India is releasing a request for proposals for carrier based fighters and SAAB is considering a naval based Gripen for the competition. The Sea Gripen will be based in the recently revealed Gripen NG. Modifying a land based fighter plane for carrier use is quite difficult. SAAB will also face competition from the already carrier proven naval version of Rafale, and F/A-18 E/F. The Russian Su-33 and Mig-29K could also compete but the Indian navy is a launch customer of the latter and this program faces a lot of difficulties.

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In late October the Ares I-X had its successful first flight and it was the first major step to replace the Space Shuttle with the Constellation system. However Ares I-X had a dummy second stage, when the Orion capsule become operational it will have a very advanced Launch abort system that will help the crew land safely even with a failure during the first stage of the launch.
The LAS is the small tower over the conical shape of the crew module. It is designed from Orbital Sciences for Lockheed Martin, the main contractor of the Orion.

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The Advanced Composite Cargo Aircraft (ACCA) is a joint program between AFRL and Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works. It is a proof of concept for using new technology composite materials for designing and manufacturing aircrafts quicker, with lower cost and better performance. The ACCA first flew in March 2009 and after approving the next phase (III) of flight tests in September it was given an X-plane designation (after a very long time for such an aircraft) and it is now officially called the X-55. It is based on the Dornier 328Jet but the fuselage behind the cockpit and the vertical tail are all new. While 328Jet was a regional airliner, the X-55 is a cargo plane capable of transporting two 463L pallets with a big ramp in the rear fuselage.

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After too many delays the first prototype (ZA001) of the new Boeing 787 made its first test flight today at Everett's Paine Field airport in Washington. The flight lasted 3 hours and 10 minutes, a little less than planned because of the weather. The aircraft reached to almost 15.000ft of altitude, it cycled the landing gear and tested various aerodynamic configurations. Boeing stated the flight a major success and as said as a figure of speech, in the first 10min of flight they learned more things than the previous 100 days. Now there is a 9 month schedule of test flights if no delays are to occur.

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NASA chosed Dennis R. Jenkins book "X-15: Extending the Frontiers of Flight" to launch its series of pdf e-books especially formatted for dedicated e-book reading devices like Amazon's Kindle.

X-15 in itself is one of the most amazing aerospace programs. It was extremely ambitious and technically challenging. It established the foundation of high speed and high altitude controlled flight through the flights of 3 X-15 aircrafts in a program that lasted about 11 years and it is still highly valuable even today.

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