The company has been ramping up its electric vehicle offensive for years now, an effort that has included the development of a heavy-duty electric truck, plans to spend $1.2 billion to develop global battery production and an investment in electric charging company ChargePoint.
Mr. Coats mentioned three priorities: development of a spacecraft, development of a heavy-lift rocket and a rocket test program.
This freed up resources for the development of a heavy-lift launch vehicle capable of sending cargo and crew into deep space.
A Senate version of the authorization bill, passed last month, reduced money for commercial crew and technology development to finance the development of a heavy-lift rocket.
This month the Senate passed an authorization bill for NASA that called for the immediate development of a heavy-lift rocket, which might take advantage of shuttle technologies including the solid rocket motors.
In a statement in response to Mr. Obama's April 15 speech at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida outlining his new policy, Boeing emphasized the need for immediate development of a heavy-lift vehicle.
It cancels the Ares I rocket and instead directs NASA to begin development of a heavy-lift rocket and indicates that the design should be based on space shuttle technologies, a boon for those contractors.
The bill as adopted cancels the Ares I program but directs NASA to begin development of a heavy-lift rocket for future missions to the moon, asteroids and perhaps Mars.
This paper presents the development of a heavy-duty automotive cooling axial fan with morphing blades activated by Shape Memory Alloy SMAA) strips that work as actuator elements in the polymeric blade structure.
