Meet NASA’s Orion Spacecraft

Meet NASA’s Orion Spacecraft: Orion, NASA’s newest spacecraft built for humans, is developed to be capable of sending astronauts to the Moon and is a key part of eventually sending them on to Mars.

Spaceflight Milestone Unfolds as Europe Delivers ESA Orion Service Module

A major milestone in NASA's Orion Program is unfolding as of this writing.The ESA Orion Service Module,designed to provide power,propulsion and life support systems to the Orion crew module,has taken off aboard a hulking Antonov AN 25 aircraft on a transatlantic flight from Bremen,Germany to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station,Florida.The 5 November 2018 takeoff was marked by a ceremony on 2 November in Bremen participated in by NASA Astronaut Randy Bresnik,a veteran of the International Space Station.NASA will hold a reception event on 16 November.*
The ESM will undergo final testing and integration with other Orion components,including the new Space Launch System rocket,at NASA facilities in Florida and Ohio.This is to prepare for the uncrewed deep space test flight called Exploration Mission-1,similar to the unmanned test flight the Saturn V rocket made during the Apollo Program.EM-1 is being managed for a launch date of December 2019;yet reviewing possible manufacturing and production schedule risks,such as some hurricane damage that was sustained,June 2020 is currently posted by NASA as the fallback date for the mission.
EM-1 will test the complex navigation procedures and critical systems for sending astronauts farther from Earth than ever before,to a high lunar orbit and eventually Mars,beginning with EM-2 in 2023.On these distant missions,NASA's Deep Space Network will be used for crew communications for the first time.*
Corporate participants in the ESA Orion Service Module project include Airbus Space and Defence;Thales Alenia Space,a subsidiary of Italy's Leonardo S.p.A.;and Orion Program lead contractor Lockheed Martin.*
Airbus Space and Defence (Euronext:EAD);Leonardo S.p.A. (OTCMKTS:FINMF);Lockheed Martin (LMT)

Bulletin:Joint NASA - German Geosciences Mission Set for Wednesday Launch

The GRACE-FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment-Follow On) mission is set for a 22 May 2018 launch from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base,California.Liftoff is scheduled for 12:47:39 PDT/3:47:39 EDT with an instantaneous launch window and another chance on 23 May.The two GRACE-FO spacecraft will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket along with five Iridium NEXT communications satellites as ride-ons.*
GRACE-FO will carry on the work of the first GRACE mission (2002-2017) of observing the movement of water and other elements of Earth's mass by tracking the fluctuating pull of their gravity with a high degree of precision,by pointing one of the angular spacecraft toward Earth and the other to outer space.Just as in the original GRACE mission,GRACE-FO will track the evolution of Earth's water cycle,recording the movement of water from the highest mountains to the depths of the sea.By tracing the distribution of water's mass over time,the mission will help to solve the mysteries of some of today's climatology challenges.*
The two GRACE-FO satellites were built by the Airbus Defence and Space subsidiary of Airbus SE.NASA's part of the mission is being managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the German Research Centre for Geosciences' (GFZ) portion is managed by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR).The data will start coming in to the NASA tracking station at McMurdo,Antarctica about 23 minutes after deployment.*
Airbus SE (EADSY) US:OTC

Industry on the March:Alcoa,Boeing and Airbus

Alcoa achieved a double beat in its Q4 earnings report,scoring a revenue beat of 6.38 billion versus an estimate of 6.04;and an earnings per share beat of 0.33 versus the 0.29 estimate.CEO Klaus Kleinfeld notes that Q4 is capping off a really wonderful transformation.We have three groups,and all are performing very,very well.Costs are coming down in our commodity business and improving our profitability there.We look at our end markets and what is happening regionally,and I think it has the potential o stay the same for 2015.
Low oil prices could offer a .4 to a .8 GDP gain.We are predicting another seven percent rise in demand for 2015.There is a lot of disconnect.For us,we can't control the outside world.We make sure we've had a very competitive commodity business.Thirty-one percent of our smelting business was closed or sold.There is the value-add energy;automotive innovation in the first all-aluminum vehicle.We are very confident in aerospace.Look at the order volumes that Boeing and Airbus have been generating in 2014,and look at the auto backlog:eight yers of an increased 2014 production.*
Boeing is sold out of 787 Dreamliners through 2020.*
David Zervos,a managing director at Jefferies&Co,adds that the dollar is a very aggressively owned asset right now.People are using the S&P 500 as a kind of hedge against declining oil prices.They'd better sell something.*
Alcoa(AA),Boeing(BA),Airbus Group NV ADR(EADSY),iShares Core S&P 500 ETF(IVV)

Dubai Air Show:Gulf States Flash the Cash

More than aircraft was on display at the Dubai Air Show,which ended on Sunday.The show took place at the new Al Maktoum International Airport,midway between Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.It was evident that the airlines of the Gulf States have become the dominant force in the commercial aviation sector as they made their sweeping purchases at the DAS.
The Persian Gulf airlines have limited local business.They largely cater to international travelers,who use their desert hubs for single stop globetrotting.Boeing got 86% of its backlog for the new 777X wide-body jet from Gulf States carriers;while Airbus gets more than half its orders from Emirates Air,the world's biggest international airline.Emirates made 75.6 billion dollars of purchases at the airshow;even the cut rate carrier FlyDubai bought 111 Boeing 737s for 8.77 billion.Etihad Airways bought 25 777Xs and 30 787-10 Dreamliners from Boeing,plus 50 Airbus A350s and 36 A320neos for 45 billion,and Qatar Air plunked down 21.7 billion for 50 777X and 13 Airbus A330-200 cargo planes.
And there is no end in sight for this insatiable buying.Air transport has become a big part of the Gulf States' plan to diversify thier economies away from oil and gas.
Overall,Boeing sold 101.5 billion of aircraft at the airshow,edging EADS subsidiary Airbus for the most business acquired.What's incredible here is,the fulcrum used to be the Paris Air Show,said CNBC analyst Jim Cramer.Boeing's been the best-performing stock in the Dow.It went up 86.7% this year.The 777 is a money plane.They're gonna make a fortune on each plane.We're in year 2 of a 7-year aircraft cycle.
Boeing is America's greatest manufacturer.CEO Jim McNerney has got a fantastic team.All we could think about for a period of months was,the Dreamliner ain't working.You can't get a Dreamliner until 2020.I'll bet they come back from Dubai with a 10-year wait for a Dreamliner,the voluble Jim Cramer speculated.
Boeing(BA),European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company(Euronext:EAD)