Press review by Pawel Goleniowski & Alexandre Gillio – Sept.26 – Oct. 2, 2022

Taking steps towards zero-emission aviation – AZEA announces its first members

By Pawel Goleniowski

On 26th of September Alliance For Zero-Emissions Aviation (AZEA) has released the initial list of members. 74 entities are announced to join the alliance, among them we can find actors from almost all aviation-related sectors, including airlines, original equipment manufacturers, airports, aircraft lessors, companies from energy sector and civil society organizations.

The project of Alliance For Zero-Emissions Aviation was launched under the auspices of European Union in 2020, when European Commission released updates to its 2020 New Industrial Strategy, announcing creation of new alliance. In February 2022, the Toulouse Declaration was cosigned by 42 countries, including all 27 members of European Union, United States, United Kingdom and Canada. Through this declaration, all its signatories have pledged to take steps to achieve zero-emission aviation by 2050.

Finally, on 24th of June 2022, the Alliance was officially launched. The Alliance is a voluntary initiative of public and private entities, united by a common goal of preparing the aviation sector for introduction into commercial service of hydrogen and electric powered aircraft. As the introduction of new propulsion methods means significant changes to the aviation landscape, impacting not only aircraft design but also needed airport infrastructure, airline’s business models and new methods of fuel storage, the Alliance rejoins actors from different branches of the industry. The aim of the Alliance is to identify, understand and prioritize the challenges and overcome existing barriers to sustainable aviation. 

The Alliance is open for all the players from aerospace industry, welcoming both big players and smaller entities, including start-ups working on aviation’s decarbonization. On the list of members announced on 26th of September we find among others big manufacturers: Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Safran, airlines: easyJet and WizzAir, airports (Turin Airport, Dublin Airport and Svedavia, operator of 10 airports in Sweden) and public entities such as European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Eurocontrol. In addition to the big names, the list also includes many smaller entities working for green aviation, such as hydrogen-electric powertrain developer ZeroAvia, and long-range hydrogen-powered aircraft developer Beyond Aero.

Sources:

https://simpleflying.com/eu-alliance-for-zero-emission-aviations-first-members-announced/

https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/green-aircraft-players-aeronautics-industry-and-beyond-sign-alliance-zero-emission-aviation-2022-09-26_en

https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-aeronautics-industry/alliance-zero-emission-aviation_en

https://lopinion.com/articles/actualite/11938_sommet-de-laviation-la-declaration-de-toulouse-signee-par-plus-de-40-pays

DART’s Mission: Space Defense

By Alexandre Gillio

It’s done! With the NASA’s mission DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), Human become the first species on earth to prevent from a space danger. This mission launched last November consist of a small spacecraft weighting only 600 kilos and his only goal was to rush on a double asteroid, Dimorphos.

The DART mission has for objective to verify if this is a valid way to protect and defend earth. On the 26 of September, DART finally reached it and collided with the double asteroid at a speed of nearly 24000 km/h which gave us this extraordinary video.

The asteroid that has been targeted is 160 meters in diameter and it’s the smallest one in the binary system.

But how can we retrieve information since the object used to do the experiment is destroyed? It’s here that James Webb and Hubble are playing a major role. Those observational satellite will give us an overview of the asteroid’s reaction because asteroids are very complex and still quite unknown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVM9-XNP5nA

Indeed, they can have an unexpected behavior, we have seen it recently when Osiris-Rex that landed on an asteroid and it has been a huge surprise when, during landing, it has sent gravel in all directions.

This allow us to say that asteroid can have different structure and depending on it our defense should be different. For example, if Dimorphos is a compact rocky asteroid, the impact could destroy it but if it is an amount of gravel, it will absorb the impact’s energy.

Depending on the structure, it could give us two very different scenarios for earth defense.

The DART experiment isn’t over, and a second mission ERA will take place in 2026 to Dimorphos. Note also that China has for project in 2026, to also launch a space defense mission that has a similar procedure on the asteroid 2020 PN1. Depending on the results, humanity could be able to decide on a method to protect earth from space threats.

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