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Now the capsule will be mated on top of the rocket that will take it to space — an Atlas V manufactured by the United Launch Alliance. On December 17th, the rocket and capsule are slated to take off from Cape Canaveral, Florida — without any crew members on board — and then dock with the International Space Station. If successful, this demonstration mission could pave the way for NASA astronauts to fly on the Starliner sometime next year. Boeing has been developing the Starliner spacecraft for NASA as part of the space agency’s Commercial Crew program, an initiative to...

Full Title: President Putin says five men killed in huge explosion in northern Russia that caused sudden radiation spike died trying to create a weapon that ‘has no equal in the world’ Russian President Vladimir Putin has told widows of the five scientists who died in a nuclear explosion earlier this year that their husbands were working on 'the most advanced and unmatched technical' weaponry. Putin's comments came during a ceremony of state decorations at the Kremlin today where he awarded the deceased employees of Russia's state nuclear company with the Order of Courage, posthumously.

From sloppy work to blown deadlines to deadly failures, the company has lost its way. It needs tough love — in the form of Congressional investigations.... Taken together, the problems with the 737 MAX, the 787 Dreamliner, the KC-46 Pegasus, the NASA Starliner, and the Space Launch System suggest systemic organizational and cultural failures that the company, unaided, appears incapable of solving... The deadly failures in the 737 MAX program alone suggest major cultural and organizational problems at the company. Though the loss of almost 350 passengers in two crashes have prompted internal investigations, media scrutiny, and an admission by...

A Boeing whistleblower has claimed that passengers on its 787 Dreamliner could be left without oxygen if the cabin were to suffer a sudden decompression. John Barnett says tests suggest up to a quarter of the oxygen systems could be faulty and might not work when needed. He also claimed faulty parts were deliberately fitted to planes on the production line at one Boeing factory. Mr Barnett, a former quality control engineer, worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement on health grounds in March 2017. From 2010 he was employed as a quality manager at Boeing's factory in...

Dozens of older Boeing 737 planes have been grounded worldwide after inspectors found cracks in a part that connects wings to fuselages, the manufacturer said. Australian carrier Qantas grounded three of its Boeing 737 NG, or next generation, aircraft, it said Friday. “These aircraft have been removed from service for repair,” it said in a statement. Cracks in the so-called pickle forks is the latest problem to hit Boeing, which is mired in crisis over its grounded 737 Max planes after two fatal crashes. The problem does not apply to the 737 Max, which has been grounded since mid-March in...

In the past, it was generally the case that attacks on U.S. weapons systems came from the left. Numerous useful weapons, including the AGM-65 Maverick, the M-1 Abrams, the M-2 Bradley, the B-1 Lancer, the AGM-86 ALCM, and the MGM-31 Pershing, have been attacked, ridiculed, and downplayed by leftists interests. In some cases, as with the B-1, they were quite successful. (It was cancelled outright by Jimmy Carter, though later revived by Ronald Reagan.) In recent years, these campaigns have expanded to include the right. The F-22 Raptor, after a lengthy campaign, was cancelled not by a left-wing ideologue but...

Investigators said faults by Boeing, Lion Air and pilots caused the crash. Five months after the disaster in October last year, an Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed, killing all 157 people on board, which led to the grounding of the entire 737 Max fleet. Faults with the plane's design have been linked to both crashes. [SNIP] What does the report say? The 353-page report found the jet should have been grounded before departing on the fatal flight because of an earlier cockpit issue. However, because the issue was not recorded properly the plane was allowed to take off without the fault...

The U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft is officially about to get some surround sound. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, on Wednesday awarded Terma North America Inc. a $60 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract to retrofit 328 3D audio systems for the close-air support aircraft's cockpit, according to a Defense Department announcement. The company is a subsidiary of Terma A/S, a Danish defense and aerospace company. Pilots have multiple audio signals coming at them, making it difficult to discern certain radio calls and warnings. The 3D audio system will give pilots...

McAllister's ouster as the head of the Renton-headquartered Boeing Commercial Airplanes unit comes after less than three years on the job and a day after Boeing's board of directors met in Texas.

KEY POINTS The FAA said Boeing withheld the messages between employees for months. The incident ramps up pressure on Boeing and CEO Muilenburg about the planes. Boeing and the FAA are facing several investigations about the 737 Max’s design and certification. Boeing shares slipped Friday after the Federal Aviation Administration said Boeing withheld for months messages between employees from 2016 regarding the 737 Max’s certification from the regulator. The plane has been grounded since mid-March after two fatal crashes. “The FAA is also disappointed that Boeing did not bring this document to our attention immediately upon its discovery,” the agency...

With two new large orders from the military and a booming new line of business, Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Inc. is hiring 60 manufacturing positions in Sacramento.

Boeing’s backlog of 787 Dreamliner orders was cut by 14 in September when Russian airline Aeroflot canceled its 2007 order for 22 Dreamliners — 18 of the smaller 787-8s and four 787-9s — while the company booked one new order from Air New Zealand for eight of the largest 787-10 model. The lost order is a cause for concern in Everett because the 787 backlog is dwindling fast as the company aims to roll out the planes at a rate of 14 jets per month. Boeing has been seeking new 787 orders to ensure it can maintain that high production...

Butner, N.C. — A company that makes parts for civilian and military aerospace firms plans to expand its Granville County plant, creating 126 jobs, officials said Friday. Ontic Engineering and Manufacturing Inc. will invest $2.7 million in the Butner facility, officials said. "We continue to be impressed with abilities and performance of our team here in Butner and look forward to aggressively growing our business here with additional investments in people, factory infrastructure and intellectual property," Gareth Hall, president and managing director of Ontic, said in a statement. Ontic has plants in the U.S., Europe and Asia to produce a...

Operators of certain 737 Next Generation planes will be required to make inspections, the FAA said. The cracking was found in the plane’s pickle forks, which attach the plane’s body to its wing structure, CNN affiliate KOMO reported. Pickle forks are designed to last more than 90,000 landings and takeoffs without cracking, the affiliate said, and there could be dire results if the system fails, it said. In a statement, Boeing said the “cracking issue” was found on a small number of airplanes. “No in-service issues have been reported,” the company said. “Over the coming days, we will work closely...

Federal safety investigators on Thursday said Boeing overestimated how well pilots could handle a flurry of alerts when things go wrong on its 737 Max planes, which have been grounded since March after two fatal crashes killed a total of 346 people. The National Transportation Safety Board issued a series of recommendations for aircraft safety assessments, including factoring in human responses when things go awry, the first formal guidelines since the crashes. A flight-control system designed to prevent the planes from stalling misfired on both crashed flights: a Lion Air 737 Max in Indonesia last October and an Ethiopian...

Many strange experiments have taken place at the ultra-secret base. But not on aliens. As former workers fight for their lives, we ask: what happened there? [snip] West of the base’s main living quarters, on a piece of ground slightly above the lake bed, a waste dump had been constructed. Vehicles with California license plates would head up to the dump to unload cargoes of waste too secret to dispose of normally. Some of the trucks bore the markings of NDB – a company of which no records appear to exist; rumour on the base had it that it was...

What we had in the two downed airplanes was a textbook failure of airmanship. In broad daylight, these pilots couldn’t decipher a variant of a simple runaway trim, and they ended up flying too fast at low altitude, neglecting to throttle back and leading their passengers over an aerodynamic edge into oblivion. [Extreme length]

MUMBAI: The core problem which led to the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft worldwide has surfaced on the Airbus 320Neo as well. Both these aircraft have a tendency to pitch the nose up, excessively to an unsafe degree, during certain stages of flight. The big difference though is that unlike the Boeing 737 MAX, the A320NEO has never had an excessive pitch problem during flight operations. The problem came up recently only during laboratory testing carried out by the European aircraft manufacturer. But a wary European Union aviation regulator, which had certified the A320NEO safe to fly, has issued...

President Donald Trump unveiled a plane model on Thursday demonstrating the new color scheme for Air Force One. The model was spotted on a table in the Oval Office during a meeting between President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “I would say the plane basically is an upgrade over that model. We actually are getting things that they didn’t get. We’re saving about $1.5 billion. So it’s going to be terrific,” Trump told reporters. the new Air Force One will go into service in 2024. Despite some critics lamenting the loss of the baby blue and gold...

The United States Air Force has just disclosed its official name and designation for its new jet trainer—the T-7A "Red Hawk." The announcement came at the Air Force Association's symposium that opened today outside of Washington, D.C. Acting Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan disclosed the jet's official moniker while standing with one of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, Colonel Charles McGee—a highly decorated veteran with a whopping 409 combat missions spread across WWII, Korea, and Vietnam—by his side. McGee and his Red Hawk squadronmates not only bombed and strafed the Nazis with amazing acumen, they also did the same to...