May 7, 2018  -  No. 036

In This Issue 
New business models put aircraft maintenance centre stage 
Aeron - A blockchain trusted repository for aviation 
TAM suspends operations until May 11 due to aircraft maintenance 
FEAM Maintenance / Engineering Selected By All Nippon Airways To Provide Technical Consulting Service 
Million Air Opens New Hangar at Westchester County Airport, Part of $80 Million Expansion 
CSAT and MIAS of the Prague Czech Technical University sign Memorandum of Co-operation 
REEDLEY COLLEGE STARTING NEW DEGREE TO TRAIN PILOTS 
Qatar Airways rolls out Inmarsat's GX Aviation 
New aircraft transition maintenance facility opens at MIA 
NASA advisers say SpaceX rocket technology could put lives at risk 

New business models put aircraft maintenance centre stage

New industry standards, shorter asset lifespans and a new generation of technologically advanced aircraft have constantly kept operators and maintenance providers on their toes. James Elliott explains how airlines and MROs need granular insight into every part of every asset as new maintenance and planning models enter the commercial aviation industry.

Commercial aviation maintenance models have changed drastically over the last 20 years. Back then, aircraft maintenance was a rigid A, B, C, D check process based on a batch of maintenance tasks executed at specific times in an aircraft's lifecycle. When an aircraft came in for D checks, there could be more than 1,000 maintenance items, meaning it could be out of service for six weeks. 

Fortunately, the industry then migrated to a more flexible model, MSG-3 - packaging up individual maintenance items in any way an airline wanted. For example, if there was an opportunity to carry out D check maintenance during a C check, this could now be done. Fleet usage was optimised and balanced because maintenance could be managed more fluidly - no tasks were missed and there was no unnecessary duplication.

New generation aircraft - such as the Boeing 787 or the Airbus A350 - have been designed with MSG-3 in mind. These aircraft are now supported with 'phased' maintenance programmes, with the aim of achieving the shortest possible turnarounds. 

When launching the A350, Airbus aimed for the aircraft to be maintained under its "usage parameter" concept - based on flight hours, flight cost and other parameters rather than traditional checks - to ensure optimised utilisation of available resources. 

The base check interval of the A350 has extended to 36 months, meaning the average number of base checks over 12 years has halved to just four, compared to previous generations of aircraft. 
But with fleets expanding and more routes being flown than ever before, this presents a challenge for operators as they are now looking at maintenance windows on an aircraft-by-aircraft basis. For any fleet with more than 100 aircraft, managing a maintenance plan and schedule for all aircraft becomes a complicated issue.

Resource constraints, such as hangar availability and the number of available technicians, also influence the ability to carry out maintenance. Airlines must also manage known requirements, such as seasonal fluctuations - fleet utilisation and air passenger traffic is much higher during holidays.

The question then becomes, how do operators move hundreds of aircraft through MRO hangars during these busy spells? 

Maintenance planning tools must look to align flights, optimising fleets for usage and yields, then individual aircraft going into hangars for as little time as possible.

Alongside this, MRO is currently in a boom period - older fleets are yet to retire, while new aircraft are being delivered at a rapid rate. 

Global management consulting firm, Oliver Wyman, estimates a steady 3.8% compound annual growth rate MRO market growth, with 58% of fleets being new-generation aircraft by 2027.

However, legacy aircraft aren't as old as they used to be - the lifespan of a narrow-bodied jet used to be 25 years; now it's closer to 14. At MROs and airlines, technicians undergoing training to deliver staged maintenance services are the younger generation - millennials - for whom using technology in the workplace is a necessity, not an option.

Maintenance is no longer about simply 'turning wrenches' - some of those technicians who have been around longer aren't as interested or as fast at learning new software techniques as the younger generation. Some MROs are responding with new services, such as mobile technology and applications. For example, the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company (HAECO) now has a mobile team that can work anywhere without a hangar.

Historically, maintenance plans and schedules were certificate-based and, ultimately, the responsibility of an airline to report its practices to the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) or the International Air Transport Association (IATA). This schedule was then translated into the task cards to use for the tools, licenses and parts required for maintenance. The 'wrench turning' required in the airline's plan could be outsourced to an MRO, which would take the task cards and execute them according to the airline's parameters.

Now, OEMs and MROs are transitioning towards new business models to take the whole maintenance aspect away from the airline. In a highly competitive arena, airlines want to concentrate on flying passengers, selling tickets, managing fuel costs and beating competition from international and low-cost airlines.

Commercial aviation is following the defence model of in-service support - contracting out maintenance to OEMs or third-party providers. 

Outsourcing of line maintenance was one of the top three 2017 MRO trends outlined by market research company Technavio, while Boeing and Airbus have set up their own MRO divisions, where they are looking to generate Ł50 billion in annual revenue.

But OEM contracts are taking a while to be introduced, as airlines are reluctant to be locked into an expensive in-service support contract. Independent MROs are realising they occupy a competitive position to provide fleet planning and the 'wrench turning' associated with meeting that new model.

Regardless of the chosen model, the end goal is to reduce aircraft maintenance windows - the number one competitive differentiator between maintenance providers. From a planning perspective, what used to be called 'out of phase maintenance' in the days of ABCD is now the industry standard - whole maintenance programmes are planned with individual tasks in mind.

This requires MRO software, which recognises and packages individual tasks where they fit best according to scheduling parameters - flight hours, flight cycles etc. 

Software with a component-based view offers significant advantages by getting part numbers and granular detail into each maintenance programme. That information should then be packaged into the required maintenance format - task-by-task, component-by-component. This means, as maintenance models and standards continue to shift, the software can easily adapt to keep track of all components.

As commercial aviation MRO continues to move forward, those who adapt fast will remain competitive in a consolidating market. But these opportunities cannot be realised without component-centric support, providing the granularity required to react and take advantage of new maintenance models.

http://www.arabianaerospace.aero/new-business-models-put-aircraft-maintenance-centre-stage.html


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Aeron - A blockchain trusted repository for aviation

The modern technology has been continuously bestowing various solutions for a plethora of industries across the world. It is very evident that for each and every changing needs of the industry, the evolving technology has always been the perfect solution.

However, as the time passed by, delivering highly secure and absolutely inviolable software systems has reduced. Or we could say that the technology is being misused for various unethical acts over all the communication media.

Therefore, the need of cryptographically secured databases and distributed systems are increasing on a daily basis. Blockchain technology is bringing a drastic change in the existing drawbacks of software systems and the number of industries accepting this new technology revolution is also huge.

Aeron is a team of experienced aviation professionals who are pioneers in pilot aircraft, flight crew training programs, and aeronautical databases. The firm has envisioned the future of the aviation market and understood the importance of it in the global business.

According to various statistics and studies, it is being determined that the world fleet will be increased twice in the next 20 years. By mid-2030s, the industry is expecting a major hike in the passenger fleet and freighter fleet. This would certainly lead to an increase in the number of jobs and many other key aspects of the aviation industry. Aeron has actively worked on determining the existing issues related to air travel and implemented solutions to all of it through blockchain.

The most common issues in the industry are:
•	Inexperienced pilots
•	Corrupt flight schools
•	Issues caused by the aircraft operators such as under operating the flight hours, saving huge maintenance cost etc.
•	Database intrusion and distortion of data
•	Issues in data transfer
•	Safety and security of passengers
Aeron has established a completely new level of security with the help of blockchain technology. This has brought in a complete transformation in the aircraft maintenance logs and the management of large databases.

The blockchain technology is being used to make sure that the spare parts of the plane are legit in order to produce a virtual copy of the same. This has taken the maintenance, safety, and security of the aircraft to the next level. All the data has been stored safely and is transparent to all the customers.

Aeron has developed mainly, 3 fully functional interfaces for all the entities associated with the aviation process.

Pilot Application
Pilots are provided with a mobile application (available on both iOS and Android) which helps in tracking the flight location, Fixed Base Operator [FBO] services at his destination airfield, etc.
Pilots have various other options to purchase certain services from the application and they can avail a variety of discounted services as well. All the services can be availed by paying through cryptocurrency as well.

The status of the flight can be viewed and validated against the Aircraft operator and the Air Traffic Control [ATC] data. Pilots will also get access to the historical data and statistic summaries.
Company Application

Another mobile application (available on both iOS and Android) is developed for the company employees, through which they can track the status of each flight and also track the technical condition of the aircraft, oil, refueling, etc.

Based on the technical conditions, they can assign relevant tasks to the maintenance team. Management of aircraft bookings and all the other company data can be reviewed and analyzed through the app.

Aerotrips.com
Aerotrips.com is a web portal for all the passengers. This user-friendly interface lets the customers select from various available options to book the flight, get best offers on flight booking, avail demo flights around a certain location, etc. The flight bookings can be done online with fiat or cryptocurrencies. 

They also have the option to confirm if the pilots with flight logs are verified by Aeron solutions. All the passengers can submit a report or feedback of their previous flight.

 


In Aeron, the highly increasing number of aircraft and licensed pilots operating worldwide have managed to be based on the blockchain technology. All the above-mentioned details are tracked on an online system which is built on Ethereum blockchain. The team has implemented a self-sustaining ecosystem around the database and token holders featuring integrity, reliability, and easy validation.

Aeron believes in aviation safety, hence, they store all the logs on the blockchain and make it available for public audit. Both authorities and passengers can be confident that a pilot actually has the experience claimed. The system is completely supported by smart contracts that contain various log records, cost-sharing agreements, as well as execute rental deeds or charters for the aircraft. It also has a highly organized protocol to ensure transactions that occur based on the existing compliance and regulations.

 


Aeron [ARN] Token
ARN is an ERC20 compliant based token with a fixed supply of 20,000,000 ARN. It allows simple integration into users' wallets and can be traded through direct transfers or smart contracts freely. ARN utility token will be incorporated in Aeron products. These tokens are not limited by the Aeron mobile applications alone, it can be used for creating revenue streams and offers additional features like commision on paid services, a currency for buying aviation services, commission on paid services, etc.

The Aeron team has initiated the Research and Development of the blockchain based software solution in the year 2016. They are currently working on the blockchain integration of the systems. 
The highly passionate and innovative team is aiming to continue their R&D on Big Data and various other upcoming technologies. Aeron is also working towards its collaboration with technology giants like Uber, SpaceX etc.

https://ambcrypto.com/aeron-a-blockchain-trusted-repository-for-aviation/

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TAM suspends operations until May 11 due to aircraft maintenance
Bolivia's TAM announced the suspension of its operations until 11 May 2018 due to perform maintenance on their aircraft. The suspension went into effect on 02 May.

The airline is currently in the progress of converting into a commercial airline, and is 70% through the process, according to the General Directorate of Civil Aviation. TAM is expected to complete the process by 31 July 2018.

https://newsroom.aviator.aero/tam-suspends-operations-until-may-11-due-to-aircraft-maintenance/

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FEAM Maintenance / Engineering Selected By All Nippon Airways To Provide Technical Consulting Services Throughout The Americas

MIAMI, May 7, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- FEAM Maintenance / Engineering today announces that the U.S.-based MRO has entered into an agreement with All Nippon Airways (ANA) to provide consulting via its Technical Services brand throughout The Americas. The agreement calls for FEAM to provide forward surveillance of potential technical ground handling agents throughout North and South America in support of the Japanese air carrier's current and future route plans. FEAM will leverage its considerable expertise, experience, and industry relationships in identifying capable aircraft maintenance providers and ground handling agents in support of ANA's needs.

"We are very pleased to partner with ANA, one of the world's finest airlines, in support of this very important endeavor," said Dan Allawat, Chief Operating Officer at FEAM. "Given our own established network here in the U.S., along with being headquartered in Miami, FL, a gateway to South America, makes us a natural fit to be ANA's partner for the Americas. We look forward to providing these services to ANA."

FEAM's growing Technical Services brand offers a variety of consulting services to airline operators, lessors, and asset managers. Partnering with ANA is a natural extension of these services.

More about FEAM:
FEAM founded in 1992, is an MRO (Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul) company providing comprehensive aircraft maintenance services to domestic and international air carriers flying transport passenger and cargo category aircraft. FEAM employs over 870 aviation professionals and Aircraft Technicians /Line Maintenance Aircraft Engineers throughout the company's growing network of 32 domestic line stations in the United States. FEAM, an FAA 145 Repair Station, holds numerous certifications from global aviation regulatory authorities.

Learn more at www.feam.aero

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/feam-maintenance--engineering-selected-by-all-nippon-airways-to-provide-technical-consulting-services-throughout-the-americas-300643389.html

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Million Air Opens New Hangar at Westchester County Airport, Part of $80 Million Expansion

Million Air celebrated the grand opening of its new hangar at its corporate aviation complex at Westchester County Airport on May 2. The Houston-based luxury avionics, charter, and aircraft-maintenance company is in the process of an $80 million expansion and upgrade at the airport, spanning 26 acres, including a 52,000 sq ft hangar addition that now completes an 84,000 sq ft complex of hangar space and 7.25 acres of ramp space.

The two-story hangar includes eight customizable offices with storage space, 28-foot height doors, and heated floors, allowing temperatures to be maintained for aircraft and pilots. Million Air's 18,000 sq ft, two-story, Adirondack-styled terminal at the airport is located adjacent to the new hangar. Expected to be completed by the end of the year, the luxurious terminal will include seating areas, fireplaces, wood beam ceilings, conference rooms, pilot lounge with sleep rooms, coffee bar, climate controlled indoor valet area, and additional parking.

Roger Woolsey, CEO of Million Air, says he chose our backyard for this project as Westchester County is the second busiest corporate airport in America, after Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. "You've got this need, so we really combined the lack of infrastructure and the need with the customers and we just thought that was the perfect place to really make the improvements," says Woolsey.

He says that the opening of this massive hangar is not just for millionaire flyers. According to Woolsey, 80% of the private aircrafts that are owned are owned by small businesses (under 300 employees). He acknowledges that it is more convenient for businessmen and women in Westchester to fly out of our local airport than a commercial airport in Manhattan.

Woolsey says that his job is to help make a good first impression for those traveling into the county. "The corporations are bringing their airplanes here; they are really what's driving the community; they are driving the local economy; they're creating jobs...Our job is just to make sure that we greet the market makers of this community, so that's what we're doing here."

The Westchester County Board of Legislators approved a 30-year lease in 2016 with Million Air, allowing improvements of the company's Fixed Base Operation facilities at Westchester County Airport. The Westchester County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) lowered the project's financing costs when it approved issuing tax-exempt bonds for Million Air in 2016.

Westchester County Director of Operations Joan McDonald said recently, "Each day our administration is looking for opportunities to partner with businesses in Westchester County. We are proud of what we as a County have to offer both new and existing companies looking to make Westchester their home. Million Air's new hangar at Westchester County Airport is a great example of what we can accomplish together."

http://www.westchestermagazine.com/Blogs/914INC-Incoming/May-2018/Fly-like-a-Million-Air/

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CSAT and MIAS of the Prague Czech Technical University sign Memorandum of Co-operation

Czech Airlines Technics (CSAT), a daughter company of the Czech Aeroholding Group providing aircraft repair and maintenance services, and the Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies (MIAS School of Business) of the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) have signed a Memorandum of Co-operation in the field of Lean management and other projects. The institutions are to share important information vital for both the company's development and the education process. Thanks to the partnership, students will gain both theoretical and practical knowledge.

"Czech Airlines Technics has supported all activities connecting business practice with the education process for a long time. We understand that working with students is one of the keys to the company's development and growth. Therefore, we have confirmed the important co-operation with the Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies (MIAS) in the area of Lean Management, which will help us to make our internal processes improved and more efficient," stated Pavel Hales, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Czech Airlines Technics.

The joint projects will focus on particular aviation maintenance processes, e.g., the layout and organisation of aircraft stand space, the increase of aircraft maintenance capacity in the existing space and the review of storage facilities and supporting administration processes. The main goal is to map and analyse the current situation and suggest solutions to help better use resources and eliminate negative activities, while the work of the CSAT's team and MIAS students results in increased efficiency and quality.

"The Innovation Project Management programme focuses primarily on three aspects, namely thorough theoretical instructions provided to its students, their very good command of language and, foremost, regular contact with business practice, all immensely important for their future careers. The choice of priorities has proven to be effective and our graduates have been able to find relevant jobs after finishing their studies without problems. Therefore, I really welcome the involvement of students of the Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies of the Czech Technical University in Prague in real projects under the Students Business Projects programme run in co-operation with Czech Airlines Technics. It is a great example of co-operation of a public university with the business sector," Lenka Svecová, Director of the Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies of the Czech Technical University in Prague, said on the occasion of the ceremonial signing of the Memorandum.

The Memorandum, entered into for a three-year period with the option of an extension for the following period, was signed on behalf of CSAT by Pavel Hales, Chairman of the Board of Directors, and Ivan Pikl, Member of the Board of Directors and, on behalf of the Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies of the Czech Technical University in Prague, by Lenka Svecová, Director of the Institute.

https://www.eturbonews.com/184496/csat-and-mias-of-the-prague-czech-technical-university-sign-memorandum-of-co-operation

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REEDLEY COLLEGE STARTING NEW DEGREE TO TRAIN PILOTS

It's not just officials in the cities of Reedley and Mendota hoping the Federal Aviation Administration will act soon to allow them to launch their joint pilot-training program.

Months before the four electric planes on which the flight training will occur arrived from Europe, disassembled in shipping containers, officials with the two cities were in talks with Reedley College about using the planes, too.

The community college runs a nationally known training program in aircraft mechanics, and next semester it will launch its first-ever program offering a flight science associate's degree.

It will be the only such degree program in the Central Valley, which will include graduates receiving commercial pilot certificates, along with certificates to train pilots.

"It's a straight-though program - 24 months," with no summer breaks, said John Johnson, Flight Science Program coordinator for Reedley College, as well as a former Air Force navigator and aviation instructor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the world's largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, with campuses in Florida and Arizona.

The training certificate is particularly important, he said, because even though there is a pilot shortage and many small, regional airlines are desperate to hire them, newly- certified pilots rarely can get pilot jobs.

At the same time, there also is a significant shortage of flight instructors, and those jobs are easier to get once a pilot is certified as an instructor, Johnson said.

"Ninety-five percent of civilian airline pilots started as flight instructors," and every time they fly for work allows them to build up the minimum 1,500 flight hours they need to be considered as co-pilot on small, commercial aircraft for regional airlines.

Nicole Zieba, city manager for Reedley, said there has been talk of having instructors in Reedley College's aircraft mechanics oversee maintenance of the four electric planes while also giving their students hands-on experience working on such planes, which would give them a leg up for maintenance jobs as electric planes go into wider use.

While such an agreement hasn't happened, Zieba said that once the FAA authorizes the electric planes to be used as trainers, Reedley College will be able to use them to train students in the Flight Science Program.

In the meantime, once the program launches in August, instructors will use planes running on fossil fuels.

Whatever the students fly, the experience will not come cheap, as tuition and fees for the entire program will come out to $65,000 over the six semesters.

"It's the most expensive community college degree at any community college in California, and the reason it costs so much is the cost for the airplanes," which generally cost about $220 a lesson to use, Johnson said.

While electric planes fly cheaper because they don't use fossil fuels, he said the college using the electric planes will not affect the tuition rates.

But Reedley will be unique among California community colleges and state colleges offering such training, as officials are working on getting authorization that would allow some students to use their federal financial aid or their veterans' educational benefits to pay for portions of their tuitions and fees.

In fact, he said that once approved, veterans' benefits likely would cover almost all of a flight science student's costs.

"Most of the intent with Reedley College was to give student experience in a new, emergent technology," said Zieba, adding that the experience flying electric planes could give students from Reedley College and the flight-training program that will be run by the cities of Reedley and Mendota legs up in jobs flying electric planes as they become more prevalent in the U.S.

"There is a company in Santa Monica working on the first all-electric plane for passenger flights," with expectations of getting planes in the air starting in 2025, she said.

"People working for this company could come from Reedley," said Zieba, noting that current battery technology doesn't allow for long flights yet, but with the cheaper costs to run planes on electricity rather than on gasoline, there could be a market in the not too distant future for small airlines offering short, regional flights.

https://thebusinessjournal.com/reedley-college-starting-new-degree-to-train-pilots/

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Qatar Airways rolls out Inmarsat's GX Aviation

Qatar Airways is the first airline in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to offer GX Aviation, the world's first inflight broadband solution with reliable, seamless high-speed global coverage provided through a single operator.

The rollout follows a highly successful inflight test campaign across the airlines' global flight routes. As part of the service offering, passengers will now be offered one-hour of free access to GX Aviation, after which full-flight access can be affordably purchased.
Greatest innovators

Mr Philip Balaam, President of Inmarsat Aviation, said: "Qatar Airways is renowned as one of the greatest innovators in global aviation with passengers being at the centre of everything they do.

"We are delighted that they are now pioneering our game-changing GX Aviation inflight broadband across the globe. This unprecedented service adds to the airline's award-winning, five-star onboard experience by allowing passengers to seamlessly browse the internet, stream videos, check social media and more during flights."

His Excellency Mr Akbar Al Baker, Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, said: "In another first for the MENA region, Qatar Airways passengers can now enjoy high-speed broadband connectivity, providing rich content without restriction, whether using the internet for work or relaxation during their journey. Business travellers, in particular, will be able to maximise their 'office in the sky' with seamless continuity."

JetWave terminals

Airlines connect to the GX network using exclusive new JetWave terminals produced by Honeywell Aerospace. The terminals are designed for ease of installation and maintenance to assure the lowest downtime for any cabin connectivity solution in the market, allowing installation with minimal labour and using standard tools available in maintenance hangars.

The rollout of GX Aviation follows a separate announcement that Qatar Airways has activated an advanced new space-based system, supplied by Inmarsat, to track all of its flights across the world.

Inmarsat have worked exclusively with Qatar Airways to develop this solution, which utilises Inmarsat's satellite technology to provide the exact real-time location of the airline's aircraft in latitude and longitude.

http://www.adsadvance.co.uk/qatar-airways-rolls-out-inmarsat-s-gx-aviation.html

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New aircraft transition maintenance facility opens at MIA

Bravo Aircraft Technical Services Limited (BATS) has launched a new facility at Malta International Airport, the company told The Malta Independent yesterday, and joins the aviation cluster in Malta providing services that complement the existing maintenance companies such as Lufthansa Technik, SR Technics, MCM, Medavia and Air Malta.

At the moment, Bravo Aircraft Technical Services is the only independent EASA Part 145 Line Maintenance facility for commercial aircraft to hold Maltese regulatory approval.

The new company recently secured EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) Part 145 approval, the European standard for the approval of aircraft and its components registered in European Union member states by Transport Malta Civil Aviation Directorate.

The company's maintenance facility currently provides services for the Airbus A318/A319, A320/A321 family for both commercial and private business aircraft. It is already in the process of increasing its approval to the Boeing 737 NG.

BATS director Louis Giordimaina said yesterday, "We are delighted with our development. BATS already employs a group of highly experienced aircraft engineers and technicians onsite in Malta and we welcome new recruits. We are keen to have a strong local workforce working with us and we are also co-operating together with MCAST to train and develop the next generation of Maltese aviation technical personnel. Our staff will also have the opportunity to increase their experience by spending time with our sister company Part M Aviation Ireland in Shannon."

Nenimir Mladenov, the company's Maintenance Manager adds, "BATS range of services include line maintenance transit, daily and weekly checks, defect troubleshooting and rectification, comprehensive cabin maintenance to optimise passenger comfort including in-flight entertainment system, mandatory safety and phase checks."

He added that the company will shortly be adding weighing of aircraft and paint inspections to its capabilities. The organisation plans to establish outstations capabilities at other airport locations to support maintenance requirements for its customers throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Part M Aviation, is one of the first independent airworthiness management companies in Ireland designated with a CAMO (Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisation) approval from the Irish Aviation Authority servicing both the international leasing community and airlines throughout the globe.

BATS' administrative headquarters is in Gzira.

http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2018-05-04/local-news/New-aircraft-transition-maintenance-facility-opens-at-MIA-6736189256

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NASA advisers say SpaceX rocket technology could put lives at risk

When Elon Musk and his team at SpaceX were looking to make their Falcon 9 rocket even more powerful, they came up with a creative idea - keep the propellant at super-cold temperatures to shrink its size, allowing them to pack more of it into the tanks.

But the approach comes with a major risk, according to some safety experts. At those extreme temperatures, the propellant would need to be loaded just before takeoff - while astronauts are aboard. An accident, or a spark, during this maneuver, known as "load-and-go," could set off an explosion.

The proposal has raised alarms for members of Congress and NASA safety advisers as the agency and SpaceX prepare to launch humans into orbit as early as this year. One watchdog group labeled load-and-go a "potential safety risk." A NASA advisory group warned in a letter that the method was "contrary to booster safety criteria that has been in place for over 50 years."

Concerns at NASA over the astronauts' safety hit a high point when, in September 2016, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blew up while it was being fueled ahead of an engine test. No one was hurt, but the payload, a multimillion-dollar satellite, was lost. The question on many people's minds at NASA instantly became: What if astronauts were on board?

The fueling issue is emerging as a point of tension between the safety-obsessed space agency and the maverick company run by Musk, a tech entrepreneur who is well known for his flair for the dramatic and for pushing boundaries of rocket science.

In this culture clash, SpaceX is the daring, Silicon Valley-style outfit led by a man who literally sells flamethrowers on the Internet and wholeheartedly embraces risk. Musk is reigniting interest in space with acrobatic rocket-booster landings and eye-popping stunts, such as launching a Tesla convertible toward Mars.

His sensibilities have collided with a bureaucratic system at NASA that has been accused of being overly conservative in the wake of two shuttle disasters that killed 14 astronauts.

The concerns from some at NASA are shared by others. John Mulholland, who oversees Boeing's contract to fly astronauts to the International Space Station and once worked on the space shuttle, said load-and-go fueling was rejected by NASA in the past because "we never could get comfortable with the safety risks that you would take with that approach. When you're loading densified propellants, it is not an inherently stable situation."

SpaceX supporters say tradition and old ways of thinking can be the enemy of innovation and thwart efforts to open the frontier of space.

Greg Autry, a business professor at the University of Southern California, said the load-and-go procedures were a heated issue when he served on Trump's NASA transition team.

"NASA is supposed to be a risk-taking organization," he said. "But every time we would mention accepting risk in human spaceflight, the NASA people would say, 'But, oh, you have to remember the scar tissue' - and they were talking about the two shuttle disasters. They seemed to have become victims of the past and unwilling to try anything new, because of that scar tissue."

In a recent speech, Robert Lightfoot, the former acting NASA administrator, lamented in candid terms how the agency, with society as a whole, has become too risk-averse. He charged the agency with recapturing some of the youthful swagger that sent men to the moon during the Apollo era.

"I worry, to be perfectly honest, if we would have ever launched Apollo in our environment here today," he said during a speech at the Space Symposium last month, "if Buzz [Aldrin] and Neil [Armstrong] would have ever been able to go to the moon in the risk environment we have today."

NASA is requiring SpaceX and Boeing to meet a requirement that involves some complicated calculations: The chance of death can be no greater than 1 in every 270 flights.

One way to ensure that, as Lightfoot said during his speech, is to never fly: "The safest place to be is on the ground."

till, the scar tissue runs deep.

NASA lost 14 astronauts in two space-shuttle disasters, the result of deep systematic problems of a once young and swashbuckling agency that many said had grown sclerotic.

In the investigation into the 2003 disaster, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board blasted NASA for failing to learn "the bitter lessons" from the Challenger explosion in 1986. Columbia was lost as much by a "broken safety culture" as much as the chunk of foam that broke off and damaged the shuttle's heat shield. That second disaster helped lead to the retirement of the shuttle in 2011, leaving NASA in the position of being unable to fly astronauts from U.S. soil.

Instead, NASA pays Russia to ferry its astronauts to the International Space Station, an arrangement that costs the agency millions. In 2006, Russia charged $21.3 million a seat. That jumped to $81.9 million by 2015.

To end the dependence on Russia, NASA has turned to the private sector, outsourcing the responsibility of flying astronauts to the space station to two companies - SpaceX and Boeing - that have been awarded $6.8 billion in contracts combined. Other private companies eventually could compete for other government launch contracts - including Blue Origin, which was founded by Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos - but none are expected to send people to the space station anytime soon.

The pivot to private companies is enabling NASA to focus on deep space. But SpaceX and Boeing have both faced challenges and delays. Now, as the drought in human spaceflight extends into its seventh year, NASA is facing the prospect of even more delays - and questions about whether the contractors it plans to rely on will have a better track record than the agency that put men on the moon.

"It really is a very, very difficult problem to do human spaceflight," said Phil McAlister, the director of NASA's commercial spaceflight development division. "You've got thousands of pounds of really highly energetic propellants on board. You've got mini controlled explosions going off. You've got to survive the rigors of space, which is not very friendly for the human body. And then you've got to reenter the atmosphere, and the spacecraft gets heated up to thousands of degrees."

SpaceX pulled off 18 successful launches last year, a record, and is aiming for more this year. But it has also lost two of its Falcon 9 rockets in explosions, and amid all its triumphs, it has never attempted flying humans.

The first failure happened in 2015, when a rocket blew up a couple of minutes after liftoff as it was flying cargo and supplies to the space station. No one was on board, and no one was injured. Then, just over a year later, another rocket exploded, this time on the launchpad while being fueled ahead of an engine test.

At the time, Musk declared that if crews had been aboard they would have been safely ferried away by the rocket's abort system. Still, that mishap is forcing the company to redesign bottles of pressurized helium that sit inside the rocket's fuel tanks.

Now SpaceX is getting ready to fly astronauts on an upgraded version of the same rocket. And its decision to add propellant to the rocket with astronauts on board is attracting scrutiny.

To get more power out of its rocket, SpaceX brings its propellants - liquid oxygen and refined kerosene - to unusually low temperatures. That causes them to become dense, meaning SpaceX can pack more fuel into its rockets.

To SpaceX, the approach is another example of how it is breaking the mold. The densified propellant "provides greater propellant margin for increased reliability," the company said in a statement. In other words, should something go wrong on the mission, the rocket would have more propellant to adjust to emergencies. SpaceX's dramatic booster landings also require additional propellant.

But to others it is an unnecessary risk. At a Capitol Hill hearing earlier this year, members of Congress pressed Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX's vice president for build and flight reliability, about the safety of the load-and-go procedure.

Koenigsmann said that the fueling takes only about a half-hour, a "relatively quick procedure, and we believe that this exposure time is the shortest and therefore the safest approach."

And the company points out that if anything goes wrong during fueling, the rocket's launch abort system would allow the astronauts to escape safely. It also conducts a "static fire," a quick test firing of the engines in the days leading up to the launch to make sure the rocket is operating properly.

And since its rockets and its Dragon spacecraft are reusable, the company gets to inspect them after each flight, giving it an in-depth understanding of how the vehicles perform.

"As with all hazard analyses across the entire system and operations, controls against those hazards have been identified, and will be implemented and carefully verified prior to certification," the company said in a statement.

But in a 2015 letter to NASA, Thomas Stafford, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and then chairman of the agency's space-station advisory committee, wrote that "there is a unanimous, and strong, feeling by the committee that scheduling the crew to be on board the Dragon spacecraft prior to loading oxidizer into the rocket is contrary to booster safety criteria that has been in place for over 50 years, both in this country and internationally."

At the hearing this year, William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said the agency had not decided whether it would allow SpaceX to load crews before loading the fuel, but he did not rule it out.

He vowed that the agency would "make sure that we're really, really safe to go fly, and the system is ready for crew before we put them on board."

In an interview, Lightfoot, the former acting NASA administrator, said the agency is in deep discussions with SpaceX about the safest way to go. The agency has a long history with SpaceX, first hiring it to fly cargo to the station and now looking for it to send humans into space.

"It's a matter of having a good risk discussion so that we understand that," he said. "I would just say that instead of working it in the press, we work in the engineering review boards."

For all its push-the-envelope swagger, SpaceX says it is serious about flying people safely and is going to great lengths to study every aspect of the vehicle, down to individual valves, so that it will meet and surpass the 1-in-270 chance-of-death metric, said Benji Reed, the director of SpaceX's commercial crew program.

When Reed was down at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a recent trip, he came across a room on a special tour where the astronauts' families from the shuttle program used to wait ahead of the rocket launch.

They were stunned to see that a whiteboard with drawings made by the children of the crew lost in the 2003 Columbia disaster was still there, preserved.

"That really drives it home," Reed said. "This isn't just the people that we're flying - these are all of their families. So we take this extremely seriously, and we understand that our job is to fly people safely and bring them back safely. To do that you have to humanize it. You have to see them as your friends and as your colleagues."

But even with some of the best engineering minds at NASA, calculating risk is an imperfect science. There are too many unknowns in systems that are inherently dangerous and complex.

"Even identifying all of the risks is impossible," Gerstenmaier said during a speech last year. "Also, risk cannot be boiled down to a single statistic."

Before the very first shuttle flight, NASA estimated that the chance of death was between 1 in 500 and 1 in 5,000. Later, after the agency had compiled data from shuttle flights, it went back and came up with a very different number.

The chance of death was actually 1 in 12.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-nasa-spacex-rocket-elon-musk-20180505-story.html

Curt Lewis