On Febriary 6, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its largest rocket into the blue Florida sky.
Onboard was “Starman,” a dummy strapped into the billionaire’s cherry red Tesla roadster. Minutes later, fans cheered as Mr Musk outdid himself by nailing a simultaneous landing of the Falcon Heavy’s boosters. It was arguably a turning point for the commercial space age.
Airlines were somewhat less thrilled. On that day, 563 flights were delayed and 62 extra miles added to flights in the southeast region of the US, according to Federal Aviation Administration data released by the Air Line Pilots Association, or Alpa.
America’s airspace is a finite resource, and the growth of commercial launches has US airlines worried. Whenever Mr Musk or one of his rivals sends up a spacecraft, the carriers which operate closer to the ground must avoid large swaths of territory and incur sizeable expenses.
Most of the commercial activity to date has been focused on Cape Canaveral, the Air Force post on Florida’s Atlantic coast, where Mr Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin base their stellar operations. It is one of 22 active US launch sites, and a number of other locales - including Brownsville, Texas; Watkins, Colorado; and Camden County, Georgia - are pursuing new spaceport ventures to capitalise on commercial space activity.
Mr Bezos is blasting off from land he owns in West Texas; British Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson plans to launch tourists from southern New Mexico as early as next year; and Mr Musk is planning an eventual new SpaceX launchpad in extreme southern Texas, near South Padre Island. While this trio of space tycoons currently dominate the nascent industry, more companies will soon join the party. And the potential for what may eventually be daily launches carries major implications for air travel.
“Commercial space launch needs to be better integrated into the national airspace,” noted Caryn Schenewerk, Calififornia-based SpaceX’s senior counsel and director of government affairs. The Falcon 9 exceeds 18.28km on launch “in a quick 90 seconds”, with its reusable rocket boosters only requiring use of the airspace for one minute before landing.
Tim Canoll is president of Alpa, the union which represents 60,000 US and Canadian pilots. He cautions that work is needed to make the two industries operate seamlessly, saying on Tuesday at a hearing of a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee in Washington that Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) operations don’t have “real-time data” on rockets’ movements.
The US licensed only 23 commercial launches last year, but that’s likely to increase. As the launch industry matures, the ultimate goal is to incorporate spacecraft into the routine flow of the 42,000 daily aircraft that the FAA controls, making a SpaceX Falcon 9 bound for the International Space Station no different than an American A321 headed to Miami. “The next step,” said Mr Canoll, is to put space travel and air travel together, so rockets “can operate along with us”.
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Read more:
SpaceX delays plans to send tourists around Moon
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There is a lot of money at stake. Airlines say their average cost of “block time”, the industry metric for the period when an aircraft is taxiing or flying, was $68.48 per minute in 2017, or $4,109 hourly, led by crew and jet fuel expenses. The average delay of those 563 flights on February 6 was 8 minutes. For perspective, 10 flights delayed by 10 minutes costs about $70,000, Alpa noted. To make matters worse, the block time average is likely to rise this year - further aggravating airline executives and pilots whenever a SpaceX or United Launch Alliance rocket closes airspace.
“These restrictions have led to extensive and expensive delays to commercial air traffic that are unsustainable,” Alpa said in a white paper released on Tuesday.
The US airlines’ trade group, Airlines for America (A4A), has urged the FAA to “carefully consider the safety and efficiency impacts to the traveling public” in crafting an integration plan, according to spokeswoman Alison McAfee. For example, the group expressed “grave concerns” this month about a proposed Spaceport Colorado, which would be located at a small airport less than 10 miles south-east of Denver International, the fifth-busiest US airport.
This kind of uneasy coexistence has become the norm as the FAA continues to restrict airspace for commercial launches and re-entry, often for an hour or more. The closed space can extend for hundreds of miles along a rocket’s planned flight path, given the potential risks if a craft explodes in flight. That area will need to decrease over time to minimize airline disruptions, industry experts told Congress. Specifically, they said computer simulations of such disasters block off more airspace than necessary.
In March, the FAA formed an aviation committee to assemble recommendations for a regulatory approach to the commercial launch industry. The new rules will offer safety objectives while not dictating any vehicle design or operational mandates for space firms.
Tests have shown that rocket telemetry data can flow into current air-traffic control systems and give controllers real-time awareness on the vehicle’s movement. Of course, air traffic controllers direct an aircraft’s course and speed - a power they won’t have with space vehicles.
Audrey Powers, Blue Origin’s deputy general counsel, told the House panel “this is a very solvable problem”.
The industry and regulators need to develop tools to help further existing efforts to build a space data integrator system, designed to automate the flow of real-time rocket data and the release of blocked airspace because, she said, “we are smart enough to solve this problem.”
Votes
Total votes: 1.8 million
Ashraf Ghani: 923,592 votes
Abdullah Abdullah: 720,841 votes
The biog
Profession: Senior sports presenter and producer
Marital status: Single
Favourite book: Al Nabi by Jibran Khalil Jibran
Favourite food: Italian and Lebanese food
Favourite football player: Cristiano Ronaldo
Languages: Arabic, French, English, Portuguese and some Spanish
Website: www.liliane-tannoury.com
Guide to intelligent investing
Investing success often hinges on discipline and perspective. As markets fluctuate, remember these guiding principles:
- Stay invested: Time in the market, not timing the market, is critical to long-term gains.
- Rational thinking: Breathe and avoid emotional decision-making; let logic and planning guide your actions.
- Strategic patience: Understand why you’re investing and allow time for your strategies to unfold.
FIXTURES
All kick-off times UAE ( 4 GMT)
Brackets denote aggregate score
Tuesday:
Roma (1) v Shakhtar Donetsk (2), 11.45pm
Manchester United (0) v Sevilla (0), 11.45pm
Wednesday:
Besiktas (0) v Bayern Munich (5), 9pm
Barcelona (1) v Chelsea (1), 11.45pm
Vidaamuyarchi
Director: Magizh Thirumeni
Stars: Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra
Rating: 4/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
German intelligence warnings
- 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
- 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
- 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250
Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League final:
Who: Real Madrid v Liverpool
Where: NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium, Kiev, Ukraine
When: Saturday, May 26, 10.45pm (UAE)
TV: Match on BeIN Sports
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry
Rating: 2/5
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