunshine says. “This is a findingthat could only have been made by travel-ing to a comet, because ground-based tele-scopes can’t detect carbon dioxide, andcurrent space telescopes aren’t tuned tolook for this gas,” she notes.

The spacecraft at Hartley 2 providedthe most extensive observations of a cometin history, notes Ed Weiler, associate admin-istrator for the Science Mission Directorateat NASA Headquarters. “Scientists and engi-neers have successfully squeezed world-class science from a repurposed spacecraftat a fraction of what a new science projectwould have cost the taxpayers.”

A separate sagaEven as scientists exult over the cometHartley flyby, the extended journey ofDeep Impact is a separate saga.

Built and designed by Ball Aerospace& Technologies, Deep Impact has an extradividend for space science discovery, saysDavid Taylor, president and CEO of theBoulder, Colorado, company.

“Deep Impact is proving to be a space-

Earth captured carbon dioxide jets stream-ing outward from the peanut-shaped body’srocky ends.

The comet’s nucleus, or main body, issome 1.2 mi. long and 0.25 mi. across at the‘neck,’ or narrowest portion of the object.The mass of the comet’s nucleus is esti-mated at roughly 280 million metric tons.

Deep Impact’svisitation of Hartley 2came in the midst of acometary ice stormpowered by jets ofcarbon dioxide gascarrying a couple oftons of water ice offthe comet every sec-ond. The eye-pop-ping images showed,at the same time, thata different process

was causing water vapor to belch out of thecomet’s midsection.

“This is the type of moment that scien-tists live for,” says Don Yeomans, a JPL sen-ior research scientist who keeps a watchfuleye on near-Earth objects.

Crystal snow globes“We haven’t even begun to get the scienceout of the data we have now,” observesUniversity of Maryland astronomer MichaelA’Hearn, science team leader and principalinvestigator for the spacecraft’s Deep Im-pact and EPOXI missions. “There should bea steady stream of results over a couple ofyears,” he tells Aerospace America.

Recalling his reaction to the images ofa hyperactive Hartley 2, “It was instantlyobvious to all of us what we had,” A’Hearnsays. “Large chunks, and that they wereprobably ice…so our main reaction waselation. This was something that was sort ofexpected 10 years ago,” he recalls, but notseen by other NASA missions, specificallythe Deep Space 1 flyby of comet Borrelly in2001, by the Stardust mission to comet Wild2 in January 2004, or by Deep Impact’s2005 encounter with comet Tempel 1.

“It just wasn’t there. So, in some sense,it was, ‘Oh, this is what we’ve been expect-ing for the last four comets and not find-ing,’” he says. “What it illustrates is thatthere is a class of comets that really worksin a different way from the other comets.”

Jessica Sunshine, EPOXI deputy princi-pal investigator at the University of Mary-land, points out that the carbon dioxide jetsblast out water ice from specific locations in

An image montage showsHartley 2 as the EPOXI missionapproached and flew under it.The images progress in timeclockwise, starting at the topleft. The Sun is to the right.Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD.

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two years it was awakened roughly onceevery six months for health and safetychecks, then put back to slumber.As Deep Impact was

revved up for Hartley 2, thespacecraft was found to bestable in terms of electronicsand other systems. “Every-thing was humming along,”says Walsh. “So it ended upbeing a very clean and un-eventful hibernation phase,”she tells Aerospace America.As plans for the Hartley 2

flyby jelled, spacecraft se-quences were fleshed out, re-viewed, and wrung out ontest benches, with Ball Aero-space putting its seal of ap-proval on the sequences,Walsh notes.Still, there was a big unknown con-

cerning the comet encounter: Exactlywhere would the celestial wanderer be?“We had confidence in our spacecraft’s

ability to perform the encounter. We knewthat the products we were putting onboardwere those needed in order to follow thecomet. But what we didn’t know waswhether the comet was going to hold stilland let its picture be taken. It had movedaround quite a bit. So the thing that wewere doing at the last minute was updatingtarget tables. “We were doing trajectory correction

maneuvers right up until two days beforeencounter, to try and make sure that ourclosest approach was right in the windowthat we were aiming for,” Walsh explains.“It was pretty well spot on. The autonaviga-tion solutions matched up really well withground-based solutions. In the end, the


craft that keeps on giving,” Taylor says.“When it launched in January of 2005, theDeep Impact mission [to Tempel 1] was thepriority, so it’s extremely rewarding to seea ‘three-peat performance’ six years laterthat provides more beneficial science data.”“Because the vast majority of mission

costs are [for] the initial design, testing, andlaunch, the recycled Deep Impact providedsavings on the order of 90% that of a hypo-thetical mission with similar goals, startingfrom the ground up,” according to a BallAerospace press statement.Tim Larson, the EPOXI project manager

at JPL, also emphasizes Deep Impact’s abil-ity to take on the job of surveying cometHartley 2. The comet was discovered inMarch of 1986 by Malcolm Hartley, an Eng-lish-born astronomer currently based inAustralia at the Anglo-Australian Observa-tory in New South Wales.“The spacecraft was still in good shape,

willing to do more work. It just needed anew reason for living,” Larson says. “AndNASA, in its effort to go green by reusingspacecraft and recycling as much as possi-ble, approved a new mission for the projectand enabled us to embark on this new ef-fort of retargeting the spacecraft to go tocomet Hartley 2.”To get in synch with the comet, Larson

explains, the EPOXI mission had to adjustthe trajectory of the spacecraft. And afterthree-and-a-half orbits around the Sun,seven burns of on-board thrusters, andthree gravity assists around Earth, Deep Im-pact got close to the comet to accomplishthis bonus mission.

Humming alongIn the months leading up to its closest en-counter with Hartley 2 late last year, DeepImpact responded to multiple commands toalign itself for optimum viewing. Approxi-mately the size of a subcompact car, thespacecraft had already used about half of its85 kg of hydrazine fuel to complete the en-counter with Tempel 1.Before its Hartley 2 meeting, Deep Im-

pact spent over a year and a half in ‘hiber-nation,’ with one brief wake-up (less thanone day total in cruise state), says AmyWalsh, the systems engineering lead at BallAerospace for the EPOXI mission. “Essen-tially we ran our safing sequence and alsodisabled our autonavigation program…justto make sure that it didn’t get confused.”It was in late July 2005 that the space-

craft was put in hibernation. For the next

This zoomed-in image fromEPOXI’s high-resolution instrument shows the particlesswirling in a ‘snowstorm’ around the nucleus of Hartley 2.Scientists estimate the largestparticles range in size from golfballs to basketballs. They havedetermined these are icy particlesrather than dust. The particlesare believed to be very porousand fluffy. Image credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD.

This enhanced image—one of theclosest taken of Hartley 2—showsjets and where they originatefrom the surface of the object.There are jets outgassing fromthe sunward side, the night side,and along the terminator—theline between the two sides. TheSun is to the right. Image credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD.

0.5 miles



comet did settle out and not do any movingaround on us.”

The spacecraft was clocked as travelingby Hartley 2 at a speed of 27,560 mph.

Nail biting on encounter dayOn encounter day, the spacecraft team hadfurther tension regarding just how energeticthe comet would turn out to be…and therewere sure to be surprises.

“Essentially, we were doing the samekind of thing we did on the last comet flyby,only without the Impactor,” Walsh says.“One thing we decided not to do is go intoour debris shield mode...instead we imagedcomet Hartley 2 the entire way through.”

That decision did not come without ex-tra nail-biting, Walsh admits. “It was some-thing that definitely got a lot of scrutiny,”with concern over what Deep Impactwould bump into in terms of particle hits ofdust and ice. Although the comet was

Deep Impact provided imageryof Tempel 1 and Hartley 2.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD/McREL.

The Deep Impact spacecraftwas designed and built by Ball Aerospace. Credit: Ball Aerospace.

Hartley 2

Tempel 1

throwing off large bits of particles, the sci-entific consensus centered on the roughly435-mi. separation between the spacecraftand Hartley 2.

From that flyby distance, “the risk tothe spacecraft was less than on the primemission,” says A’Hearn. Also, given that allthe big things are very close to the comet’snucleus, it was deemed fairly safe. “This isan extended mission. You are willing totake bigger risks. You don’t need to push itdown to smaller risks.”

A’Hearn reports that a look back atdata post-encounter points to about nineparticle hits on Deep Impact. “The rela-tively small ones didn’t do any damage, justenough to deflect the spacecraft. You see itin the gyros and in the attitude control sys-tem reacting,” he explains.

One nagging problem has plagued theexploits of the Deep Impact spacecraft. Im-ages taken by EPOXI’s high-resolution cam-era were out of focus because of an errorin its testing prior to launch. However,through a deconvolution algorithm, imageprocessing experts have been able to “undothe defocus.” That task is hard to do, withgreat care taken to sharpen the imagerywhile not introducing artifacts in the high-resolution photos.

Error bars and different culturesLooking back on his experience as princi-pal investigator for both missions, A’Hearnoffers advice on the balance that needs tobe struck between scientists and spacecraftengineers.



A key lesson he learned is how impor-tant it is to sit with the engineers and dotradeoffs, to get the best you can withoutoverstressing either the spacecraft or the in-strument…or the engineers themselves.

“The engineers want to know your re-quirements, and they’ll make sure these canbe met. The scientists want to know whatthe spacecraft is capable of doing, and we’lluse it as best we can. So that totally differ-ent mindset is why it’s important to have aniterative discussion,” A’Hearn says.

But, he continues, “The biggest thing is understanding the problems of lan-guage.” So many common terms are useddifferently by scientists and engineers, henotes. “I still keep stumbling over termsthat don’t mean quite the same thing” in thetwo communities.

An example, he says, is error bars ondata. “Astronomers nearly always think inplus and minus one sigma. Engineers al-ways think plus and minus three sigma.Unless you are very precise in your termi-

nology, you are liable to convey the wrongimpression.” He also highlights the natureof test beds and of critical sequences thatcan mean dissimilar things in the two differ-ent cultures.

Two days after the closest approach toHartley 2, the spacecraft entered a depar-ture phase, making look-back observationsduring this 21-day segment of the mission.At the end of that phase, and after a finalcalibration run, the spacecraft was set to bedecommissioned, and destined to continuefollowing its endless orbit of the Sun.

On the other hand, discussions of run-ning Deep Impact in an observatory modeare now under way. Ideas on uses for thecraft include watching for near-Earth ob-jects, or serving as an additional test bed foran ‘Interplanetary Internet’ concept.

“I’ve enjoyed operating this spacecraft,”says Walsh. “It has performed really well allthe way around. The overall health of thespacecraft is excellent. I’d be happy tokeep going and find new targets.”

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May 17 The experimental ‘flying-saucer-shaped’ Avrocar makes its firstfree flights at Toronto InternationalAirport. Developed as a tacticalweapon for the U.S. Army by Avro Aircraft, a subsidiary of A.V. RoeCanada, it makes two hover flights of about 15-20 ft from the groundfor about 5 min each. English-bornJack Frost designed the plane. TheAeroplane, May 25, 1961, p. 573.

May 17 Anew world’sspeed record for

helicopters is set bya Navy twin-turbine SikorskyHSS-2 when it reaches 192.9mph at Bradley Field, WindsorLocks, Conn. The Aeroplane,May 25, 1961, p. 575; Aviation Week, May 22,1961, p. 33.

May 29 The European Industrial Space Study Group

is formed in Paris to evaluatepossible European space programs,

projects, and their budgets, as an-nounced by Britain’s Hawker SiddeleyAviation at the European Space FlightSymposium in London. The Aeroplane,July 6, 1961, p. 6.

And During May1961

—Republic all-weatherMach-2+ F-105fighter bombers beginphasing into the USAFin Europe, with the

25 Years Ago, May 1986

May 6 For the first time, a crew transfers fromone space station to another, moving from Mirto Salyut-7. The cosmonauts use the Soyuz T-15transport module to make the 1,800-mi. trip between the two outposts as the mission is

broadcast over USSR television. NASA, Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1986-90, p. 37.


May 3 The Titan I ICBM achieves its first launch from an undergroundsilo, at Vandenberg AFB, Calif. This is the first time any ballistic missileis fired from a silo, which in this case is 146 ft deep. Aircraft & Missiles,June 1961, p. 11; D. Baker, Spaceflight and Rocketry, p. 118.

May 4 An open-gondola Stratolab ballooncarrying two Navy officers, Cdr. Malcolm D.Ross and Cdr. Victor A. Prather, is releasedfrom the deck of the USS Antietam in theGulf of Mexico and ascends to a height of113,500 ft. This breaks the previous balloon altituderecord, set by Air Force Capt. Joseph Kittinger, who

went to 102,800 ft. Tragically, however, in this latest attempt Ross loses his lifeduring the subsequent recovery of the balloon. The Aeroplane, May 11,1961, p. 510; Aviation Week, May 15, 1961, p. 39.

May 5 Navy Cdr. Alan B. Shepard Jr. becomes the first American in space withthe launch of the Mercury-Redstone 3spacecraft on a 15-min 22-sec suborbital flight, using a modified Redstone missile as the booster. Duringthe mission, in which the spacecraftreaches a 117-mi. altitude, 78 voicecommunications and 27 major capsulefunctions are monitored. Aviation Week,May 15, 1961, pp. 31-32.

May 9 The first B-52H is delivered to the 379th Strategic Wing,Strategic Air Command, Wurtsmith AFB, Mich. AviationWeek, May 15, 1961, p. 39.

May 9-10 Twenty-four Atlantic Research Arcas Robinsolid-fuel sounding rockets are fired at 1-hr intervals from Eglin AFB, Fla. They of16-45 mi. and provide the greatest amount of meteorologicaldata recorded to date. Aviation Week, May 22, 1961, p. 33; Aircraft & Missiles, July 1961, p. 11.

May 10 The Gnome Augusta Bell 204B helicopter, poweredby a De Havilland Gnome free turbine engine, makes its firstflight after only 25 min of ground running of the engine. TheAeroplane, May 18, 1961, p. 540.


Soyuz T-15

Titan I

MR-3

F-105

OOPmay_AA Template 4/6/11 12:56 PM Page 2

first F-105 arriving at Bitburg AirBase, Germany, about 300 air milesfrom the East German border. Avia-tion Week, May 22, 1961, p. 74.

—General Electric operates a liquidbipropellant plug nozzle rocket en-gine of 50,000-lb thrust at the MaltaTest Station near Saratoga, N.Y. Thisis claimed as the first radical changein rocket engine configurations. Avia-tion Week, May 15, 1961, p. 68.


May 7 Noted pilotJean Batten ofNew Zealand ismade a Chevalierof the Legion ofHonor by the AeroClub of France forher record flightfrom England toBrazil in November 1935. The Aero-plane, May 13, 1936, p. 590.

May 9 Helen Richey achieves awomen’s altitude record for lightplanes in the fourth category, atHampton Roads, Va., when she fliesher Aeronca to 18,448 ft. AircraftYear Book, 1937, p. 411.

May 12 The world’s largest high-speedwind tunnel, with an 8-ft throat andair speed ranges of 85-500 mph, isplaced in operation at NACA’s LangleyAeronautical Laboratory, under thedirection of Russell G. Robinson. E.Emme, Aeronautics and Astronautics,1915-60, p. 34.

May 14 Germany’s famed dirigible, the Hindenburg, completes its first passenger flightfrom Europe to the U.S. in the record time of61 hr 38 min. This beats the earlier record ofthe dirigible Graf Zeppelin by 6 hr 54 min. TheHindenburg, with 51 passengers, lands at NASLakehurst, N.J. Aero Digest, June 1936, p. 72.

May 14 Howard Hughes makes a new unofficialnonstop record flight between Chicago and Glendale,Calif., piloting his Wright Cyclone-G-poweredNorthrop over the route in 8 hr 10 min 25 sec. Thefastest previous time, established by a TWA DouglasDC-2, was 12 hr 45 min. Reportedly, Roscoe Turner hadbettered that time in an unofficial test. Aero Digest,June 1936, p. 72.

May 15 All records for flights between England andCape Town, South Africa, are broken by British pilot

Amy Johnson Mollison in herPercival Gull. She lands at Croydon Airport, London, aftercovering the 6,700-mi. trip in 4 days 16 hr 16 min. Mollisonmade the outbound trip in 3 days 6 hr 26 min. The mostlaudable feature of her outward flight was the 2,000-mi.crossing of the Sahara, flying blind at night. Flight Lt.Tommy Rose of England made the previous outboundrecord in 3 days 17 hr 37 min, and the return trip in 6 days6 hr 57 min. Flight, May 14, 1936, p. 513.


May 16 After flying foronly two months, the Zeppelin LZ 8 ErsatzDeutschland is destroyedby a strong crosswindwhile being pulled from itsshed before a flight. Thereare no casualties, but theairship is a total loss as thenose is shattered and thehull broken in severalplaces. LZ 8 was flying for Delag, the scheduled operator of a fleet of rigid airshipsthat carry passengers on sightseeing flights around Germany. Since its inaugurallaunch in March, LZ 8 has completed 33 flights and carried 458 people over adistance of 1,478 mi. in a total flight time of 47 hr. J. Stroud, European TransportAircraft Since 1910, pp. 374-375.

And During May 1911

—Great Britain passes the first British aviation bill, known as the Aerial NavigationAct of 1911, which lays down safety rules. Flight, June 3, 1911, p. 481.

An Aerospace Chronology

by Frank H. Winter, Ret.

and Robert van der Linden


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