In a brief statement on Wednesday, Boeing said that it has restarted production on its 737 MAX in Washington. This the first time Boeing has worked on producing these jets since it suspended production back in January. The company plans to slowly increase the production of the 737 MAX throughout this year, doing so with an "optimal build environment," Boeing said.
Some, especially governments, live by a "tit for tat" philosophy so it's really no surprise that China wants to hit the US back. The latter has not only extended Huawei's fate as part of the government's entity list, the US Department of Commerce has also made moves to deprive the phone maker of much-needed access to semiconductors for its processors. Since negotiations seem to have broken down, China is now threatening to respond in kind and put US companies on its own upcoming "unreliable entity list".
Drones may be their commercial term but unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs have always had its roots in the airforce. The latter kind, of course, isn't meant for recreation or even content creation. Take for example the new UAV that a Boeing-led team has just presented in Australia, billed not just as a testament to Boeing's capabilities in aerospace technology but as well as Australia's first "in-house" aircraft in half a century.
NASA's three picks for human landing systems for the Artemis program have been confirmed, a shortlist for the system which will land US astronauts on the Moon by 2024. The candidate systems each have ten months to demonstrate they're worthy for the next round of the process. Conspicuously absent from the final three, however, is Boeing.
Boeing has made the decision to conduct a second Orbital Test Flight following the troubles it experienced late last year with the initial test. The company announced its decision on Monday, stating that it will conduct a second flight at zero cost to taxpayers, doing so to prove the safety of its system. The second flight will follow its first Orbital Test Flight in December 2019, which experienced a glitch that caused the capsule to enter the wrong orbit.
In December, Boeing's Starliner capsule experienced an 'anomaly' after separating from the Atlas V rocket that launched it. In early January, NASA confirmed that it would work with Boeing to form an independent team tasked with investigating what, exactly, caused this problem. At the time, it had been revealed that the capsule's internal clock had put the spacecraft into the wrong orbit.
Boeing's 777X successfully aced its first test flight over the weekend, later than the jet-maker had hoped for but no less of a milestone for it. Boeing had originally aimed to give the 777X its inaugural flight last week, but poor weather conditions including strong winds forced the plane to stay grounded.
Boeing's brand new 777X failed to make its first test flight today, after inclement weather forced the 777X First Flight to be rescheduled. Strong winds left the plane waiting for several hours at the end of the runway in Everett, Washington on Friday, before Boeing admitted defeat.
It may have been its best-selling model but the 737 Max could now become the plane that destroys Boeing. The plane has been grounded for almost a year now and it seems it will take more than a year before it can spread its wings again. But even if it finally gets the green light, Boeing might have some trouble restarting its pipelines now that it has put the production of the problematic plane on hold.
Boeing has discovered another software issue with its 737 MAX aircraft that will need to be fixed before the planes can return to the sky. The company confirmed the glitch late last week, according to a recent report, which claims that this problem may impact the plane's ability to verify that its systems are ready for flight. Boeing is working with the FAA on getting this fix through the pipeline.
Boeing is already under a lot of heat for technical problems with its beleaguered 737 Max plane and the last thing it needs is a PR disaster caused by its own ranks. Unfortunately for the company, that is exactly the case thanks to documents coming from Boeing itself as part of its required disclosure about the design and development of the plane. Suffice it to say, some people inside the company knew exactly about the problems that would tragically cost 346 lives later on.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has published an update on the failed Boeing Orbital Flight Test, revealing that the space agency is working with the private company to launch a joint independent team to investigate what went wrong. The people on this team will be tasked with looking into the problems that led to the Orbital Test Flight issue and with making recommendations to help protect future launches.