Magellan Aerospace Awarded $110 Million Contract for RADARSAT Constellation Manufacture

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TORONTO , Sept. 4, 2013 /CNW/ - Magellan Aerospace Corporation (Magellan) announced today the award of a $110 million Cdn. contract from MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) of Richmond , BC for the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) satellite bus manufacture. The RCM is comprised of three low earth orbit spacecraft, each carrying a C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload.

"RCM is one of the largest space projects that has been undertaken by Canada to date, and Magellan is proud to be a Tier One subcontractor on the mission," said James Butyniec, President and Chief Executive Officer of Magellan Aerospace. " Canada is one of the world's first space-faring nations and national programs like RCM are critical for keeping our domestic space technology capabilities relevant as well as providing benefits for Canadians."

RCM is a Canadian Space Agency (CSA) mission that will provide twenty-four-hour-a-day C-Band data to augment and extend the data that RADARSAT-2 users currently rely on. The mission will support maritime surveillance (ship detection, ice monitoring and oil spill detection), disaster management and ecosystem monitoring. The primary areas of coverage are Canada and its surrounding Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic maritime areas. The launch is planned in 2018.

Magellan Aerospace will manufacture the three spacecraft buses, including the control systems, on-board computers, power generation and distribution systems, electronics, wiring, and on-board communication links with the ground. Since 2005, Magellan has been awarded the initial Phase A, B, and C Preliminary and Detailed Design contracts leading up to this current manufacturing phase (Phase D). This phase, including the complete bus assembly, integration, and test, will be carried out at Magellan's facility in Winnipeg , Manitoba where other CSA missions including CASSIOPE and SCISAT-1 were also manufactured.

The RCM bus is based on Magellan's MAC-200 small satellite bus that was first developed for the CSA's CASSIOPE program. The MAC-200 design has been upgraded to accommodate the large, deployable C-band SAR antenna and to increase the power subsystem capacity for the radar payload. New GPS and propulsion subsystems have been added to support the precision orbit maintenance requirements. Upgrades have also been made to the bus avionics to support the seven-year mission lifetime.

Magellan Aerospace:

Magellan Aerospace is a global, integrated aerospace company that provides complex assemblies and systems solutions to aircraft and engine manufacturers, and defence and space agencies worldwide. Magellan designs, engineers, and manufactures aeroengine and aerostructure assemblies and components for aerospace markets, advanced products for military and space markets, industrial power generation, and specialty products. Magellan is a public company whose shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange (MAL.TO), with operating units throughout Canada , the United States , the United Kingdom , India , and Poland .

SOURCE: Magellan Aerospace Corporation

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Magellan Aerospace Awarded $110 Million Contract for RADARSAT Constellation Manufacture

CIRCOR Aerospace Promotes Daniel Godin North America Vice President of Operations

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CORONA, CA--(Marketwired - Sep 4, 2013) - CIRCOR Aerospace Products is pleased to announce that Daniel Godin has been promoted to Vice President of Operations, North America. Since 2008, Godin held the post of General Manager for the New York and Ohio facilities where he was responsible for business and financial profitability, operations, supply chain and team management, as well as driving strategic growth initiatives. He will continue to report to CIRCOR Aerospace Group Vice President Michael Dill. Godin's success in transforming and leading the businesses in New York and Ohio to high performance supports the decision to expand his scope tooversee all operations in North America.

Godin brings 27+ years of experienced leadership from the aerospace industry.Previous to his successful run as a CIRCOR General Manager, he was Vice President of Continuous Improvement / GM, Operations at Sermatech International, and had 21 years with Pratt & Whitney/United Technologies Corporation. Godin holds a Bachelor degree in Industrial Technologies / Manufacturing Engineering from the University of Southern Maine, and served in the United States Air Force. He personally holds five patents in industrial coatings and gas turbine components.

"In this expanded role, Dan will continue to provide excellent top level leadership for our Lean Manufacturing and growth initiatives and we look forward to the favorable impact he and his team will have for North American operations through synergies created by this change," noted Michael Dill, Vice President CIRCOR Aerospace Products.

About CIRCOR Aerospace Products GroupCIRCOR Aerospace Products Group is focused on the design, development, and manufacture of specialty fluidic control, actuation, and aircraft landing gear systems for demanding aerospace and defense applications. CIRCOR Aerospace provides a full range of fluid controls and electro-mechanical controls, actuation systems, manifold assemblies, and complete landing gear systems.CIRCOR Aerospace has business units located in California, Ohio, New York; Paris, Chemill and Pau, France; Tangier, Morocco and Suzhou, China.

Parent company CIRCOR International is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts and the CIRCOR Aerospace Products group is headquartered in Corona, California.

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CIRCOR Aerospace Promotes Daniel Godin North America Vice President of Operations

dna impact: Javed Akhtar offers help to UP wonder kid

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Help has started to pour in for wonder kid Sushma Verma who has secured admission to M.Sc. (microbiology) at Lucknow University at the age of 13. She holds the record for being the youngest to complete High School (class X) in India at the age of seven.

dna had highlighted her plight and achievements in its edition on Thursday last. Her achievements deserve even more kudos as she has done it despite extreme deprivation.

Her father Tej Bahadur is a daily wage labourer and is barely able to run the household. Lucknow University (LU) procter Prof Manoj Dixit told dna that famous lyricist Javed Akhtar had come forward to help Sushma financially. He has sent a message through people he knows in Lucknow, he said.

Interestingly, neither Sushma nor her father have heard of Javed Akhtar. Neither do they know his son Farhan Akhtar or wife Shabana Azmi.

Besides, Rafat Sarosh, who works for Microsoft at Seattle, and Abhijit Patil, a microbiology teacher who runs a charitable foundation in Kolhapur (Maharashtra), have also offered to help Sushma. In his email to the Lucknow University, Rafat has mentioned that his father, an LU product, had gone through some very tough time, and total strangers came up and helped him. He said that if Sushmas fees is taken care of, he would be willing to give her Rs5,000 per month for other expenses. He has also offered to give her a laptop.

Prof Manoj Dixit said some LU teachers had also offered to help, and the LU authorities were also considering granting her fees waiver and hostel facility. We plan to collect about Rs5 lakh which should take care of her entire M.Sc. course, he said.

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dna impact: Javed Akhtar offers help to UP wonder kid

Research identifies how mouth cells resist Candida infection

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Public release date: 2-Sep-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Benjamin Thompson b.thompson@sgm.ac.uk 44-758-468-9611 Society for General Microbiology

Candida albicans is a common fungus found living in, and on, many parts of the human body. Usually this species causes no harm to humans unless it can breach the body's immune defences, where can lead to serious illness or death. It is known as an opportunistic pathogen that can colonise and infect individuals with a compromised immune system. New research, presented today at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn Conference, gives us a greater understanding of how mucosal surfaces in the body respond to C. albicans to prevent damage being done during infection.

Researchers from King's College London focused on oral epithelial cells, a mucosal layer of cells that line the mouth, providing a barrier against microbes. The group challenged oral epithelial cells grown in vitro with C. albicans, looking at gene expression six and 24 hours after infection.

The results showed that a molecular signalling pathway know as the 'PI3 Kinase pathway' is activated as soon as five minutes after the epithelial cells encounter C. albicans, before the fungus has time to become invasive. This pathway seems to be involved in priming epithelial cells to protect against future damage. Inhibiting the PI3 Kinase pathway increased the amount of damage caused by C. albicans and reduced the normal tissue healing response.

This finding makes the PI3 Kinase pathway an attractive target for new therapeutics against C. albicans. Dr David Moyes, who presented the work at the conference, hopes that by boosting the activity of the pathway it may be possible to reduce the fungus's ability to cause tissue damage.

He explains, "We are developing a complete picture of how C. albicans interacts with the epithelial cells that make up our mucosal surfaces and learning how they are able to discriminate between harmless and harmful microbes.

"Many of the symptoms of C. albicans infection, are caused by the body's incorrect or overactive response to cell damage. Developing therapies that act on the patient, not the microbe, provides an entirely novel way of treating an infection and the likelihood of resistance is much reduced."

Candida infections are the third most commonly acquired hospital blood-borne infection, resulting in 50,000 deaths annually. Over 75 per cent of fertile age women will suffer from at least one Candida infection and there are around 2 million cases of oral candidiasis each year among HIV/AIDS patients.

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Research identifies how mouth cells resist Candida infection

Stanford scientists show how antibiotics enable pathogenic gut infections

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Public release date: 1-Sep-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Bruce Goldman goldmanb@stanford.edu 650-725-2106 Stanford University Medical Center

STANFORD, Calif. A new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine could help pinpoint ways to counter the effects of the antibiotics-driven depletion of friendly, gut-dwelling bacteria.

A number of intestinal pathogens can cause problems after antibiotic administration, said Justin Sonnenburg, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology and the senior author of the study, to be published online Sept. 1 in Nature. Graduate students Katharine Ng and Jessica Ferreyra shared lead authorship.

"Antibiotics open the door for these pathogens to take hold. But how, exactly, that occurs hasn't been well understood," Sonnenburg said.

In the first 24 hours after administration of oral antibiotics, a spike in carbohydrate availability takes place in the gut, the study says. This transient nutrient surplus, combined with the reduction of friendly gut-dwelling bacteria due to antibiotics, permits at least two potentially deadly pathogens to get a toehold in that otherwise more forbidding environment.

In the past decade or so, much has been learned about the complex microbial ecosystem that resides in every healthy mammal's large intestine, including ours. The thousands of distinct bacterial strains that normally inhabit this challenging but nutrient-rich niche have adapted to it so well that we have difficulty living without them. They manufacture vitamins, provide critical training to our immune systems and even guide the development of our own tissues. Antibiotics decimate this gut-microbe ecosystem, which begins bouncing back within a few days but may take a month or more to regain its former numbers. And the ecosystem appears to suffer the permanent loss of some of its constituent bacterial strains.

It is thought that our commensal, or friendly, bacteria serve as a kind of lawn that, in commandeering the rich fertilizer that courses through our gut, outcompetes the less-well-behaved pathogenic "weeds." It has also been suggested that our commensal bugs secrete pathogen-killing factors. Another theory holds that the disruption of our inner microbial ecosystem somehow impairs our immune responsiveness.

"While these hypotheses are by no means mutually exclusive, our work specifically supports the suggestion that our resident microbes hold pathogens at bay by competing for nutrients," Sonnenburg said.

When that defense falters, as it does shortly after a course of antibiotics begins, marauding micro-organisms such as salmonella or Clostridium difficile can establish beachheads. Once they reach sufficient numbers, these two parasitic invaders can mount intentional campaigns to induce inflammation, a condition that impairs the restoration of our normal gut ecosystem but in which salmonella and C. difficile have learned to prosper.

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Stanford scientists show how antibiotics enable pathogenic gut infections