July-August 2015 NASA‘s $14 BILLION DECISION Who will ferry cargo to ISS next? page 20 Breakthrough engine material/10 Former FAA manager Williams on drones/14 A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS registered trademarks of registered are their respective holders. respective their to Siemens logo the All other trademarks, registered trademarks or service trademarks, registered All other marks belong Make a breakthrough AG. 2014 Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. Siemens and Management Lifecycle 2014 Siemens Product © Siemens in aerospace testing. Siemens PLM Software. Improve program performance for first-time compliance. Aerospace and defense contractors are under pressure to win new orders and deliver on-time and at-cost. A key to success is proving that they’ve achieved requirements through successful test definition, planning and execution. To stand out in this heavily regulated industry, you need to break through. 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July-August 2015 DEPARTMENTS Page 26 EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK 2 More aviation cybersecurity, please LETTER TO THE EDITOR 3 Fighting wildfires with drones INTERNATIONAL BEAT 4 Page 40 Antonov looks for partners; India’s space programs IN BRIEF 6 Moon missions; radiation damage; HondaJet; connected aircraft ENGINEERING NOTEBOOK 10 Breakthrough material CONVERSATION 14 FAA opens the skies to unmanned aircraft BOOKS 16 Nixon’s space shuttle decision — and its consequences OUT OF THE PAST 46 CAREER OPPORTUNITIES 48 Page 36 FEATURES UPPING THE STATION’S UPMASS 20 Five aerospace teams are vying for up to $14 billion in NASA contracts to boost the amount of cargo delivered to and from the International Space Station. by Debra Werner PREDICT TROUBLE; AVOID TROUBLE 26 Airliners are safe but expensive to maintain. One way to put a dent in those costs would be to know in advance which parts are likely to require maintenance — and when. by Henry Canaday AIRBUS VS. BOEING: WHOSE AUTOMATION PHILOSOPHY IS BEST? 32 Page 4 Airbus and Boeing each uses automation to make flying safer and easier. But the world’s two dominant manufacturers of large passenger jets have different ideas about how computers and pilots should interact. by Clint R. Balog ALL-SEEING AIRCRAFT 36 Before aircraft can fly without pilots at the controls, they’ll need to be equipped with sensors and computers capable of performing like the human eyes and brain. by Keith Button TRUST: 3-D MANUFACTURING’S HOLY GRAIL 42 Page 10 Additively made parts are being incorporated into spacecraft, but engineers are cautious about using the technique for propellant tanks on vehicles that must carry people or expensive scientific equipment. by Henry Kenyon BULLETIN Page 32 AIAA MEETING SCHEDULE B2 AIAA NEWS B5 ON THE COVER The five cargo vehicles competing for the $14 billion NASA contract (clockwise from top left): Cygnus (Orbital ATK); Dream Chaser (Sierra Nevada Corporation); Jupiter and Exoliner (Lockheed Martin); Dragon (SpaceX); CST-100 (Boeing) Aerospace America (ISSN 0740-722X) is published monthly by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. at 1801 Alexander Bell Drive, Reston, Va. 20191-4344 [703/264-7500]. Subscription rate is 50% of dues for AIAA members (and is not deductible therefrom). Nonmember subscription price: U.S., $200; foreign, $220. Single copies $20 each. Postmaster: Send address changes and subscription orders to address above, attention AIAA Customer Service, 703/264-7500. Periodical postage paid at Reston, Va., and at additional mailing offices. Copyright 2015 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., all rights reserved. The name Aerospace America is registered by the AIAA in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. 40,000 copies of this issue printed. This is Volume 53, No. 7 ® is a publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Editor’s Notebook Ben Iannotta Editor-in-Chief Kyung M. Song Associate Editor More aviation cybersecurity, please Greg Wilson Production Editor Jerry Grey Most articles I read outside of Aerospace America invariably turn my thoughts Editor-at-Large to matters of aerospace. That was the case with a feature article in Wired Christine Williams magazine about the FBI’s 2013 takedown of the San Francisco computer whiz Editor AIAA Bulletin who clandestinely ran the Silk Road digital drug bazaar. Ross Ulbricht is depicted as a seemingly normal young man who enjoyed Contributing Writers hanging out with his friends at the beach, playing drums, and going to the park Philip Butterworth-Hayes, Keith Button, with his housemate and her Chihuahuas. When he booted up his laptop, his Henry Canaday, Leonard David, online alter ego, The Dread Pirate Roberts, would view proof-of-death photos of Jim Hodges, Henry Kenyon, the enemies killed by hit men he hired online (The photos were apparently fakes). Natalia Mironova, Robert van der Linden, Debra Werner, Frank H. Winter The Silk Road case shows that otherwise normal people will do things in cyber- space that they would never do in the physical world. Maybe bits and bytes provide Jane Fitzgerald insulation from feeling the human toll of one’s actions, or maybe computer code Art Direction and Design simply gives physically weak bad people the power to do nasty things they’re not James F. Albaugh, President biologically equipped to do. Whatever the case, chances are, somewhere out there James “Jim” Maser, President-Elect is a person who in real life would never spring from an aisle seat to hijack an air- Sandra H. Magnus, Publisher liner or stand on a hillside and launch a shoulder-fired rocket at one, but who might Craig Byl, Manufacturing and Distribution try the same via cyberspace. STEERING COMMITTEE The aviation industry and governments around the world are aware of these John Evans, Lockheed Martin; Steven E. digital risks and many others. When I think about our coverage of aviation ad- Gorrell, Brigham Young University; Frank Lu, vances in Aerospace America, I see a thread of Tom Clancy-worthy vulnerability University of Texas at Arlington; David R. running through these technologies. Once unmanned planes are enlisted against Riley, Boeing; Mary L. Snitch, Lockheed wildfires, it’s conceivable that a hacker will try to seize one in skies crowded with Martin; Panoptes Systems Annalisa Weigel, giant airtankers, just to see what happens. Researchers are hard at work on sense- EDITORIAL BOARD and-avoid technologies for unmanned planes, and the lure of trying to spoof this Ned Allen, Jean-Michel Contant, technology might be too much for your average hacker to bear. Or, imagine a L.S. “Skip” Fletcher, Michael Francis, hacker breaking into an airliner’s flight control computer and daring a pilot to Cam Martin, Don Richardson, realize that his plane is headed the wrong way before it’s too late. Douglas Yazell The industry is acting. AIAA released its “Framework for Aviation Cybersecurity” in ADVERTISING 2013, and last year seven major airlines and some aircraft manufacturers created Joan Daly, 703-938-5907 the Aviation Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or A-ISAC, in Annapolis [email protected] Junction, Maryland. Pat Walker, 415-387-7593 Those are good starts, but experts rightly warn that cybersecurity has to be [email protected] improved widely, including in the FAA’s Next-Generation air traffic control plan and also internationally. LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE There is much more work to do, and the Silk Road case reminds us that the Ben Iannotta, [email protected] problem is not one to defer until tomorrow. QUESTIONS AND ADDRESS CHANGES [email protected] Ben Ianno tta ADVERTISING MATERIALS Editor-in-Chief Craig Byl, [email protected] July-August 2015, Vol. 53, No. 7 New Releases in Letter to the Editor AIAA’s Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics Fighting wildfires with drones Thanks for your “Fire Drones” in Aerospace America [June]. As a former U.S. Air Force pilot June 2015 and attorney in aviation and aero- space, including several years repre- senting air-trafficPrecision control interests, I measurements am very ininterested an affordable in the subject matter in your article. That’s the an- Unmanned craft could be package. the edge against wildfires, swer to fighting forest fires. And the Your job is to move your space-based system from concept through FAA permitting installation. 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