Volume 01 | Issue 32 | January 25, 2021
Blue Origin Air Force, Rolls Royce Altair, Loon Shuttered

Welcome back to the Future of Aerospace, where each week we dive into a few of the trends rapidly defining the next generation of aircraft and aerial markets.

SpaceX launched Transporter-1, the first mission in its dedicated smallsat rideshare program on Jan. 24, carrying 143 satellites total — 133 commercial and government spacecraft and 10 Starlink satellites. This launch set a record for the most spacecraft ever deployed in a single mission. More on that here.

The European Union Aviation Agency (EASA) anticipates issuing its final Airworthiness Directive (AD) approving the Boeing 737 MAX for a return to service in European airspace this week.

Here's a look at questions transportation officials had about the MAX re-certification process.


THIS WEEK: On Dec. 31, the U.S. Air Force ended its Launch Services Agreements (LSAs) with Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin and paid out $787.2 million to the companies–$531.7 million to Northrop Grumman and $255.5 million to Blue Origin, the Air Force said on Jan. 22. (Public Policy)

Alphabet, parent company of Google, is shutting down Loon, its subsidiary dedicated to providing broadband from balloons in the stratosphere. Loon CEO Alastair Westgarth announced the news in a Medium blog post on Jan. 22. (Connectivity)

Rolls-Royce Germany will be leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) in a new partnership with Altair for its engineering, testing, and design of aerospace engines to reduce and accelerate certification and design iterations, reduce extensive physical testing, and improve product quality, Sam Mahalingam, Chief Technical Officer at Altair, told Aviation Today. The memo of understanding between Altair and Rolls-Royce was announced on Jan. 19. (Advanced Manufacturing)





Thanks for reading.

—The Future of Aerospace Team
US Air Force to End Launch Services Agreements with Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin
Image: Blue Origin

On Dec. 31, the U.S. Air Force ended its Launch Services Agreements (LSAs) with Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin and paid out $787.2 million to the companies–$531.7 million to Northrop Grumman and $255.5 million to Blue Origin, the Air Force said on Jan. 22.

The service said that the termination letters to the companies “are not releasable.”

How the Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman Terminations Occurred:
  • Under the Phase 1 LSA awards in October 2018 to Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance(ULA) – a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin – Northrop Grumman was eligible for up to $792 million in LSA Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) funding through 2024; Blue Origin $500 million; and ULA $967 million.

  • Under the Phase 1 LSA awards, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin and ULA received up-front contracts of $109 million.

  • Both Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin lost out in the Phase 2 launch service procurement (LSP) National Security Space Launch (NSSL) awards last Aug. 7 when the Space Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), in partnership with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), awarded ULA $337 million for two classified mission launches and SpaceX a $316 million contract for one classified mission launch.

  • SpaceX, owned by business mogul and technologist Elon Musk, entered the fray in 2019 after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) sustained the company’s protest about being left out of the NSSL program.

  • The Air Force said that it sent letters to Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin in October that notified them of the Air Force’s intent to end the LSA Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs) by the end of 2020.

  • Part of the delay in ending the LSAs with Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin has apparently been the work Air Force acquisition officials have wanted to perform in documenting vendors’ activities, determining what data is government proprietary and retaining rights to that data, and engaging with Congress on a possible acceleration of Phase 3, which, like Phase 2, is to be an open competition.
The Air Force had said that it would not pay termination fees for ending the LSAs and was negotiating with the companies for the final milestones and payments to receive data deliveries for work in progress.

Despite its loss, Blue Origin retains a stake in Phase 2, as Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine will power ULA’s Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle.


Read the full story here.
Alphabet Shutters Loon Venture
Image: Loon

Alphabet, parent company of Google, is shutting down Loon, its subsidiary dedicated to providing broadband from balloons in the stratosphere. Loon CEO Alastair Westgarth announced the news in a Medium blog post on Jan. 22.

Loon had begun providing High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) ballon-powered Internet services to users in July of last year, and had announced plans to expand globally at the time. In recent years, the company had demonstrated that up to 20 of its balloons clustered together connected to a mobile network on the ground can create a “mesh network’ with up to 4,000 square kilometers of regional coverage.


Why Loon is Shutting Down:
  • Representatives for Loon did not respond to an inquiry for comments on the decision to shut down the company.

  • “Loon has been chasing the hardest problem of all in connectivity — the last billion users: The communities in areas too difficult or remote to reach,” Westgarth wrote in the Jan. 22 blog post. “While we’ve found a number of willing partners along the way, we haven’t found a way to get the costs low enough to build a long-term, sustainable business.”

  • Under the infinite funding and resources provided by Alphabet, Loon was able to become one of the first companies in the industry to transform HAPS from concept to prototype. To date, Loon vehicles have logged over one million flight hours and travelled over 40 million kilometers in the stratosphere.

  • Astro Teller, captain of X, the Alphabet research arm, wrote in a separate blog post that the company hopes to find employees other roles at X, Google, and Alphabet.

  • He said a small group from the Loon team will stay on to wrap up Loon’s operations, including a pilot service in Kenya. In addition, X is committing $10 million to support connectivity projects in Kenya.

  • Loon had a number of partnerships with the satellite industry, notably an agreement with Telesat announced in 2019 to deliver a network operating system design that Telesat could use to support its global Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation.

  • Loon is a member of the HAPS Alliance, along with Airbus Defence and Space and Intelsat, and partnered with SES Networks to deliver connectivity to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

“We hope that Loon is a stepping stone to future technologies and businesses that can fill in blank spots on the globe’s map of connectivity,” Teller wrote. “We want to share what we’ve learned and help creative innovators find each other — whether they live amidst the telcos, mobile network operators, city and country governments, NGOs or technology companies.”

Read the full story here.
Rolls-Royce Germany is Undergoing Digital Transformation with Artificial Intelligence
Image: Rolls Royce

Rolls-Royce Germany will be leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) in a new partnership with Altair for its engineering, testing, and design of aerospace engines to reduce and accelerate certification and design iterations, reduce extensive physical testing, and improve product quality, Sam Mahalingam, Chief Technical Officer at Altair, told Aviation Today. The memo of understanding between Altair and Rolls-Royce was announced in a Jan. 19 press release.

The German division of Rolls Royce manufacturers jet engines, components, parts and provides services to a range of aviation customers, including Lufthansa, Airbus, Gulfstream and Bombardier. Their Deutschland site for example, is home to a production line for the Trent XWB as well as a number of test facilities for large engines or the Power Gearbox for the new Rolls-Royce UltraFan engine.


How will Rolls-Royce use AI?
  • Engineers at Rolls-Royce use augmented data science with the same tools they currently use for design changes and validation, testing, manufacturing simulation, and validating models using new operational data, Mahalignam said. AI will allow engineers to shrink design validation times by executing more simulations in less time. It will also be able to predict the placement of sensors and require fewer sensors for testing.

  • AI will be able to predict where and how testing should be done allowing for more effective testing.

  • While Rolls-Royce has previously used AI in health monitoring services and manufacturing, this partnership will focus on building engineering judgement and data within processes, Mahalignam said.

“What is completely unique in this partnership is that to make these use cases successful you often need to build engineering judgement and data into the process,” Mahalignam. “What we can say is that Rolls-Royce Germany has highlighted this a key reason for selecting Altair as we have unique domain expertise and best-in-class, low-code data analytics technology.”






Read the full story here.
Thank you for reading the Future of Aerospace, brought to you by Aviation Today.

View in web browser

This message was sent to wbellamy@accessintel.com

Access Intelligence LLC * 9211 Corporate Blvd., 4th Floor, Rockville, MD 20850
Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy | Contact Us