AW&ST Editors' Picks 20210924

Welcome to this week's editors' picks. A weekly digital experience highlighting the must-see content from Aviation Week & Space Technology

Editors' Picks

From SpaceX completing first civilian charter in LEO to Airbus' hydrogen push. A roundup of Aviation Week & Space Technology you cannot miss this week.

Letter From The Editor

See the highlights from this week's issue and get tips on how to use the document.

Letter From The Editor

Welcome to the latest edition of Editors’ Picks, a newsletter exclusively tailored for subscribers of Aviation Week & Space Technology. Each Friday our editors select the week’s best digital content – articles, interviews, opinion columns, podcasts and webinars – as a supplement to your print magazine.

See the highlights from this week's edition which include >>

Read about SpaceX’s inaugural all-civilian charter flight to space, then listen to our podcast interview with passenger Jared Issacman.

Why Airbus believes development of a hydrogen-powered aircraft is challenging but doable.

A step forward for the UK-led Tempest Future Combat Air System initiative.

U.S. fears that China could revive a 55-year-old concept for a missile that can deliver a nuclear payload from space.

Why turboprop engine development may be reaching a crossroads as the focus on sustainability shifts the industry toward hybrid-electric and turbo-electric.

And more.

I hope you enjoy the selection and look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Joe Anselmo

Editor-in-Chief

Aviation Week & Space Technology

Jump to any article using the contents menu at the top left hand corner of this document. There, you can also download this experience as a PDF. For a full list of content published this week, go to

AviationWeek.com/AWST

Airbus Hydrogen Push Is Gaining Traction

Thierry Dubois One year after unveiling the concept, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury characterizes a hydrogen-powered aircraft as challenging but doable.

Airbus Hydrogen Push Is Gaining Traction

Thierry Dubois

Transitioning to hydrogen from current-technology aircraft is a complex effort involving every player in airport operations. Credit: Airbus

Airbus is seeing positive signs that its ambition for a hydrogen-fueled commercial aircraft in 2035 is realistic. The airframer is receiving support from customers, two major airport operators have started large-scale demonstration projects on the use of hydrogen, and research work in Toulouse appears to be continuing apace.

Industry players delve into studies and demonstrations
SAF and electrification are being researched in parallel

The OEM’s technology road map also includes exploring other technologies such as the use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) and electrification (including hybrid-electric propulsion). The group has chosen its helicopter division to launch the first electrification program, the all-electric CityAirbus NextGen. The move is a way for Airbus to prove it can actually have a breakthrough design certified. The aircraft can also be seen as a small-scale project to pave the way for an innovative commercial aircraft with 100 or more seats.

On that road map, time is of the essence, and not just because the window in which to fight climate change is limited. Airbus may also face national or European-level decisions that might shatter the hopes of the entire aviation industry. Governments could resort to instituting demand management if they expect it will take too long to introduce zero-emission aircraft.

“The more we go, the more problems we see, the more solutions we find and the more globally we find the challenge needs to be addressed,” says Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury. “A learning of the COVID-19 crisis has been our incredible ability to find solutions in the face of challenges. Climate change is another global crisis. . . . We have to drive action at an unprecedented speed.”

Another necessary condition for success is broad collaboration. “All the group is mobilized, but all our investments would be irrelevant without the support of the ecosystem, including regulators,” Faury says. “We cannot do it alone.”

The sector appears to be rising to the challenge. “Hydrogen is absolutely key,” says EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren. “It is a proven technology, as opposed to batteries.”

“Having a renewable source does not help CO2,” says Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle. “Looking for new technologies, hydrogen could be that solution.”

At the airport level, operator Vinci Airports has partnered with Airbus and hydrogen specialist Air Liquide to develop a hydrogen infrastructure. Lyon-Saint Exupery Airport will host Vinci’s first hydrogen facilities. In 2023, a hydrogen gas distribution station is slated to be built to supply both ground vehicles and heavy-goods vehicles that drive around the airport, Vinci says.

Then, between 2023 and 2030, liquid-hydrogen infrastructure will be deployed, targeting future aircraft. After 2030, that infrastructure will expand to production and mass distribution of liquid hydrogen at the airport. “We are not starting from scratch; we already work with ArianeGroup on space launchers in Kourou, French Guiana,” says Eric Delobel, Vinci Airports chief technical officer (CTO). “The components of the facilities we are planning in Lyon are up and running.”

What about generating revenues? “Hydrogen will at some point have to be profitable,” Delobel says. “It is a long journey, and this is a reason to start now. . . . We need to [assemble and grow to meet] the needs.”

Vinci’s effort runs parallel to the H2 Hub Airport project, led by Paris airport operator Groupe ADP. Eleven companies were selected for a broad study, including on-site testing of the use of hydrogen as aviation fuel.

“We should start to use hydrogen at airports, rather on the airside [for the stricter safety environment], soon,” says David Morgan, EasyJet director of flight operations.

Meanwhile, Air Liquide is ramping up its production capacity for green hydrogen. The hydrogen currently used in other industries mainly derives from the reforming of fossil fuels.

In Becancourt, Quebec, a 20-megawatt plant has been running since January. In Le Havre, France a 200-megawatt site using photovoltaic cells and wind turbines is planned for 2025, says Cecilia Fouvry Renzi, Air Liquide vice president for hydrogen energy in southwest Europe.

Airbus is looking at having a demonstrator flying by the end of the decade, according to CTO Sabine Klauke. Of the three conceptual configurations unveiled last year, the blended wing body shape is the least likely to materialize in 2035. Despite the benefits for hydrogen storage, it would involve changing the aircraft architecture simultaneously with the propulsion system, points out Glenn Llewellyn, Airbus vice president for zero emissions. Hence the likeliness of a more conventional “tube and wings” arrangement.

“I do not want to give the impression Airbus is betting everything on hydrogen,” Faury says. “Long-range widebodies will need SAF for a long time.”

While carriers are generally supportive of SAF, including the Airlines for Europe lobbying association, there are dissenters. “At best, SAF is an offset mechanism,” says EasyJet’s Lundgren. “I cannot see SAF as a long-term solution for aviation.”

Lufthansa, the largest (albeit modest) SAF user in Europe, is finding it difficult to obtain the requested quantities, so it studied building a production facility. “Just to fuel our domestic flights, the cost would be €3.0-3.5 billion [$3.5-4 billion],” says Annette Mann, senior vice president of corporate responsibility.

“Our concern is the scalability of SAF production,” Faury stresses. “The jury is out on the level of investment to be made over the next 2-4 years.”

Alternative-technology plans will be required, regardless of the success of Airbus’ hydrogen endeavor. “Starting with SAF, then hybrid solutions, we are also looking at microhybridization in order to mature the technologies,” Klauke says.

“Hybridization is a clever way of combining a thermal engine [the conventional gas turbine] and an electric motor,” says Karim Mokaddem, Airbus head of electrification.

But battery weight may be a roadblock. Airbus is looking for “a frugal way to size the electrical system,” says Mokaddem. Electric power will need to be formulated at the right level to relieve the thermal engine in transient phases, without planning on an all-electric propulsion phase. The expected bottom line is a reduction in fuel burn on the order of 5%, Mokaddem says.

In Airbus’ first foray into micro-hybridization, Airbus Helicopters has begun flight tests of an electrical backup system (EBS) on its H130 Flightlab experimental helicopter. The EBS uses a 100-kW electric motor connected to the main gearbox, which in the event of an engine failure could provide up to 30 sec. of additional power, allowing the pilot to make a safe auto-rotation landing. Airbus Helicopters engineers are pursuing certification.

The next level of electrification on an Airbus vertical-lift vehicle will come with the CityAirbus NextGen. Committing to the advanced air mobility market, Airbus is targeting the certification of a winged multicopter by 2025, after a first flight in 2023.

The NextGen uses eight electric motors, each driving a four-blade propeller. It will focus on an urban operations niche, a range of 80 km (50 mi.) for connecting airports with central business districts, says Balkiz Sarihan, head of Airbus’ urban air mobility strategy.

Airbus has not provided weight and payload details for NextGen, but the platform is likely to be slightly heavier than the full-scale CityAirbus demonstrator, which was 2.2 metric tons.

NextGen will have seating for four, including the pilot, and is planned to be certified for piloted operation initially and for autonomous self-piloted operation later. Cruise speed would be 120 kph (75 mph).

Airbus has yet to detail the supplier base but is likely to lean on the lithium-ion battery technology developed by the defense and space business.

In its quest for a green aircraft, Airbus is also counting on the creation of broader industry synergies, which seems to be progressing. Llewellyn describes Airbus’ relationship with Air Liquide, carriers EasyJet and SAS and Vinci Airports as “a deep exchange.” Amelia Deluca, Delta Air Lines managing director for sustainability, says she will begin talking to her counterparts on a weekly basis. EasyJet’s Morgan recently spoke with an offshore wind provider. “We would welcome Boeing on this adventure to make the zero-emission aircraft a reality,” Llewellyn adds.

All these technology-oriented projects may be rendered null and void if governments adopt demand management, says Andrew Murphy, aviation director of lobbying group Transport & Environment. The International Energy Agency in May published an analysis, “Net Zero Emissions by 2050,” outlining three changes that would lead to a 50% reduction in emissions from aviation in 2050 while reducing the number of flights by only 12%: capping long-haul leisure flights, capping business flights and shifting to high-speed rail.

—With Tony Osborne in Toulouse

Engine Manufacturers Explore Paths For Future Turboprop Applications

Guy Norris Engine makers face more questions than answers as they plot future turboprop hybrid-electric evolution strategy.

Engine Manufacturers Explore Paths For Future Turboprop Applications

Guy Norris

Hybrid-electric propulsion is the next major technology paradigm for regional aviation, says Pratt & Whitney, which is developing a Dash 8-100 flight demonstrator with De Havilland. Credit: Pratt & Whitney

Ever since the shrill whine of the Rolls-Royce Dart ushered in the age of the commercial turboprop in the late 1940s, this efficient form of gas turbine has evolved steadily over the last seven decades both in performance and reliability.

But fast forward to 2021, and the signs increasingly indicate that conventional turboprop engine development, particularly that of the larger civil models, may be reaching a crossroads as the focus on sustainability shifts the industry toward a hybrid-electric and turbo-electric future.

Open fan could advance GE future turboprop plan
Pratt hybrid-electric ground tests due in 2022

Market dynamics in the regional airliner business have also played a role. Early in the 2010s, engine-makers were busy developing advanced large turboprop engines for the expected development of higher-capacity 90-seat regional aircraft. But the market for large turboprops never materialized. General Electric’s CPX38, a proposed 4,000-6,000-shp derivative of the GE38 turboshaft, and Pratt & Whitney Canada’s even more powerful NGRT (next-generation regional turboprop) competed for concepts that neither ATR nor Bombardier were willing to launch.

Now, as the entire air transport market slowly recovers from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the engine-makers are rapidly adjusting strategic development plans to the demands of a more sustainable future. The main response has been to dramatically expand research into hybrid-electric and all-electric propulsion, along with investments into studies of new combustors capable of handling sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) and even hydrogen.

Yet defining the size and final configuration of the next-generation turboprop, or even a formalized development strategy, remains difficult amid the many uncertainties of the rapidly evolving market push toward a decarbonized ecosystem. Both airframers and engine-makers are attempting to analyze the mid-to-longer-term needs of the changing regional turboprop market while assessing the readiness levels of the new propulsion alternatives.

“We are probably in the largest state of flux that we’ve ever been in,” says Tom Lodge, general manager of Commercial Engines Marketing for GE Aviation. “The one constant our whole life has been jet fuel, and the industry, whether it’s the airframe- or the engine-maker . . . has been driven by the economics of form, fit and function coupled with the ramifications of deregulation.”

All of this is changing as new fuels and technologies are introduced and policymakers and regulators around the world begin to exert an influence on carbon emissions requirements for future aircraft, Lodge says. “Everyone’s trying to figure out how [to] take the right actions and move toward the goal, because we believe in it, and we need to do it. But we have constraints around us, through capital funding, the supply chain and through infrastructure buildout and through the actual manufacture of alternate fuels such as SAF and hydrogen. It can be done, but it has to be built out, and we’re trying to pivot on something we’ve been doing for 100 years.”

Lodge says the bottom line is: “We really have more questions than answers as this evolves. But we know we cannot just sit here and do nothing,”

GE’s recently unveiled RISE (Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines) technology demonstration program with CFM partner Safran is part of the overall response, says Arjan Hegeman, GE Aviation’s general manager for Advanced Technology. Although the open-fan project is mainly aimed at the future single-aisle jet market, much of the technology could also be applied to future regionals. “The turboprop kind of fell out of favor a little bit because you don’t get the speed and you can’t fly over the weather, but with RISE technologies you are able to do that. The turboprop might get a revival because they are very efficient propulsive machines.”

The wide-ranging RISE technology portfolio covers propulsive and thermal efficiency initiatives from advanced blade and gear designs to hybrid-electric adaptations that can be scaled to the thrust requirements of the regional market, Hegeman says. “We’re looking at the middle of the decade on RISE to demonstrate a lot of the technologies, which include hybrid. The program includes turboprop efficiency and high speed, low acoustics and high-altitude performance,” he adds.

“Toward the middle of the decade, we also have a hybrid-electric demonstrator of very high power and voltage,” Hegeman continues. “These two demonstrators are being used to mature the technologies to be able to put them into a product.” Other supporting GE research efforts include the company’s ongoing Mestang (more electric systems and technologies for aircraft in the next generation) covering development of megawatt-class, more electric power systems. In Italy, GE’s Avio Italy has also worked with Leonardo on advanced propeller studies for the airframe-maker’s large regional turboprop concept.

Pratt & Whitney, the dominant player in today’s regional turboprop market, is also working to protect its lead through work with De Havilland to develop a hybrid-electric propulsion demonstrator based on the Dash 8-100. The C$163 million ($129 million) project targets the start of flight tests in 2024 and is a successor to Project 804, an earlier hybrid demonstrator plan that was subsequently sidelined. Ground testing is targeted for 2022.

Pratt says that while regional aviation is under increasing pressure from governments in Europe to close routes and shift travelers to surface transportation alternatives, “there’s a big opportunity for regional aviation to be one of the first segments to benefit from new, lower-carbon technologies like all-electric, hybrid-electric and hydrogen-powered propulsion.” It adds that although regional aviation represents only a small segment of global aviation CO2 emissions, “many of the technologies we develop and mature for this market will ultimately go on to benefit larger-scale aircraft as well.”

Under the project, which targets a 30% reduction in fuel burn and CO2 emissions on a 250-mi. sector compared with a current state-of-the-art regional, one of the aircraft’s standard PW121 turboprops will be replaced with a megawatt-scale hybrid-electric powertrain. The Collins-developed electric motor and controller will be powered by a turbogenerator and a battery system.

As with Project 804, for which Pratt planned to use a novel thermal engine, the manufacturer is not revealing details of the Dash 8 demonstrator powerplant other than saying it is optimized for hybrid-electric operation “with the electric motor boosting power during takeoff and climb.” The new initiative does, however, visibly differ from Project 804 by adding a larger nacelle air intake for cooling and relocating battery packs from the cargo compartment to external blister fairings on either side of the lower fuselage.

The engine-maker, which believes hybrid-electric propulsion is the next major technology paradigm for regional aviation, adds that “longer-term, we see hydrogen as a potential path to zero-emissions flight, and we are active on hydrogen-propulsion development.”

Another experimental hybrid-electric regional retrofit in the planning stage is NASA’s Pegasus (parallel electric-gas architecture with synergistic utilization scheme) concept—an ATR 42-500-based demonstrator powered by a megawatt-class distributed hybrid-electric propulsion system. As part of the buildup to flight tests on a dedicated demonstrator, NASA is shortly due to make contract awards for the Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration (EPFD) project to flight-test megawatt-class electric aircraft propulsion systems.

Part of NASA’s broader aviation sustainability strategy, the EPFD effort aims to mature propulsion systems for thin-haul, regional and single-aisle aircraft that could enter service by 2035. To accelerate to a maturity level ready to enter product development and certification in the late 2020s, NASA intends to use existing or planned industry flying testbeds. First flight is targeted for no later than March 2024.

At least two awards are expected, and while NASA has outlined a target performance of 1.5 megawatts for a single-aisle-class demonstrator, it is also looking for a 500-kW-capable powertrain for a 19-seat regional aircraft. The targeted mission energy savings through electrification are 4% for a Part 25 commercial aircraft and 10% for a Part 23 regional aircraft.

Honeywell, while currently a relatively niche player in regional transport, also sees the growing hybrid-electric revolution as a potential opportunity to gain new traction in several markets, ranging from long- range advanced air mobility vehicles to next-generation turboprops. The company has begun testing a 1-megawatt generator suitable for use in hybrid-electric aircraft that is 2.5 times more powerful than the previous version developed in 2019.

Following tests of the generator, now underway at Honeywell’s Mexicali facility in Baja California, the unit will be paired with a modified HGT1700 auxiliary power unit to run as a turbogenerator. Although Honeywell earlier completed design work and mating of the HTS900 turboshaft to two 200-kW generators, “there is more emphasis on the megawatt testing,” says Taylor Alberstadt, Honeywell’s senior director of power systems business development. While traditionally the company has segmented its products to service different sectors, it expects the new hybrid-electric capability will expand its market versatility. “We have ‘X’ amount of electric power. What do you want to do with it?” he asks.

In Europe, research into future turbo-props is evolving to encompass more hybrid-electric technology under Tech TP, a Clean Sky engine demonstrator project targeted at development of a sustainable, efficient engine for general aviation and small regional turboprops. First run in June 2019 at Safran’s Tarnos site in France, the engine is now being modified with hybrid-electric elements developed as a subset of the Achieve (advanced mechatronics devices for a novel turboprop electric starter-generator and health-monitoring system) project. Modifications will be completed by the end of this year or early 2022.

While much of the future turboprop focus is on conventional or sustainable hydrocarbon-fueled hybrid-electric propulsion, several hydrogen fuel-cell-based projects are underway in the regional market. U.S. startup Universal Hydrogen (UH2) has signed letters of intent with Icelandair Group, Air Nostrum and Ravn Alaska to retrofit ATR 72 and Dash 8s with hydrogen fuel-cell propulsion systems.

Under the agreements, the aircraft’s Pratt PW124/127 turboprops are to be replaced with electric motors and fuel cells compatible with UH2’s modular hydrogen system. Flight testing, certification and conversions will be led by aircraft modification specialist AeroTEC. UH2 is currently testing a subscale version of the 2-megawatt powertrain, assembled after receiving a minority investment from existing partner Plug Power. Developed with electric motor developer MagniX, UH2 plans to begin experimental flights in 2023, aiming for supplemental type certification and entry into service by 2025.

A similar initiative is underway in Europe where Deutsche Aircraft, which is working to return the Dornier 328 to production, has partnered with German hydrogen-propulsion specialist H2Fly to demonstrate a zero-carbon fuel-cell-powered version of its revamped 320eco regional turboprop.

Ask The Experts: A Balanced Model For Digital Transformation

Sponsored By HCL

A look at a new approach to modeling that extends the benefits of virtualization to the entire value chain.

Most aerospace companies already leverage 3D modeling, analysis and simulation in design and manufacturing to lower cost, increase quality and reduce time to market. But virtualization has potential beyond the product level. Manufacturers already use tools such as ERP, to create a holistic view of the entire value chain. Synchronizing product modeling with enterprise models of planning, logistics, finances and the supply chain is what HCL Technologies calls the Model Based Enterprise 2.0 (MBE 2.0). Aviation Week spoke with Matthew Cordner, Principal Aerospace & Defense Business Architect, at HCL to discuss MBE 2.0 and other industry trends.

Matthew Cordner

AW: How would you characterize the aerospace industry's maturity compared to other manufacturing sectors when it comes to the digital transformation?

Cordner: When it comes to product capability, testing and monitoring, the aerospace industry has been on the forefront of digital transformation for decades. But because aerospace is such a low-volume industry with long product lifecycles, often 30 to 40 years, the transference of those capabilities into manufacturing, supply chain and financial processes has been much lower than many other sectors, such as high tech and automotive. Aerospace has perfected the art of managing outcomes instead of inputs. Digital transformation requires accurate process inputs, high levels of standardization and synchronized processes. These are not traditional areas of high priority in aerospace.

AW: So how does virtualization fit into the picture of managing all of those variables you mentioned? I typically think of virtualization as a function of product design.

Cordner: There's been a focus for almost three decades now on using digital representations of products and the associated technical data, 3D modeling—the bills of material, and specifications within the engineering organization—to define the product and to do simulations and analysis.

But now we’re seeing virtualization being applied to financial, supply chain and factory modeling.

They’re defining those processes digitally and using the models to simulate actual scenarios. This helps manufacturers make decisions around finance planning and execution and supply chain and material planning. I believe, from a financial perspective, the biggest digital transformation gains over the next five to 10 years in aerospace and defense are going to come from the virtualization of these models of business processes that form this value chain from product design to building, supporting and maintaining the product.

It’s the thread of information that you use to gather information about what customers are going to order, so you can have more accurate demand forecasting. It’s the digital thread on the shop floor that helps you gather feedback of what's performing well, what's not performing well at a machine level and use this information to make real-time adjustments to keep production flowing and take corrective actions for the future.

AW: Can you tell me about HCL’s MBE 2.0 and how that helps bring this digital thread together?

Cordner: As companies look for a competitive advantage in the marketplace, what we find is the advantage often doesn't come from the performance of the product itself. The competitive differentiation comes from the ability to monitor enormous amounts of information inside and outside your company, find insight in it, create plans that address those insights, and rapidly deploy them to the supply chain. This has to be done across the entire value chain, not just engineering, but also manufacturing and the support organizations. The ability to have that insight and agility using digital technologies and data is what we at HCL call Model Based Enterprise 2.0. It helps people to expand beyond the product definition to an enterprise view that uses digital tools to define and optimize the digital threads in each of their functional areas.

For example, in a traditional model, product engineers would throw their design over the fence to manufacturing engineers, who would then have to figure out how to build it. Once they have defined that process, they take those work instructions or process instructions, and they throw it over the wall to operations, who takes those instructions and start building the product. The problem is that if any issues arise related to the design or process, the respective team needs to send all that information back upstream to correct the problem. With a more unified process across the design of the product, the design of the process and the building of the product, we can have that agility that we look for in a resilient supply chain. 3D modeling of products has significantly improved this process from an engineering change management perspective, now it’s time to apply these principles to the management of supply and demand as the product is being produced.

AW: We’re hearing more about supply chain issues these days, whether they’re related to the pandemic or other unplanned events. Could this model help aerospace manufacturers gain better visibility of the current state of their supply chain and enhance predictability?

Cordner: This is certainly a hot topic now. There are many factors that can disrupt a supply chain. And, of course, our supply chain is critical to supporting many functions of our economy. The pandemic has exposed a lot of those weaknesses. Many people are familiar with the executive order President Biden put out in February on American supply chains and highlighting the need for a resilient and diverse and secure supply chain to ensure both our economic prosperity and our national security. It's become front-and-center issue. There are many factors that can disrupt supply chains beyond a pandemic, such as threats from cyber attacks, extreme weather and geopolitical changes. So, there's a new emphasis on the ability for aerospace and defense companies to use these digital technologies to harden their supply chains and make sure that they are resilient and have multiple paths of execution.

For example, in aerospace, the supply chain supporting the fabrication of a flight-critical part is especially vulnerable to disruption since even minor changes can require a costly recertification effort. There needs to be fewer single points of failure in a supply chain, and we need to have both mitigation plans for those threats, which means minimizing the likelihood of a threat, having management plans on how to respond to a threat and knowing how quickly you can respond to restore the integrity of the supply chain.

AW: What should aerospace manufacturers seek from solutions providers to ensure they have the tools and systems in place for a truly unified digital thread?

Cordner: There has been a lot of emphasis on optimizing the way planning and execution on the shop floor interacts with engineering. We have developed a similar perspective to help aerospace companies look at how they can choose tools (MES and MOM) and create processes that also optimize interactions from the shop floor to their ERP systems. More and more aerospace and defense companies asking for help in this area because it doesn't do any good to strengthen one at the expense of the other. They need solutions providers who know how all enterprise systems work together, not just focus on one piece of the equation When we approach a company to help them understand what they need to do, from a digital transformation point of view, we're not dealing with just one particular area, we're dealing with the breadth of the value chain. Being a Model Based Enterprise takes a balanced approach that builds on the success of product modeling and matures into the balance of the value chain.

Airbus X-Plane Will Test Inflight Folding Wingtips

Graham Warwick, Guy Norris As manufacturers strive to reduce the fuel burn and emissions of their next generation of commercial airliners, longer wings are near the top of the list.

Airbus X-Plane Will Test Inflight Folding Wingtips

Graham Warwick, Guy Norris

Wingtips flap in flight on AlbatrosONE, a 7%-scale Airbus A321 model fitted with a long-span wing. Credit: Airbus

As manufacturers strive to reduce the fuel burn and emissions of their next generation of commercial airliners, longer wings are near the top of the list.

Extending the span would reduce cruise drag but could prevent aircraft using existing airport gates.

Enter the folding wingtip, already a feature of the in-development Boeing 777X. Airbus also is looking at folding wingtips, but a group within the manufacturer is planning to go a step further. If a folding wingtip is to be installed for ground use, why not use it in flight?

Increasing wing aspect ratio reduces lift-induced drag, which accounts for more than 30% of aircraft drag. Extending the span also increases wing weight but using the folding wingtip for load alleviation in gusts and maneuvers promises to minimize the weight penalty for higher aspect ratio.

A freely flapping hinge does not pass bending moment, so if the wingtip is free to flap in gusts the additional span does not increase the bending moment on the wing. Also, if the hinge is angled relative to the flow over the wing, it is statically stable because aerodynamic stiffness limits the flapping.

Airbus calls the technology the semi-aeroelastic hinge—semi because it can be locked and unlocked to freely flap in flight. The promise of the technology was shown in 2019-20 flights of a subscale unmanned model, the AlbatrossONE, developed by Airbus UK.

Hints that Airbus planned to demonstrate the technology by modifying a Cessna Citation business jet surfaced early in 2021. Now, The Air Current has revealed the demonstrator project is called X-Wing and involves fitting a Citation VII with a new composite wing and fly-by-wire controls for unmanned flights.

An Aviation Week source familiar with the project says it is aimed at testing a 30%-scale version of 52 m-span (171 ft.-span) wing with a moveable wingtip section for potential application to a single-aisle transport. The moveable tip section on the Citation VII will be 2 m long, compared to 2.4 m for the current A320 “sharklet” winglet.

The wingtip will be attached to the end of the high-aspect-ratio composite test wing via an electrically powered actuating hinge mechanism incorporating a drive gearbox and clutch. The system will operate in two main modes. In the first, the electric motor will drive the gearbox to position the wingtip to specific angles for various flight modes as well as takeoff and landing. The second mode, which involves declutching the drive mechanism, will enable the wingtip to move freely on its semi-aeroelastic hinge.

The hinge system will receive position commands from the flight control computer. Commands will be to move the tip in various degree increments up and down, or to disengage the clutch. Target is to begin flight tests with the flapping wing section in late 2023, the source said.

Wing Of Tomorrow

Tom Wilson, semi-aeroelastic hinge project leader, and James Kirk, AlbatrossONE chief engineer, at Airbus UK in Filton, England, gave a briefing on the technology and its progress at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ virtual SciTech 2021 conference in January.

A320-family aircraft have a wingspan of 36 m, for an aspect ratio of nine. Airbus’ Wing of Tomorrow research program is developing a 45-m-span, aspect-ratio-14 composite wing for an A320-class aircraft, enabled by ground-folding wingtips that allow the aircraft to still fit a standard 36-m Code C gate.

“With the semi-aeroelastic hinge we hope to add approximately another 7 m, for an aspect ratio of 18,” said Wilson. Going from 45 m to 52 m will reduce induced drag, which is inversely proportional to the square of aspect ratio, “but because of the huge load alleviation potential we hope to get this aerodynamic gain without having to incur the weight penalty.”

A flight starts with the wingtips folded at the gate. The tips are folded down while taxiing out and unlocked during the takeoff roll. “We do this for handling qualities so we can reduce the roll damping and roll the aircraft faster, because with the high mass when the wing is full of fuel it’s difficult to roll the aircraft with the increased span,” Kirk said.

Once the aircraft takes off, the wingtips are left free for first-segment climb. Then in second-segment climb the tips are locked and recovered to the plane of the wing. “The folding mechanism will find the wingtips, lock them and then pull them back down to a planar position. With the wingtips down in this planar configuration they are fully loaded, and we have a fully effective lifting span, so we get the maximum efficiency for cruise, minimizing induced drag,” he said.

“Then, when we don’t want these long thin wings generating a high bending moment during a gust or maneuver, we unlock the wingtips and allow them to be free to offload the wing,” Kirk said. “The wingtips have been unlocked and are completely free about the hinges, passing no bending moment,” he added.

“We have to detect the gust on the nose of the aircraft, and then there’s a race. We have to send the signal from the detection sensor to the hinge to release the wingtip before the gust arrives on the wing,” Wilson said. “It’s a question of a few hundred milliseconds. The release system has to be very quick.” After the gust or maneuver, the wingtips are locked and recovered to continue efficient flight.

Because it can be difficult to fit high-lift devices such as leading-edge slats to folding wingtips, during the landing flare the semi-aeroelastic hinge could be used to angle the tips up so there is a geometric reduction in the angle-of-attack of the tip, helping prevent wingtip stall. “So you can improve your low-speed performance,” he said.

“At the moment, the concept is that the wingtips are locked during the flare,” Wilson said. For safety, the semi-aeroelastic hinge system may be treated similarly to a thrust reverser, requiring a 10-9 probability of catastrophic failure, he said. After landing, the tips go into their ground folded position.

Flapping Wingtips

The AlbatrossONE project was named after the albatross because of a unusual feature of the long-soaring bird. A sheet of tendons allows an albatross to lock its shoulder and keep its wing outstretched for an extended time without using its muscles. When it needs to flap its wing, the albatross can unlock its shoulder.

AlbatrossONE was a 1/14th-scale (7%) radio-control model of an A321 with a 52-m-span wing, giving the electric-powered model about a 4-m span. The objective of the project was to demonstrate that freely flapping wingtips are an idea worth pursuing for load alleviation, to investigate the handling qualities and to show that a wingtip could be recovered after it was released.

“We wanted to convince Airbus and the aviation community that this could work, and the best way to do that was to build it and fly it,” said Kirk. “In 20 months, we went from a clean-sheet design to a flying aircraft on a very, very low budget. We achieved this with an army of intern, graduates and apprentices. Some would call it slave labor,” he joked.

To save time and money, the model was scaled physically and not dynamically, so some aeroelastic effects of flapping wingtips could not be explored. “We basically ensured the 1G spanwise lift distribution was scaled so we had a representative loading on the wingtip,” he said.

In February 2019, the model made two flights from Aston Down airfield in England, AlbatrossONE becoming the first Filton-manufactured aircraft to fly since the Concorde. The folding mechanism had yet to be manufactured, so the wingtips were fixed for the first flight and freely flapping for the second.

Bending moments measured on both flights clearly showed the load alleviation benefit of allowing the wingtips to freely flap, Kirk said. The second flight also showed the folding wingtips were statically and dynamically stable throughout the flight. The first flight showed the fixed wing suffered tip stall. On both flights, the aircraft exhibited Dutch roll instability, a yaw-roll coupling.

The model was improved for the second phase of flights, with upgraded instrumentation, flight controls and weight reductions to allow a bigger battery to increase flight endurance to 5 min. Tip stall was fixed by adding leading-edge droop to the wing and a yaw damper was added to solve the Dutch roll issue.

The folding mechanism and control system was installed, enabling inflight release and recovery of the wingtips as well as ground folding. One half of the aircraft was then mounted on the side of van and driven down the runway as quick and cheap way to verify the stall fix as well as check the lock, release and recovery operation of the semi-aeroelastic hinge.

Next came a tether test. Attached to a cable, the model was flown round and round in a circle inside a building. “The original idea of the tether test was yaw damper tuning, but it became much more,” Wilson said. The test also looked at handling qualities, wingtip folding angle as aircraft angle-of-attack and sideslip changed, as well as some failure cases with the hinges. “And in addition to that it was a good shakedown of the aircraft and test processes, and also the team ahead of flying,” he added.

“We even tested our safety parachute,” Wilson said. “We discovered that if you have a small airplane which is fully instrumented and you have a large building and a cable, then you can do a low-risk test and get a lot of useful information out of it.”

Phase 2 flight testing began in July 2020 at Shenington, another former military airbase in England. The goal of these flights was to demonstrate full gate-to-gate functionality of the semi-aeroelastic hinge technology. Bending-moment data from the flights showed a reduction with the wingtips unlocked. Roll-rate data showed “a free wingtip is equivalent to having no wingtip in terms of roll damping,” Kirk said.

AlbatrossONE also demonstrated what happens if there is a failure in flight and the wingtips cannot be locked and the aircraft has to land with them freely flapping. Modeling suggested aerodynamic stiffness and damping is sufficient to retard the motion of the wingtips so they do not hit the ground. A bounce landing of the AlbatrossONE confirmed this, the tips staying at least 10 deg. above the plane of the wing. “This is telling us that landing with fee wingtips is very much a feasible proposition,” said Wilson.

There was a question about how the flapping wingtips would behave in sideslip. Another tether test showed that, at high angle of attack, as the sideslip angle approaches the hinge flare angle, the tip collapses against the wing. “When we design a future aircraft with this technology, we will have to make sure we have stoppers so that, if the aircraft is in extremely high slideslip at low speed, collapsing of the wingtip can’t happen,” he said.

Innovative SIGINT Sensors For Air Surveillance And Defense Missions

Sponsored By IAI

Credit: IAI

The ability of nations to defend their territorial airspace is a cornerstone upon which their sovereignty rests. Governments therefore invest tremendous resources to establish and maintain effective Air Defence capabilities. In many instances it is the country's Air Force which is entrusted with this important task. The ultimate effectiveness of Air Defence systems depends on their ability to create an accurate and up-to-date air situation picture.

The capability to quickly identify and classify aerial vehicles and to distinguish between actual threats and innocent targets is essential for air defence operators to operate effectively. However, this capability has been challenged in recent years by a number of factors. Foremost is the continuing growth in worldwide aviation (notwithstanding the current pandemic crisis), which has resulted in a denser national aerospace, making the identification and classification of penetrating targets more difficult. Another factor is the proliferation of platforms with a small Radar Cross-Section (RCS). The increasing use of small, slow, low-flying platforms, and the spread of stealth technologies, are testing the ability of radar systems to detect, track and classify these threats.

Recently, technological breakthroughs in the SIGINT domain, in conjunction with the application of advanced data processing, have enabled ELTA to make substantial inroads in addressing these challenges. In fact, ELTA's SIGINT systems have become an important component of air surveillance and defence systems.

ELTA Systems Ltd. was founded in 1967 as a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries, Israel's largest aerospace and defence concern. ELTA specializes in the design and manufacture of defence electronics, including radar, SIGINT and EW systems. ELTA has achieved considerable advances in the design of Electronic Signal Intelligence (ELINT) sensors, improving their sensitivity, and thereby enabling the detection of targets at longer ranges, while at the same time sustaining tracking continuity by exploiting target side lobes. ELTA's expertise in high-sensitivity and wide-bandwidth scanning offers significant improvements in the ability to cope with targets equipped with advanced low probability-of-intercept radar systems. This innovative scanning capability enables ELTA's ELINT system to perform simultaneous scanning of an extensive bandwidth, successfully tracking targets that employ sophisticated radars equipped with advanced frequency agility and frequency selection systems.

To further bolster ELINT system performance, ELTA has developed unique, advanced algorithms that enable maneuvering targets to be tracked with data from even a single sensor. The tracking data is analyzed based on signal parameters and geospatial information. The system supports the association of ELINT tracks with radar tracks, creating a common integrated track. Advanced capabilities based on a combination of Big Data analytics, Machine Learning processes, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology allow the system to adapt rapidly to new environments or threats, and to classify and identify each signal received in the system and update the database according to the target's behavior over time.

ELTA designed its ELINT system for air surveillance and defence missions to be flexible and robust, and to support a wide range of deployments and modes of operation – from independent, standalone deployment as a fully passive system, to co-deployment with a radar sensor. This enables multi-sensor integration, combining active radar with an array of passive SIGINT and Electro-Optical sensors to achieve a multi-disciplinary air situation picture via a single multi-sensor platform.

Furthermore, the integration of passive ELINT sensors with ELTA's advanced radars provides optimal synergy both in terms of operational performance and cost effectiveness. For example, integrating ELTA's Passive Coherent Location (PCL) multi-static radar systems alongside its SIGINT systems complements the ability to generate the passive air situation picture and achieve timely detection and classification. Moreover, the all-ELTA solution facilitates reduced acquisition costs and simplified maintenance logistics, reducing lifecycle cost.

The synergistic integration of data from both passive and active sensors presents considerable challenges. It requires advanced, sophisticated data extraction and transformation techniques. ELTA's passive sensor integration system, Acapella, creates a unified and centrally managed air situational awareness picture.

The ability of passive sensors to classify and identify aerial targets with unchallenged reliability has a direct impact on air defence performance. The quick and unambiguous identification of threats facilitates faster activation of air defence capabilities, creating more opportunities for target interception by both ground-based air defence systems and air superiority aircraft. Furthermore, the use of passive sensors supports advanced Concept-of-Operations (CONOPS) with more conservative radar transmission protocols for enhanced survivability and improved efficacy.

ELTA's passive air surveillance and defence systems make a significant contribution to the Ground-Based Air Defense (GBAD) mission:

Better awareness - Dramatically improve classification and identification to support the critical air situation picture. Enable long-range detection, continuous tracking, and the ability to discriminate between targets based on their SIGINT signature.

Better efficiency - Enable more efficient weapons system operation, reducing classification and identification time and providing more interception opportunities.

Better survivability – Passive systems are compact, do not emit RF, and facilitate careful use of radar transmissions.

In summary, ELTA's SIGINT systems break out of the intelligence-gathering domain and become a significant force multiplier for the air surveillance and defence mission.

Find out more here.

Tempest Joint-Venture Plans Are Firming Up

Tony Osborne Tempest is advancing toward a delivery plan and adding industrial partners as funding flows from the UK and Italy.

Tempest Joint-Venture Plans Are Firming Up

Tony Osborne

The international partners in the UK-led Tempest Future Combat Air System initiative are moving toward formation of a joint venture that will go on to develop the platform.

It is unclear how the joint venture will be structured. But unlike entities such as the Panavia consortium that developed the trinational Tornado, or Eurofighter GmbH that led the work on the four-nation Eurofighter aircraft, the Tempest joint venture will act as the design authority for the platform. That role was left to a manufacturer—such as BAE Systems, Airbus, Leonardo and their predecessors—in previous consortia.

Tempest JV to build on Sepecat, Panavia and Eurofighter experience
BAE Systems has added Marshall as a new Tempest supplier
Mosquito demonstrator to fly in the UK by the end of 2023

“We’re not going to carve up the program and do this the way we did in previous programs,” Michael Christie, BAE Systems’ director of Future Combat Air Systems, told a Tempest industry panel at the Defense Security Equipment International (DSEI) exhibition in London on Sept. 16. “We are going to behave as a single program, a single enterprise, and as if we’ve got completely joint motivations,” Christie said.

“All the partners will feel as though it is ‘our program.’ That is very difficult to achieve if you stand off or behave like a shareholder,” he said.

Although a single organization will run the program, there will still be a need for multiple sites for assembly, as with previous programs.

The aim of the approach is to avoid potential disagreements over intellectual property and workshare that recently dogged negotiations on the French-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System and at one point threatened to fracture the partnership (AW&ST July 26-Aug. 8, p. 53).

“This goal of international value is really what we are trying to achieve here,” Christie said. “We’re not going to achieve this if we all behave like three organizations looking after our own value and our own agenda.”

Until now, the Tempest has essentially been an assortment of research and development projects to test and mature technologies that could become part of the air system. This work has been carried out by the Team Tempest industrial consortium working with the UK Defense Ministry through its Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS TI).

Christie cited the success of the Saab-Boeing partnership on development of the T-7 Red Hawk jet trainer, which was built in three years across two sites through a single program established by the two companies.

The move toward formation of a joint venture comes after the UK government greenlighted establishment of an acquisition program to enable the FCAS program to move into the concept and assessment phase. In that phase, technologies including the digital approach to platform development will be matured and core system elements will be firmed up, including the crewed core fighter and what UK Royal Air Force officials call the uncrewed adjuncts that will support it (AW&ST April 5-18, p. 48).

Officials say development of the Tempest requires a cultural change to deliver the rapid developments needed for the platform to enter service in the 2030s. Credit: BAE Systems Concept

Italy has begun allocating funds to support Tempest development, with €2 billion ($2.3 billion) slated to be provided by the Italian defense ministry over the next 15 years. This will likely be supplemented by additional funding from other government departments in Rome, including the economic and finance ministry and the economic development ministry.

Sweden, meanwhile, is mulling how it will replace its Saab Gripen C/Ds in the 2030s and how it will roll technologies into future fleets.

One key challenge for the joint venture will be to ensure that the structure can accommodate future partnerships. Christie noted that it will need to adapt to ensure countries that join later “don’t feel like a second-class citizen.”

Japan could be one of those future nations. The country’s flag flew alongside those of Italy and Sweden over a mockup of the Tempest cockpit at the DSEI event. The country is looking to use or adapt some Tempest technologies for its F-X platform, which is envisaged to replace Japan’s F-16-derived F-2 fleet starting in 2035, similar to the Tempest’s introduction.

The UK and Japan are conducting a joint engine viability study, Air Cdre. Jonny Moreton, program director for the UK Future Combat Air Program at the UK Defense Ministry, told the panel, adding that this could further broaden into electronic warfare and radar. It is unclear whether the engine work with Japan will lead to the Tempest and the Japanese F-X platform sharing the same engine or if the engines will share a similar set of technologies, but Moreton said the ability to work with different nations on even select components of the wider Tempest program offers partner nations greater freedom of action and modification.

“We want to be able to upgrade, advance, spiral-develop our capabilities ourselves. And as sovereign countries inside [the] partnership, each partner has that role,” Moreton said.

The UK is continuing to work on its Mosquito Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft manufacturing demonstrator being developed by Spirit AeroSystems, Northrop Grumman and research, development and consultancy firm Intrepid Minds. Spirit is using resin infusion technologies to produce the lightweight airframe.

The jet-trainer-size demonstrator is being developed to prove that such platforms can be rapidly developed and produced at a low cost to provide what Royal Air Force officials describe as an attritable adjunct for the manned fighter. Plans to get the demonstrator flying in 2023 are on track, Air Chief Marshal Michael Wigston, chief of staff for the Royal Air Force, said in a speech at DSEI. Flight testing is planned to be conducted in UK airspace.

BAE Systems has also added Marshall as a partner on Team Tempest as part of a strategic collaboration framework. The Cambridge, England-based company would be the first supplier to have a delegated design authority on the program. BAE and Marshall will partner on design, manufacturing and testing work in the technology demonstration program. The manufacturing work will focus primarily on Marshall’s composites work.

Marshall has traditionally participated on large aircraft programs, so the work for Team Tempest represents a step into the combat air domain for the company.

Full development of the Tempest is expected to get underway in 2025, and the initial operational capability is planned for 2035.

Flying Laboratory

Although the Tempest’s first flight is some years off, its mission systems and sensors are set to take to the air on a flying testbed being jointly developed by Leonardo and 2Excel Aviation.

The ex-TUI Airways Boeing 757 will be converted into a flying laboratory called Excalibur, which will be operated by 2Excel under contract from Leonardo.

The airliner’s interior will be stripped out and equipped with workstations for up to 12 observers. Engineers will also install a Tempest-representative cockpit so sensors and systems can be tested in flight. Externally, the aircraft will feature a modified nose to enable installation of experimental versions of the proposed Multifunction Radio Frequency System radar array, while a series of bulges on the forward fuselage window line will enable the testing of other sensors, to give them a wide field of regard. The configuration has yet to be finalized, in part because the Tempest suite of systems and sensors has not yet been formally defined.

Chris Walton, project director for Excalibur at 2Excel Aviation, said the 757 was chosen because of its size, weight and electrical power capabilities. “We know that the technologies of the future are going to be really power-hungry . . . and that’s going to be critical when providing power to nonproductionized units that are technology demonstrators and not finished products,” Walton said.

Martin Downes, capability manager for major air programs at Leonardo, says a Tempest flying testbed is essential to ensure the numerous systems work together as advertised. “A big challenge for a lot of people is, ‘why do we need to do this in the real world? Isn’t simulation good enough these days?’ Well, the answer is probably ‘no,’” Downes said. “It’s going to be really expensive to find out right at the end if [the simulation technologies do] not [work together].”

As well as acting as a Tempest testbed, Excalibur will be offered for other systems’ tests and research flights, Leonardo and 2Excel hope. Credit: Leonardo and 2Excel Aviation

In addition to trials for the Tempest, 2Excel and Leonardo are exploring whether other UK companies would like to use the platform for testing systems.

2Excel is working on a second Leonardo contract that covers preparatory work on the aircraft, which is in storage at Lasham, England, where 2Excel has a maintenance, repair and overhaul facility.

The two companies say more detailed design activities will get underway over the next 12 months, along with laying out the flight schedule.

Work to begin modifying the aircraft for its research and development role is still at least two years away and will be preceded by an initial campaign to understand the flight characteristics of the standard aircraft. Flight-test instrumentation will be fitted in advance of baseline flight tests required for future certification of the modified aircraft. The modification process to flight-testbed configuration is expected to take around three years.

Excalibur will be the third Boeing 757 modified for aerospace research use. Boeing operates the prototype 757 as an avionics testbed for the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, while Honeywell flies a 757 as a trial aircraft for new engines, avionics and communications systems.

USAF Secretary Warns Of Revived 60-Year-Old Chinese Nuclear Weapon

Steve Trimble China canceled a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System in 1973, but Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall warns the concept may be revived.

USAF Secretary Warns Of Revived 60-Year-Old Chinese Nuclear Weapon

Steve Trimble

China attempted to field a FOBS in the early 1970s with a rocket based on a three-stage version of the DF-5. Credit: CCTV

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has warned that China may seek to revive a 55-year-old concept for a missile that can deliver a nuclear payload from space or near-space on a “back door” trajectory via the Southern Hemisphere.

The sudden warning made on Sept. 20 at the Air Force Association’s (AFA) 2021 Air, Space & Cyber Conference adds to a staggering list of warnings and disclosures over the last three months by the Biden administration. During that period, officials and open sources have revealed new details about China’s nuclear ambitions, which include a nuclear-powered cruise missile, accelerated warhead production and newly built fields of hundreds of silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM).

“They have gone from a few high-value assets near China’s shores to the second and third island chains, and most recently to intercontinental ranges and even to the potential for global strikes from space,” Kendall said in his keynote address.

Kendall’s statement immediately raised eyebrows. Although U.S. think tanks and intelligence agencies have warned repeatedly that China is developing the means to attack satellites in space, there had been no recent suggestions of Chinese intent to stage nuclear attacks on Earth from space.

The truth, as Kendall later elaborated, is only slightly less dramatic but does reveal yet another glimpse into the intelligence warnings about China’s potential nuclear ambitions. In fact, Kendall said his remark about “global strikes from space” was a reference to a possible revival by China of a Cold War-era concept called a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS).

“If you use that kind of approach, you don’t have to use a traditional ICBM trajectory, which is directly from the point of launch to the point of impact,” Kendall told journalists after his speech. “It’s a way to avoid defenses and missile warning systems.”

A FOBS uses a multistage, orbital-class launcher with a nuclear or conventional payload, but the missile does not complete a full orbit. Previously known concepts instead had the booster reaching an altitude of 90-150 km (56-93 mi.)—just below and above the Karman Line at 150 km. The last stage of the booster would fire a retrorocket before completing a full orbit, allowing the payload to reenter the atmosphere on an unpredictable trajectory.

In a sense, a FOBS offers a similar capability as an ICBM-range hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). An HGV, such as Russia’s nuclear Avangard, uses cross-range maneuvers to duck under and swerve around missile warning systems and obscure its intended target until the last moments.

The FOBS concept is often linked to a failed program by the Soviet Union in the 1960s but also has a little-known pedigree in China from the same era.

In 1992, two Stanford University professors-—John Lewis and Hua Di, the latter a Soviet-trained member of China’s ballistic missile program—described China’s canceled FOBS program in the quarterly journal International Security. A FOBS feasibility study ordered by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1965 proposed a new, three-stage variant of the then-developmental Dong Feng-5 (DF-5) ICBM.

The FOBS version of the DF-6 “could strike the U.S. homeland from the south, flying over the Antarctic and penetrating the weakest points in the American warning network,” Lewis and Hua wrote. By 1973, however, “an endless chain of technical problems intervened and forced the cancellation of the DF-6.”

Nearly 50 years later, it is not clear what Chinese activity prompted Kendall’s remarks at the AFA’s largest event. U.S. intelligence officials have said that China has staged more tests of new ballistic missiles than the rest of the world combined since 2019, but they offered no granular details about the types of capabilities being tested on China’s remote western ranges.

Since his Senate swearing-in ceremony in August, Kendall has received classified updates on U.S. intelligence assessments of China’s military capabilities, providing a refresh for the career national security bureaucrat after a four-year stint outside government service.

“I’ve had the opportunity to catch up on the intelligence about China’s modernization programs,” Kendall said. “If anything, China has accelerated its pace of modernization, and [that is] taking [them] in some disturbing directions.”

SpaceX Completes First Civilian Charter In Low Earth Orbit

Irene Klotz After flying three crews for NASA, SpaceX puts civilians into orbit.

SpaceX Completes First Civilian Charter In Low Earth Orbit

Irene Klotz

Inspiration4 commander and financier Jared Isaacman, right, and Hayley Arceneaux, a pediatric cancer survivor, take in the view from 360 mi. above Earth through a domed window SpaceX developed and flew for its first private spaceflight. Credit: SpaceX

After flying astronauts three times for NASA, SpaceX entered the commercial spaceline business, becoming the first company to stage trips to low Earth orbit for paying civilians.

Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux and Christopher Sembroski were not the first private citizens to reach orbit, of course. Civilians without scientific or government roles have flown aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft, the Mir space station and the International Space Station (ISS) as far back as 1990, when the Tokyo Broadcasting System paid to fly a TV journalist.

But the people aboard the SpaceX Dragon Resilience from Sept. 15-18 were the first to fly sans professional astronauts—just four adventurous Americans, ranging in age from 29 to 51, aboard a fully autonomous spacecraft overseen by SpaceX in Hawthorne, California.

SpaceX completes first civilian charter
Flight was fully autonomous
Dragon capsule’s range and duration extended

SpaceX actually had three Dragon capsules in orbit during that time—two docked at the ISS along with the Resilience private charter circling as high as about 365 mi. above Earth—the farthest humans had been since the final U.S. space shuttle servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009.

Inspiration4 crew (from left) Hayley Arceneaux, Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor and Christopher Sembroski returned to Kennedy Space Center via helicopter after splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 18. Credit: John Kraus/Inspiration4

SpaceX spent six months preparing Isaacman and his guests, none of whom had previously met. Isaacman, 38, the billionaire founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, is an accomplished pilot who wanted the experience of commanding a spacecraft in orbit. When the opportunity to fly with SpaceX opened in late 2020, Isaacman signed a contract and chose a philanthropic partner—the high-profile St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital—to parlay publicity around the mission into a charitable fundraising campaign. The project, which he named Inspiration4 (I4), was announced in a TV commercial that aired during the Feb. 8, 2021, Super Bowl.

Isaacman gave one crew seat to the hospital to fill and created two contests for the remaining positions. St. Jude quickly settled on 29-year-old Arceneaux, a physician assistant who was treated at the Memphis facility for bone cancer when she was 10. Arceneaux became the youngest person to fly in orbit and the first with a prosthesis.

Sembroski, 42, a Lockheed Martin data engineer from Everett, Washington, clinched the top prize in a St. Jude Hospital fundraiser sweepstakes after the winner, his college friend, declined the trip and gave Sembroski his spot.

Proctor, 51, a community college science professor, artist and pilot from Tempe, Arizona, joined the crew after winning a business contest sponsored by Isaacman’s e-commerce company, Shift4. Proctor became the first African American woman to pilot a spacecraft.

On Sept. 15 the quartet climbed aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience—a capsule developed in partnership with NASA—and lifted off from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Launch Complex 39A atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

It was just the fourth human spaceflight for SpaceX and its first without NASA oversight. To prepare the crew, SpaceX used the same training programs and procedures it developed for NASA astronauts, culminating in a 30-hr. simulation at SpaceX headquarters. “At the end of that 30 hr., I was like, ‘I don’t want to leave you guys.’ So we’re excited to have a little bit longer when we’re actually in space,” Arceneaux told reporters before launch.

Isaacman added several crew-bonding activities, including a 9.5-hr. climb and camping trip on snow-covered Mount Rainier in Washington state. “We worked on getting comfortable with being uncomfortable,” Isaacman says.

He also treated the I4 crew to a Zero Gravity Corp. parabolic flight to experience microgravity and flew them several times aboard his fleet of fighter jets. Isaacman is the founder of Draken International, a defense company that trains Air Force pilots and owns the world’s largest private fleet of military aircraft. He sold a majority stake to the Blackstone investment firm in 2019.

SpaceX’s fourth human spaceflight—and its first for a customer besides NASA—concluded with a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean about 30 mi. northeast of Cape Canaveral on Sept. 18. Credit: SpaceX

“During the last couple of days,” Isaacman said the day before launch, “we’ve been tearing up the skies with some fighter jets—which I put at relatively higher risk than this mission—so we’re nice and comfortable as we get strapped in [for liftoff].”

In a prelaunch interview with Aviation Week, Isaacman was nonchalant in describing how he went about forging four strangers into a high-functioning team capable of spending as long as five days inside the tight confines of the Dragon capsule. The spacecraft has an interior volume of 328 ft.³—slightly larger than a minivan.

“I’ve run a company for a really long time, and a lot of that is managing personalities and rallying everybody around a common cause despite different backgrounds and priorities in life,” Isaacman says.

From flying air shows, Isaacman gleaned the value of discipline and the need to build trust. “I tried to bring a lot of that to Inspiration4,” he says. “Some of the things that were helpful were setting expectations right at the start, seeing where there [were] going to potentially be some issues and getting out in front of them. It builds trust that way.

“There will be problems and stressors that will try and fracture us, and that’s when we need to come together, even stronger, and talk it out,” he adds. “None of us are super-heroes, none of us are ‘Top Gun’—we weren’t the best-of-the-best selected for this. We’re all lucky to be here, and we owe [that] back to others.”

For Isaacman, who dropped out of high school at age 16 to work full time on his first computer services business, the most immediate philanthropic payback was to underwrite a $200 million fundraising campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which focuses on treating pediatric cancer.

Issacman donated the first $100 million, and by the time he and his crewmates splashed down on Sept. 18 after three days in orbit, the high-profile charity had raised about $160 million. Later that day, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk joined the campaign, pledging on Twitter to contribute $50 million.

“We completed all of our on-orbit objectives, but the best part was after splashdown finding out that the $200 million fundraising goal was surpassed. That was the real ‘mission complete,’ moment,” Isaacman wrote in an email to Aviation Week.

More private astronauts are on their way to orbit. Next month, Russian actress Yulia Peresild and filmmaker Klim Shipenko will join cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov for a Soyuz ride to the ISS to record scenes for an upcoming movie.

They will be followed in December with another chartered Soyuz flight to the ISS carrying Japanese e-commerce entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa and his broadcast production assistant, Yozo Hirano. Separately, Maezawa is paying SpaceX for a lunar flyby mission aboard the company’s still-in-development Starship.

While in orbit, the I4 crew spoke with actor Tom Cruise, who also plans to shoot on-location aboard the ISS. SpaceX already is training two more crews for private sorties to the station for Houston-based Axiom Space. The first of those, Ax-1, is slated to launch in January.

It was this sort of commercial activity that NASA had in mind when it launched the Commercial Crew Program a decade ago and awarded initial development contracts. SpaceX (which was not part of that first funding round) and Boeing went on to win Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts, currently worth a combined $7.1 billion. The companies, which retain ownership and intellectual property rights to their systems, supplemented taxpayer dollars with undisclosed amounts of corporate funds.

The Inspiration4 crew took a look at the Falcon 9 booster that would launch them into orbit and then land on a drone ship on Sept. 15. Credit: John Kraus/Inspiration4

SpaceX is first to leverage its investment by selling orbital flight services to customers beyond NASA. Last year, SpaceX completed a 64-day crewed flight test of its first Crew Dragon capsule, Endeavour, flying two NASA astronauts to the ISS. After receiving NASA certification of its Falcon 9/Crew Dragon system, SpaceX in November began the first of six ISS crew-rotation missions under its NASA contract, worth $2.725 billion as of Aug. 31. The agreement also covered development and flight tests.

SpaceX is preparing for its third ISS crew ferry flight in late October, using a new, as-yet-unnamed Dragon capsule—the third in the fleet. The company will evaluate its manifest to determine if additional Dragon capsules are warranted, says Benjamin Reed, SpaceX director of human spaceflight.

Boeing, meanwhile, continues to wrestle with technical issues that have delayed its commercial space taxi, the CST-100 Starliner. Its uncrewed orbital debut ended early and without an ISS docking in December 2019 due to software and communications issues. A second uncrewed flight test was scheduled for this August but was delayed when engineers found stuck valves in the Starliner service module propulsion system. Boeing is working toward launching the Starliner late this year or in early 2022, followed by a crewed flight test with NASA astronauts in 2022.

Once operational missions begin in 2022-23, Boeing’s CCtCap contract—valued at $4.376 billion as of Aug. 31—with NASA includes the option of a fifth, fare-paying passenger flying along with a four-member ISS crew.

With the I4 mission, SpaceX not only launched orbital flights for non-government customers, it expanded the operational capabilities of the Dragon, which began flying as an ISS cargo resupply ship in 2010 under a separate NASA contract.

Lifting off from KSC at 8:02 p.m. EDT on Sept. 15, the Falcon 9 rocket vehicle placed the Crew Dragon spacecraft into a 360-mi. orbit—about 100 mi. above the altitude of the ISS.

The rocket’s second stage completed a faultless orbital insertion as it reached an altitude of 124 mi. just over 9 min. after liftoff. The first stage, which was on its third flight following two GPS satellite-deployment missions last November and this June, also successfully returned to SpaceX’s drone ship, “Just Read The Instructions,” stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Crew Dragon Resilience also was a repeat flyer, following the November 2020 launch and April 2021 landing of the NASA Crew-1 astronauts. With Resilience back in orbit, the Crew Dragon Endeavour parked at the ISS to support Crew-2 and a cargo Dragon at the station, SpaceX for the first time operated three capsules simultaneously from its flight control center in Hawthorne.

Unlike any previous Dragon, the Inspiration4 vehicle configuration included a viewing cupola in place of the standard ISS docking mechanism. Measuring 46 in. high X 18 in. wide, the dome is made of a single piece of glass, providing the largest continuous viewing area ever launched into orbit, according to SpaceX. The European Space Agency-provided cupola on the ISS is larger but includes seven individual windowpanes.

SpaceX said it began work on the Dragon window in December and had it ready for flight in six months. “I was not aware that the cupola was in the works at the time Inspiration4 was created,” Isaacman says. “To see something in aerospace go from a concept through development, analysis, testing and be flight-ready within essentially six months is unheard of, especially something as significant as the largest continuous window in space.”

Shortly after the Dragon separated from the Falcon’s second stage, which occurred just over 12 min. into flight, the capsule’s nosecone was opened to reveal the cupola. Using its Draco thrusters, the Dragon then performed two circularization burns to transfer to a stable 360-mi.-high orbit.

The Inspiration4 crew continued the tradition of signing the wall of the white room at the end of launchpad crew access arm. They are the first to sign under the SpaceX, rather than NASA's, logo. Credit: SpaceX for Aviation Week

SpaceX could have increased the Falcon 9’s performance and the Dragon’s altitude by flying directly east from KSC but opted to stick with the 51.6-deg. inclination that all Dragon missions have flown since the capsule’s first flight to the ISS in May 2012.

“It’s a road well traveled at this point—the ground station coverage, the recovery forces—it’s a route SpaceX is incredibly familiar with,” Isaacman says. “There are quite a few differences between our mission and the NASA ones. . . . So I guess the question is: ‘How may things are you willing to change for just a first step?’ Let’s keep some things consistent, from just a safety perspective.”

As the crew reached just over 3g during ascent, SpaceX’s live video feed showed Isaacman pumping his fists with excitement. “Few have come before and many are about to follow,” he radioed to flight controllers in Hawthorne. “The door is open now. It’s pretty incredible.”

The live feed from Resilience was limited, but the crew participated in several air-to-ground video and phone calls—some of which were rebroadcast—to support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital fundraisers, talk with children being treated at the hospital and perform other activities, including ringing the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 17. Isaacman’s company, Shift4, which handles payments for one-third of U.S. restaurants and hotels, has been trading on the exchange since June 2020.

“There were a lot of critiques about why there weren’t more livestreams, since people are used to seeing that from NASA, but we had big gaps in communication coverage,” Issacman said in a post-landing interview with Aviation Week. “As a commercial mission, we were not even close to a high priority for government resources.”

In addition to enjoying the view and experience microgravity, the crew took time for some private pursuits—-Proctor sketched and wrote poetry; Sembroski played a ukulele. The private astronauts also conducted a series of medical and science experiments in collaboration with SpaceX, the Translational Research Institute for Space Health at Baylor College of Medicine, and investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine.

The arrival of the I4 crew marked a new—albeit brief—record for the number of people simultaneously in orbit, bringing the total to 14, including crews onboard the ISS and China’s Tiangong station. China’s three taikonauts returned from an inaugural 90-day mission aboard Tiangong on Sept. 17, two days after the I4 crew reached orbit.

On Sept. 18, it was time for the I4 crew’s departure. Flying autonomously as it had throughout the mission, the Dragon capsule’s flight computer fired the capsule’s Draco braking rockets at 6:20 p.m. EDT. The 15-min. burn slowed the capsule by about 250 mph, allowing its orbit to slip into the atmosphere and setting up a southwest-to-northeast descent across Central America and the Florida peninsula, before splashing down at 7:06 pm. EDT in the Atlantic Ocean about 30 mi. northeast of KSC.

“Welcome back to planet Earth,” Space Operations Director Kris Young radioed to crew. “You’ve shown that the world of space is for all of us and that everyday people can make extraordinary impacts in the world around them.”

“Thanks so much SpaceX,” Isaacman replied. “It was a heck of a ride.”

Thirty minutes later, SpaceX recovery teams hoisted the Dragon capsule out of the ocean. Following preliminary medical checks, the crew was flown by helicopter back to SpaceX facilities at KSC, where their families awaited.

“It was very emotional,” Jason Hehir, director of a documentary series about the mission airing on Netflix, tells Aviation Week. “The feeling of relief was palpable when they walked into that hangar. There’s a mixture of exhaustion, jubilation, relief and more than anything gratitude and appreciation from each of them for what they were able to accomplish for not just themselves but also to hit that $200 million goal for St. Jude.”

SpaceX already has some ideas how to improve the spaceflight experience for future travelers, including a food warmer, Wi-Fi and an upgraded toilet. “We had some challenges with it this flight,” Musk wrote on Twitter.

The company should have lots of opportunities to test upgrades. “There’s tons of interest, and it’s growing now a lot,” says Reed, who is looking at transitioning to 5-6 Crew Dragon missions per year. “And on the horizon is Starship, which will be able to carry a lot more people at once.

“Ultimately, we want to make life multiplanetary, and that means putting millions of people in space one day. So the long-term vision is that spaceflight becomes airline-like—you buy a ticket and you go,” Reed says.

For the immediate future, SpaceX will continue preparing private space travelers with the same training it provides professional astronauts. “It was way more intense than I expected,” Isaacman tells Aviation Week. “When you learn to fly a new jet, you get the manual—the Dash-1—you read through it a few times, take some notes and demonstrate competency, and then you go fly. It can happen pretty quickly.

“I had in my mind—I don’t know why—that you’d get one big manual on how to go to space and how Falcon and Dragon work. It turns out it’s like 60 PDFs and PowerPoints and a lot of academics,” Isaacman says. “Obviously, there are a lot of differences between flying an aircraft in an atmosphere and a spacecraft without one, so it was a lot to learn.”

Isaacman says learning how to operate the Dragon was very intuitive. “Sitting down in front of Dragon and navigating through the screens, they present information in a very logical way. I expected it to be awesome, and it was.”

Adds Reed, “We’ll look at how we can cut back on the amount of training that’s necessary to ensure safety, but right now the appropriate thing is that we still train people like astronauts.”

Though NASA had no oversight on the I4 mission, it did provide support services, for which SpaceX paid about $1 million. They included:

Integrated communications support among ground control sites and between the ground and space through the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) and other Near Space Network relay services.
Flight operations data communications and transfer services between the Dragon spacecraft and the SpaceX Control Center via TDRSS, including use of NASA spare pseudo-noise code.
NASA Standard Initiators and Detonators (sold to SpaceX at fair market value under a Commercial Space Launch Act agreement).
Providing opportunities for the I4 crew to observe Commercial Crew program simulations and providing WB-57 aircraft support for parachute imagery (in exchange for NASA preflight/postflight inspection of chutes).
Kennedy Space Center launchpad rescue support, flight hardware transfer and security support.
Propellants, pressurants and hypergolic fuels/oxidizers, equipment and related ancillary laboratory support services.
Life-support equipment and environmental health services.
Unmanned aircraft systems imagery service.
Launch-day helicopter surveillance support.
Contingency readiness for emergency operations and fire rescue support.
Guest operations support, including badging and transportation.

—With Guy Norris in Colorado Springs

Listen to the related podcast here: Interview With Inspiration4 Commander Jared Isaacman