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 Recent Successes
VPT is powering high-flying programs around the world. Here are recent updates from just a few of the programs currently relying on VPT.
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Boeing 787
December 15, 2009
VPT was on board as the Boeing (NYSE: BA) 787 Dreamliner took to the sky for the first time, ushering a new era in air travel as it departed before an estimated crowd of more than 12,000 employees and guests from Paine Field in Everett, Wash. The flight marks the beginning of a flight test program that will see six airplanes flying nearly around the clock and around the globe, with the airplane's first delivery scheduled for fourth quarter 2010.
The 787 Dreamliner will offer passengers a better flying experience and provide airline operators greater efficiency to better serve the point-to-point routes and additional frequencies passengers prefer. Fifty-five customers around the world have ordered 840 787s, making the 787 Dreamliner the fastest-selling new commercial jetliner in history.
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Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)
November 13, 2009
VPT helped NASA open a new chapter in our understanding of the moon. Preliminary data from the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicates that the mission successfully uncovered water during the Oct. 9, 2009 impacts into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus cater near the moon’s south pole.
LCROSS and LRO launched on Thursday, June 18, 2009 @ 5:32 pm Eastern Time. LCROSS traveled to the Moon as a co-manifested payload aboard the launch vehicle for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). LRO is designed to map the lunar surface and characterize landing sites for future missions.
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Dassault Falcon 7X Business Jet
October, 2009
With VPT on board during its first 24 months in service, the aircraft has carried over 2,100 passengers and made 543 stops in 73 countries. The Falcon 7X has the longest range of any Falcon business jet. Special attention was given to enhancing its cabin comfort for flights lasting up to 13 hours. Since its entry into service in 2007, the 7X cabin has set a new standard for business jets.
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Light Weight Mine Roller
2009
Incorporating VPT components, the Light Weight Mine Roller is used to detonate and neutralise buried pressure-fused mines and other explosive devices. It is designed for light and medium wheeled and tracked vehicles. Currently deployed, the Light Weight Mine Roller (www.pearson-eng.com) is saving lives worldwide as it searches for mines in front of land vehicles.
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Kawasaki XP-1 Maritime Patrol Aircraft
VPT is powering Japan’s new XP-1 aircraft, the next generation of the former P-3C Orion plane. Japan’s Ministry of Defense has taken the first delivery of the prototype and testing is ongoing.
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GPS IIR-M
August, 2009
The U.S. Air Force successfully launched the last in the series of eight modernized GPS (IIR-M) satellites. Using the Space Launch Complex 17A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, the satellite was carried into space aboard the last of the Air Force's United Launch Alliance Delta II rockets. GPS IIR-21(M) will join the constellation of 30 operational satellites on-orbit, assuming a position in plane E, slot 3 and replacing space vehicle number 40 (SVN40). The Air Force expects to set the satellite healthy for navigation users worldwide next month.
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F-35 Lightning II
January, 2010
The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Program, formerly the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) Program, is the Department of Defense's focal point for defining affordable next generation strike aircraft weapon systems for the Navy, Air Force, Marines, and our allies. The focus of the program is affordability -- reducing the development cost, production cost, and cost of ownership of the JSF family of aircraft.
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Pluto New Horizons
January 10, 2010
The New Horizons spacecraft crossed a milestone boundary today: it is now closer to its primary destination, Pluto, than to Earth. But New Horizons—the fastest man-made object—is not yet halfway to the dwarf planet. That won't happen until February 25, 2010.
VPT is powering the Cosmic Dust Experiment (CDE) on this mission. It is performing well as it collects data on cosmic dust in the solar system on the way to Pluto.
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Venus Express
2010
Currently orbiting Venus, this mission's science objectives are to study the atmosphere, the plasma environment, and the surface of Venus in great detail.
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Mercury Messenger
December 15, 2009
Messenger Team Releases First Global Map of Mercury.
NASA's MESSENGER mission team and cartographic experts from the U.S. Geological Survey have created a critical tool for planning the first orbital observations of the planet Mercury – a global mosaic of the planet that will help scientists pinpoint craters, faults, and other features for observation.
The MESSENGER spacecraft completed its third and final flyby of Mercury on September 29, concluding its reconnaissance of the innermost planet. The MESSENGER team has been busily preparing for the yearlong orbital phase of the mission, beginning in March 2011, and the near-global mosaic of Mercury from MESSENGER and Mariner 10 images is key to those plans.
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