Overview[edit]

In most industrial countries, the aerospace industry is a cooperation of public and private industries. For example, several countries have a civilian space program funded by the governmentthrough tax collection, such as NASA in the United States, ESA in Europe, the Canadian Space Agency in Canada, Indian Space Research Organisation in India, JAXA in Japan, RKA in Russia,China National Space Administration in China, SUPARCO in Pakistan, Iranian Space Agency in Iran, and Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) in South Korea. Along with these public space programs, many companies produce technical tools and components such as spaceships and satellites. Some known companies involved in space programs include Boeing, EADS, Lockheed Martin, MacDonald Dettwiler and Northrop Grumman. These companies are also involved in other areas of aerospace such as the construction of aircraft.

History[edit]
Main articles: History of aviation and Timeline of space exploration Modern aerospace began with Sir George Cayley in 1799. Cayley proposed an aircraft with a "fixed wing and a horizontal and vertical tail," defining characteristics of the modern airplane.[1] The 19th century saw the creation of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, the American Rocketry Society, and the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences, all of which made aeronautics a more serious scientific discipline.[1] Airmen like Otto Lilienthal, who introduced cambered airfoils in 1891, used gliders to analyze aerodynamic forces.[1] The Wright brothers were interested in Lilianthal's work and read several of his publications.[1] They also found inspiration in Octave Chanute, an airman and the author of Progress in Flying Machines (1894).[1] It was the preliminary work of Cayley, Lilienthal, Chanute, and other early aerospace engineers that brought about the first powered sustained flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903, by the Wright brothers. War and science fiction inspired great minds like Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Werner von Braun to achieve flight beyond the atmosphere. The launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 started the Space Age, and on July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 achieved the first manned moon landing.[1] In 1981, the space shuttle "Columbia" launched, the start of regular manned access to orbital space. A sustained human presence in orbital space started with "Mir" in 1986 and is continued by the "International Space Station".[1] Space commercializationand space tourism are more recent focuses in aerospace.

Manufacturing[edit]

Main article: Aerospace manufacturer Aerospace manufacturing is a high technology industry that produces "aircraft, guided missiles, space vehicles, aircraft engines, propulsion units, and related parts".[2] Most of the industry is geared toward governmental work. For each Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), the US government has assigned a CAGE code. These codes help to identify each manufacturer, repair facilities, and other critical aftermarket vendors in the aerospace industry. In the United States, the Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are the two largest consumers of aerospace technology and products. Others include the very large airline industry. The aerospace industry employed 472,000 wage and salary workers in 2006.[3] Most of those jobs were in Washington state and in California, with Missouriand Texas also important. The leading aerospace manufacturers in the U.S. are Boeing, United Technologies Corporation, and Lockheed Martin. These manufacturers are facing an increasing labor shortage as skilled U.S. workers age and retire. Apprenticeship programs such as the Aerospace Joint Apprenticeship Council (AJAC) work in collaboration with Washington state aerospace employers and community colleges to train new manufacturing employees to keep the industry supplied. Important locations of the civilian aerospace industry worldwide include Washington state (Boeing), California (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc.); Montreal, Canada (Bombardier, Pratt & Whitney Canada); Toulouse, France (Airbus/EADS); and Hamburg, Germany (Airbus/EADS); as well as So Jos dos Campos, where the Brazilian Embraer company is based. In the European Union, aerospace companies such as EADS, BAE Systems, Thales, Dassault, Saab AB and Finmeccanica account for a large share of the global aerospace industry and research effort, with the European Space Agency as one of the largest consumers of aerospace technology and products. In India, Bangalore is a major center of the aerospace industry, where Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the National Aerospace Laboratories and the Indian Space Research Organisation are headquartered. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched India's first Moon orbiter, Chandrayaan-1, in October 2008. In Russia, large aerospace companies like Oboronprom and the United Aircraft Building Corporation (encompassing Mikoyan, Sukhoi, Ilyushin, Tupolev, Yakovlev, and Irkut which includes Beriev) are among the major global players in this industry. The historic Soviet Union was also the home of a very major aerospace industry. The United Kingdom formerly attempted to maintain its own large aerospace industry, making its own airliners and warplanes, but it has largely turned its lot over to cooperative efforts with continental companies, and it has turned into a large import customer, too, from countries such the United States. However, the UK has a very active aerospace sector, including the largest

defence contractor in the world, BAE Systems, supplying fully assembled aircraft, aircraft components, sub-assemblies and sub-systems to other manufacturers, both in Europe and all over the world. Canada has formerly manufactured some of its own designs for jet warplanes, etc. (e.g. the CF100 fighter), but for some decades, it has relied on imports from the United States to fill these needs. However Canada still manufactures some military planes although they are generally not combat or fighter planes.http://tcetc.com (Top Canadian Enterprise, Inc.) France has continued to make its own warplanes for its air force and navy, and Sweden continues to make its own warplanes for the Swedish Air Forceespecially in support of its position as aneutral country. (See Saab AB.) Other European countries either team up in making fighters (such as the Panavia Tornado and the Eurofighter Typhoon), or else to import them from the United States. Pakistan is also undertaking advancements in the field of aerospace engineering. It is now fulfilling its needs in the guided missile technology. After the establishment of the Institute of Space Technology.The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in Kamra, Pakistan is one of the Largest Aircraft Manufacturing facility in Pakistan. JF-17 Thunder, MFI-17, MFI-395, K-8 and many unmanned aerial vehicles are being manufactured at PAC. In the People's Republic of China, Beijing, Xian, Chengdu, Shanghai, Shenyang and Nanchang are major research and manufacture centers of the aerospace industry. China has developed an extensive capability to design, test and produce military aircraft, missiles and space vehicles. Despite the cancellation in 1983 of the experimental Shanghai Y-10, China is still developing its civil aerospace industry. The aircraft parts industry was born out of the sale of second-hand or used aircraft parts from the aerospace manufacture sector. Within the United States there is a specific process that parts brokers or resellers must follow. This includes leveraging a certified repair station to overhaul and "tag" a part. This certification guarantees that a part was repaired or overhauled to meet OEM specifications. Once a part is overhauled its value is determined from the supply and demand of the aerospace market. When an airline has an aircraft on the ground, the part that the airline requires to get the plane back into service becomes invaluable. This can drive the market for specific parts. There are several online marketplaces that assist with the commodity selling of aircraft parts. In the aerospaces & defense industry, a lot of consolidation has appeared over the last couple of decades. Between 1988 and 2011, worldwide more than 6,068 mergers & acquisitions with a total known value of 678 bil. USD have been announced.[4] The largest transactions have been: the acquisition of Goodrich Corporation by United Technologies Corporation for 16.2 bil. USD in 2011,[5]Allied Signal merged with Honeywell in a stock swap valued 15.6 bil. USD in 1999,[6] the merger of Boeing with McDonnell valued at 13.4 bil. USD in 1996,[7] Marconi Electronic

Systems, a subsidiary of General Electric, was acquired by British Aerospace for 12.9 bil. USD in 1999[8] (now called: BAE Systems), and Raytheon acquired Hughes Aircraft for 9.5 bil. USD in 1997.

Functional Safety[edit]
Functional safety relates to a part of the general safety of a system or a piece of equipment. It implies that the system or equipment can be operated properly and without causing any danger, risk, damage or injury.[9] Functional safety is crucial in the aerospace industry, which allows no compromises or negligence. In this respect, supervisory bodies, such as the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) .,[10]regulate the aerospace market with strict certification standards. This is meant to reach and ensure the highest possible level of safety. The standards AS 9100 in America, EN 9100 on the European market or JISQ 9100 in Asia particularly address the aerospace and aviation industry. These are standards applying to the functional safety of aerospace vehicles.[11] Some companies are therefore specialized in the certification, inspection verification and testing of the vehicles and spare parts to ensure and attest compliance with the appropriate regulations.

See also[edit]
Main article: Outline of aerospace

Aeronautics Astronautics Aerospace engineering Atmospheric reentry General aviation High altitude wind power Space exploration Space agencies Spacecraft Aircraft High-altitude balloon Wiktionary: Aviation, aerospace, and aeronautical terms