Update for 11:30 a.m. EST on Jan. 21: NASA announced on Saturday evening (Jan. 20) that it has reestablished contact with Ingenuity after instructing the Perseverance rover "to perform long-duration listening sessions for Ingenuity’s signal." The mission team is working to determine what caused the communications dropout during Flight 72.
NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter has gone incommunicado.
Ingenuity's handlers lost contact with the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) chopper on Thursday (Jan. 18), toward the end of its 72nd flight on Mars. 


"Data Ingenuity sent to the Perseverance rover (which acts as a relay between the helicopter and Earth) during the flight indicates it successfully climbed to its assigned maximum altitude of 40 feet (12 meters)," NASA officials wrote in an update on Friday (Jan. 19). 
"During its planned descent, communications between the helicopter and rover terminated early, prior to touchdown," they added. "The Ingenuity team is analyzing available data and considering next steps to reestablish communications with the helicopter."

Ingenuity and Perseverance landed together in February 2021 on the floor of the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater, which harbored a big lake and a river delta billions of years ago.
Perseverance is hunting for evidence of past Mars life and collecting samples for future return to Earth. Ingenuity is serving as a scout for the car-sized rover, on an extended mission that NASA granted after the little chopper aced its original five-flight technology-demonstrating campaign in the spring of 2021.
It might be time for Perseverance to return the favor and help its little robotic cousin out.
"Perseverance is currently out of line-of-sight with Ingenuity, but the team could consider driving closer for a visual inspection," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages both robots' missions, said via X on Friday.


Ingenuity has stayed aloft for more than 128 minutes and covered a total of 11 miles (17.7 kilometers) during its 72 Mars flights, according to the mission's flight log. 
It's unclear at the moment if those numbers will continue to go up. We'll have to wait and see if Ingenuity's handlers can get back in touch with the pioneering chopper, the first vehicle ever to explore the skies of a world beyond Earth.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will keep the beleaguered Boeing 737-9 Max planes grounded until it approves the aircraft manufacturer’s inspection and maintenance process.
The FAA said the planes will remain grounded until it approves an “extensive and rigorous inspection and maintenance process.” The agency said it currently needs “additional data” from Boeing after reviewing the company’s proposed inspection instructions.
“We are working to make sure nothing like this happens again,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in a statement. “Our only concern is the safety of American travelers and the Boeing 737-9 MAX will not return to the skies until we are entirely satisfied it is safe.”
As part of the initial inspections of their respective 737-9 Max fleets, both Alaska and United Airlines found loose bolts and hardware. Both airlines have canceled hundreds of flights since the incident. United told Travel + Leisure the airline typically schedules about 200 flights per day on the Max 9, while Boeing-related cancellations for Alaska could affect as many as 150 flights per day.
The planes were initially grounded after an Alaska Airlines 737-9 MAX aircraft suffered a dramatic mid-air blowout of a plug door panel on a flight from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, on Jan. 5. Prior to the incident, the aircraft had reportedly been restricted from flying to Hawaii after a warning light possibly indicating a pressurization problem had lit up on three different flights.
"It is time to re-examine the delegation of authority and assess any associated safety risks," Whitaker said in an additional statement. "The grounding of the 737-9 and the multiple production-related issues identified in recent years require us to look at every option to reduce risk. The FAA is exploring the use of an independent third party to oversee Boeing’s inspections and its quality system."
Alaska welcomed the decision in a statement and said the carrier would “enhance our own quality oversight of Alaska aircraft on the Boeing production line.”

The Peregrine spacecraft — which launched last week on the first US mission to aim for a moon landing in over 50 years — is headed back toward Earth and expected to make a fiery reentry after a critical fuel leak dashed its lunar ambitions.
The failed moon landing attempt is a setback for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, program, which recruits private companies to help the space agency investigate the lunar surface as it aims to return humans to the moon later this decade.
Astrobotic Technology, the company that developed the Peregrine lander under a $108 million contract with NASA, revealed Sunday that it made the decision to dispose of the spacecraft by allowing it to disintegrate midair while plunging back toward Earth.


“While we believe it is possible for the spacecraft to operate for several more weeks and could potentially have raised the orbit to miss the Earth, we must take into consideration the anomalous state of the propulsion system and utilize the vehicle’s onboard capability to end the mission responsibly and safely,” according to an update posted to the Pittsburgh-based company’s website. “We do not believe Peregrine’s re-entry poses safety risks, and the spacecraft will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.”
The Peregrine vehicle’s impending demise comes after the spacecraft faced challenges while en route to the moon, including an “anomaly” that resulted in its solar-powered battery pointing away from the sun and the fuel leak that left the spacecraft without enough propellant to complete its planned mission to gently touch down on the lunar surface.
It’s not yet clear what caused the leak.

Astrobotic and NASA are expected to give further updates on the mission during a news conference at 12 p.m. ET on Thursday.
“It is a great honor to witness firsthand the heroic efforts of our mission control team overcoming enormous challenges to recover and operate the spacecraft,” said Astrobotic CEO John Thornton in a Sunday statement. “I look forward to sharing these, and more remarkable stories, after the mission concludes on January 18. This mission has already taught us so much and has given me great confidence that our next mission to the Moon will achieve a soft landing.”
Weighing disposal optionsAstrobotic did have other options for disposing of the Peregrine lander.
The spacecraft could have been left to the cosmos, destined to spend eternity in the dark expanse. But the company said it decided against that route considering the “risk that our damaged spacecraft could cause a problem.” The Peregrine lander would essentially become a piece of uncontrolled garbage, capable of smashing into other objects in space, such as operational satellites.


The company may have also considered allowing the Peregrine vehicle to crash-land on the moon, as many spacecraft have done — intentionally and unintentionally — on lunar missions of years past.
When it returns to Earth, the vehicle will be obliterated as it smashes into the planet’s thick atmosphere at high speeds. The company said its decision to bring Peregrine back came after receiving “inputs from the space community and the U.S. Government on the most safe and responsible course of action.”
Critical errorsIf Peregrine had reached the moon, it might have become the first US spacecraft to land on the lunar surface since NASA’s Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
But the company acknowledged just hours after its spacecraft launched on January 8 that a soft landing on the moon would not be possible.
Astrobotic then switched course — aiming to operate the vehicle as a satellite as its tanks were drained.
Peregrine’s fuel leak slowed in the days following its launch, leaving the spacecraft with the ability to limp along for thousands of miles.
Peregrine mission abandons moon landing attempt after suffering ‘critical’ fuel loss
For the vast majority of the mission, the Peregrine lander has been controlled solely by its attitude control thrusters, which are tiny engines mounted to the side of the lander and designed to maintain stability or make precision movements.
At one point, the company said it was able to briefly power on one of the spacecraft’s main engines, which are designed to give up to three bursts of power to push the Peregrine lander farther out toward the moon after reaching space.
But — because of the fuel leak — long, controlled burns of the main engines were impossible, Astrobotic said.
As of Monday, the company said the spacecraft was about 218,000 miles (351,000 kilometers) from Earth.
What Peregrine could and couldn’t accomplishAstrobotic was able to power on some of the science instruments and other payloads on board the lander.
Two of NASA’s five payloads — the Neutron Spectrometer System and the Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer — were able to gather data on radiation levels in space, the space agency announced in a January 11 news release. While NASA had hoped to take those measurements on the lunar surface — where it’s planning to return astronauts later this decade — space agency officials indicated the data was still valuable.
The Peregrine lander was also able to activate a new sensor, developed by NASA, that was designed to help the spacecraft land on the moon. Called the Navigation Doppler Lidar, it uses lasers and the Doppler effect — which employs wave frequency to measure distance — to make precision navigations.
“Measurements and operations of the NASA-provided science instruments on board will provide valuable experience, technical knowledge, and scientific data to future CLPS lunar deliveries,” said Joel Kearns, the deputy associate administrator for exploration with NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, in a statement.
But at least one of NASA’s science instruments — the Laser Retroreflector Array — was not able to function. The LRA is a collection of eight prisms embedded in aluminum that can reflect lasers and relay precise locations. NASA engineers designed the array to become a permanent feature on the moon, helping other spacecraft orient their locations.
Likewise, an array of other payloads designed specifically to operate on the moon remain trapped aboard the Peregrine lander. They include a rover developed at Carnegie Mellon University and five tiny robots from the Mexican Space Agency that were designed to be catapulted onto the lunar surface.
The Peregrine spacecraft is also carrying various mementos, letters and even human remains that customers paid to fly on the mission.

The U.S. Air Force's unmanned X-37B space plane has flown four clandestine missions to date, carrying secret payloads on long-duration flights in Earth orbit.
The robotic vehicle resembles NASA's famous space shuttle but is much smaller. The X-37B is about 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and 9.5 feet (2.9 m) tall, with a wingspan just less than 15 feet (4.6 m). At launch, it weighs 11,000 lbs. (4,990 kilograms).
The X-37B's payload bay (the area in which the cargo is packed) measures 7 feet long by 4 feet wide (2.1 by 1.2 m) — about the size of a pickup truck bed. Just what the X-37B carries in there is unclear, however. Air Force officials generally comment only on the overall goals of the program, stressing that each payload is classified. [Photos: The X-37B Space Plane]
"The primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold: reusable spacecraft technologies for America's future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth," states an X-37B fact sheet produced by the Air Force.
Like the space shuttle, the solar-powered X-37B space plane launches vertically, with the aid of a rocket, and cruises back to Earth for a runway landing. The diminutive space plane is designed to operate at altitudes ranging from 110 to 500 miles (177 to 805 km).

A Brief History of the X-37B
​The X-37 program started in 1999 with NASA, which initially planned to construct two vehicles: an Approach and Landing Test Vehicle (ALTV) and an Orbital Vehicle.
NASA transferred the project to the U.S. military in 2004 — specifically, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). At that point, X-37 became a classified project.
DARPA finished the ALTV part of the program in 2006, conducting a series of captive-carry and free-flight tests. NASA's envisioned Orbital Vehicle was never built, but it served as the inspiration for the space plane that came to be called the X-37B.
The X-37B program is now run by the Air Force's Rapid Capabilities Office, with mission control for orbital flights based at the 3rd Space Experimentation Squadron at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado. The space planes are built by Boeing's Phantom Works division. 
Orbital ExperienceTwo different X-37B vehicles have flown a total of five missions, which are known as OTV-1, OTV-2, OTV-3 and OTV-4 (short for Orbital Test Vehicle). Four flights have reached space with the help of United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket. The fifth launched in September 2017 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. 
OTV-1 blasted off in April 2010 and stayed aloft for 224 days. OTV-2 stayed in space for more than twice as long, launching in March 2011 and returning to Earth 468 days later, in June 2012. OTV-3, which uses the same vehicle that flew the OTV-1 mission, began on Dec. 11, 2012, and ended 674 days later, in October 2014.
The OTV-4 mission marked the second flight for the X-37B that flew OTV-2. OTV-4 began on May 20, 2015, and broke OTV-3's duration record on March 25, 2017.  After 718 days in space, the OTV-4 mission ended with a smooth runway landing on May 7, 2017. It was the first X-37B landing at NASA's Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The three previous missions landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base.
The OTV-5 mission launched on Sept. 7, 2017 on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, lifting off from the historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. The mission lasted 780 days (another record) carried the Air Force Research Laboratory Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader, an experiment designed to "test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipe technologies in the long-duration space environment," according to an Air Force statement. It also carried several other experiments and small satellites, Air Force officials said. OTV-5 landed on Oct. 27, 2019 at NASA's Shuttle Landing Facility, marking the second time an X-27B has done so. 
"The X-37 is a technology testbed, and as such, pushing the envelope is the mission," Joan Johnson-Freese, professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., told Space.com, referring to OTV-3. "Endurance is one of several X-37 profile parameters that are being tested, along with others, such as in-flight capabilities and turnaround time for use."
All X-37B missions to date have launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida. While the first three touched down at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base, future missions beyond OTV-4 may continue to land at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, right next door to Cape Canaveral, officials have said. Boeing is using an old NASA space shuttle hangar at KSC to service the X-37B space planes for the U.S. Air Force.
Space weapon?The secrecy surrounding the X-37B and its payloads has spawned rumors that the vehicle could be a space weapon of some sort, perhaps tasked with capturing or damaging other nations' satellites.
But the space plane is likely too small and not maneuverable enough for such work, experts say. Instead, its chief mission is likely what Air Force officials have claimed all along: to test out new sensors and other next-generation satellite technologies, to see how they perform and hold up in the space environment.
"I absolutely think that's the primary mission," former Air Force orbital analyst Brian Weeden, who now works as a technical adviser for the nonprofit Secure World Foundation, told Space.com just before the launch of OTV-2.

The second-ever test flight of SpaceX's giant Starship rocket has spurred an investigation, just as the first one did.
Starship lifted off from SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas on Saturday (Nov. 18), kicking off a test mission that aimed to send the vehicle's upper stage most of the way around Earth.


The target was a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii about 90 minutes after launch. But Saturday's flight ended just eight minutes in, with the "rapid unscheduled disassembly" of Starship's upper stage. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) deemed this outcome a mishap and will supervise an investigation into its cause.
"The FAA will oversee the @SpaceX-led mishap investigation to ensure SpaceX complies with its FAA-approved mishap investigation plan and other regulatory requirements," the agency wrote via X on Saturday. There have been no reports of injuries or damage to public property as a result of the flight, the FAA added in another post.
The FAA also oversaw the investigation that followed Starship's first test mission, which launched from Starbase on April 20. The vehicle suffered a number of problems on that flight; several of its 33 first-stage Raptor engines conked out early, for example, and its two stages — the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage — failed to separate as planned. As a result, SpaceX commanded a detonation of the tumbling vehicle, which occurred four minutes after liftoff.

That launch also damaged some of Starbase's infrastructure, blasting out a crater beneath the facility's orbital launch mount and sending chunks of concrete and other debris raining down on the surrounding area.
The FAA closed that mishap investigation on Sept. 8, but other regulatory boxes still had to be checked before Starship could fly again. The agency finally granted a launch license on Nov. 15, after it had wrapped up a safety review and an environmental assessment.
It's hard to imagine this second investigation, and the ensuing licensing process, taking so long, because a lot went right on Saturday. 
For example, all 33 of Super Heavy's engines lit up upon ignition, and the booster separated successfully from the Starship upper stage as planned. Starship's six Raptors burned for an extended period, taking the spacecraft to a maximum altitude of 91 miles (148 kilometers), according to telemetry that SpaceX provided during its launch webcast. During the April 20 flight, Starship got just 24 miles (39 km) above the ground.

Indeed, SpaceX hailed Saturday's test flight as a success.
"Honestly, it's such an incredibly successful day, even though we did have a rapid unscheduled disassembly of both the Super Heavy booster and the Ship," SpaceX quality engineering manager Kate Tice said during the live webcast. (Super Heavy was supposed to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico about seven minutes after launch, but it exploded shortly after stage separation.) 
"That's great," Tice added. "We got so much data, and that will all help us to improve for our next flight."
It's unclear when that next flight will take place; that depends on the outcome of the investigation, and how many adjustments SpaceX may need to make before the FAA clears Starship for liftoff once again.

 NASA’s C-130 Hercules and crew safely touched down at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, after an around-the-globe journey to deliver the agency’s Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO). The United States research station, operated by the National Science Foundation, is host to NASA’s Antarctic long-duration balloon campaign in which the GUSTO mission will take a scientific balloon flight beginning December 2023.
The C-130 crew, which has now completed half of the 26,400-nautical-mile round-trip journey, first stopped at Fort Cavazos, Texas, on Oct. 17, to load the GUSTO observatory and members of its instrument team. Additional stops to service the aircraft and for crew rest included Travis Air Force Base (AFB), California; Hickman AFB, Hawaii; Pago Pago, American Samoa; and Christchurch, New Zealand, before finally reaching McMurdo, Antarctica – a mere 800 miles from the South Pole.

GUSTO, part of NASA’s Astrophysics Explorers Program, is set to fly aboard a football-stadium-sized, zero-pressure scientific balloon 55 days and beyond, on a mapping mission of a portion of the Milky Way Galaxy and nearby Large Magellanic Cloud. A telescope with carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen emission line detectors will measure the interstellar medium, the cosmic material found between stars, and trace the full lifecycle of that matter. GUSTO’s science observations will be performed in a balloon launch from Antarctica to allow for enough observation time aloft, access to astronomical objects, and solar power provided by the austral summer in the polar region.
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Aircraft Office in Wallops Island, Virginia, which manages the C-130, spent nearly a year in coordination efforts preparing for GUSTO’s trip to its launch site. From international clearances with agencies, cargo configurations with NASA’s Balloon Program Office, logistical support with the National Science Foundation at McMurdo, to specialized training on nontraditional navigation systems in Antarctica, the Aircraft Office developed an extensive plan to safely deliver the intricate science payload.
The first-ever mission to Antarctica for the NASA C-130 aircraft presented several long-haul cargo flight challenges. Mission managers and NASA’s Office of International and Interagency Relations (OIIR) started early to stay ahead of coordination of international flight clearances.
“We work very hard to make sure that we execute the mission at a high standard of technical competence and professionalism to maintain NASA’s international reputation,” said John Baycura, Wallops research pilot on the GUSTO mission.
Large time-zone changes challenge the crew’s circadian rhythm. Ninety hours in flight across multiple time zones requires an extra pilot and flight engineer on the mission to share the workload. Mandatory crew rest days at strategic locations, per NASA policy, ensure the crew receives enough time to rest, adjust to the schedule, and proceed safely.

Unexpected weather also tops the list of most pressing challenges for this type of flight. Oceanic crossings come with the added risk of weather complicated by no radar coverage over the ocean. The crew uses DOD and civilian weather agencies to identify hazardous weather and adjust flight routes, altitude, and timings accordingly. “For the specific case of McMurdo, while en route, we called the weather shop at McMurdo Station to get a forecast update before we reached our ‘safe return’ point. Using a conservative approach, we decided whether to continue to McMurdo Station or return to Christchurch and try again the next day,” said Baycura.
For this mission, no commercial entities supported the final leg to Antarctica. U.S. Air Force C-17’s and the New York Air National Guard LC-130’s that typically transport to McMurdo Station had limited space in their schedules. By using NASA’s C-130 for this specialized cargo mission, “the balloon program gained a dedicated asset with a highly experienced crew and support team. This greatly reduced the standard project risks to schedule, cargo, and cost,” said Baycura.

70-year-old California man is waiting quietly for officials from the Department of Defense (DoD) to contact him after he flew his private plane over Area 51 out of curiosity, the Daily Caller has learned.
The private pilot successfully flew over the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) inside the Nellis Air Force Base, a highly classified military installation commonly known as Area 51, and is now awaiting punishment from authorities, he told the DOA in multiple voice messages.


Flight log [Daily Caller obtained]

He flew over Area 51 in a slightly diagonal line around Emigrant Valley and Groom Lake inside Area 51, according to an open source flight record obtained by the Daily Caller. Area 51 airspace typically requires permission from air traffic control to enter because of its sensitive military contents.The Daily Caller identified the private pilot by using pilot registration records and cross referencing the model of the plane. The man in question confirmed his flight over Area 51 to the Daily Caller and said he did it to test “frequencies” in restricted air space.
He told the Daily Caller he mostly saw desert and mountains in the restricted air space, with no signs of UFOs or alien life forms. He said the plane was not intercepted by military aircrafts despite Area 51’s notorious sensitivity and military exercises.
The man expects to be in touch with the U.S. military because of the incident and believes his pilot’s license will be suspended after an extended bureaucratic process, he told the Daily Caller. The Caller is protecting his identity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
The NTTR is a Major Range Test Facility Base (MRTB) where advanced military training and tactical development takes place alongside research for the DoD and Department of Energy, according to the Nellis Air Force base.

“There are several agencies that have jurisdiction over various parts of the Nevada Test and Training Range. The U.S. Air Force controls the airspace over the range and roughly 2.9 million acres of land withdrawn for military use. Various organizations including the Department of Energy, Department of the Interior and private towns such as Rachel also manage portions of the land,” a spokesperson for the Nellis Air Force Base told the Caller in a statement.
“As a matter of practice, we do not discuss specific security measures. The Nevada Test and Training Range provides flexible, realistic and multidimensional battlespace to test and develop tactics as well as conduct advanced training in support of U.S. national interests; any attempt to illegally access the area is highly discouraged,” the spokesperson added.
The CIA first acknowledged the Area 51 testing site in August 2013 when the agency complied with a public records request from George Washington University scholars, Reuters reported.
Area 51 was developed by the CIA in the 1950s to test U-2 reconnaissance planes and it was later used during the Cold War to develop the Air Force’s stealth capabilities, the documents obtained by George Washington’s National Security Archive show.
The predecessor to the Department of Energy officially added Area 51 to its Nevada testing site with a 1958 land use order, records indicate. The area is located roughly 80 miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada, and covers roughly 38,000 acres or 60 square miles of terrain.
Area 51 was hidden from the American public for decades and its secrecy has garnered widespread speculation surrounding the presence of potential UFOs and extraterrestrial life.
One example, the Roswell incident in 1947, revolved around a suspected UFO found outside of Roswell, New Mexico, that some believe was brought to Area 51 for testing and experiments. The reports of a flying saucer around Roswell generated mass speculation about UFOs at the beginning of the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union, according to the National Air and Space Museum.
The Roswell incident continues to be a source of theorizing and speculation, as shown by the History Channel’s August 2023 “UFO Hunters” episode centered around the suspected UFO sighting.
The FBI initially believes the flying saucer spotted in Roswell was a weather balloon with a radar attached to it, according to a 1947 memo from the FBI’s Dallas field office. The U.S. Air Force later investigated the Roswell incident in the 1990s and concluded the flying saucer was from a balloon research project.
In addition, the Air Force investigation found that claims of alien bodies observed in the desert were either the result of test dummies from the research project or a combination of mishaps that tragically took the lives of Air Force personnel.
Three witnesses testified in July before the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs
for a hearing related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), more commonly known as UFOs.
David Grusch, a whistleblower and former DoD employee, testified with two Navy veterans about suspected UAP encounters and the U.S. government’s alleged knowledge of them. Grusch also made explosive allegations surrounding the U.S. government’s alleged discovery of alien life forms and a widespread government coverup of such knowledge. His allegations remain uncorroborated.
The DoD launched a website in August with the goal of providing declassified photos and videos of resolved UAP cases in addition to other resources related to UAPs. The new website is run by the DoD’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office and was authorized as part of the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.
In late January and early February, a Chinese spy balloon flew over U.S. airspace for several days and traveled over sensitive military sites before being shot down at the direction of President Joe Biden. The balloon was made with commercial American technology and specialized Chinese equipment indicating it was part of a spy mission.
The DoD did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

Seeing the interest to host the National Championship Air Races at each of these unique venues gives me great hope for the future of air racing,” said Fred Telling, CEO and chairman of the board for the Reno Air Racing Association. “We’re looking for our next home, somewhere we can celebrate many more anniversaries, so we’ve assembled an expert committee that is putting an extreme amount of care and diligence into choosing our next location.”
The bidders that responded to the request for proposals include:

• Casper, Wyo.                         ·Buckeye, Ariz.
• Pueblo, Colo.                         ·Roswell, N. Mex.
• Thermal, Calif.                       ·Wendover, Utah

The National Championship Air Races is a unique event that has called northern Nevada home since its founding in 1964, nearly 60 years ago. In the past 10 years alone, the event has attracted more than one million visitors to the region, generated more than $750 million for the economy and contributed significant aviation-related education and outreach to schools and non-profits all around the area.
The committee researching the bid submissions is made up of RARA personnel from all areas, including operations, safety, security, business development, and more. The race classes are also represented in the group and will continue to be an integral part of the selection process. At this point, the selection committee is thoroughly vetting the different proposals and will conduct site visits later this year. There are numerous factors to consider, but a few of the critical requirements for the event include considerable open land available for the racecourses, suitable runways, ramp, and hangar space, administrative and security facilities, as well as proximity to hotels, commercial airports, and restaurants.

“We only want to go through this process once and because of that, we’re going to make sure our next location is the best fit for the future of the air races,” said Terry Matter, board member and chairman of the selection committee. “Each of the bidders’ proposals were thoroughly prepared and completely addressed the RARA RFP requirements. We are so grateful for their initial attendance at the bidders’ conferences and at NCAR in September, and for the time and effort each one of them put into their proposal preparation. It is very exciting to know that our new home will be in one of these great cities. Soon our Site Selection Committee will visit these locations to further evaluate their ability to be the future host of the National Championship Air Races.”
A final decision is expected to be announced early next year as the organization prepares for a final air show in Reno in 2024 before moving to the new location in 2025. For more information and ways to support the organization, visit www.airrace.org.
About the National Championship Air Races
The National Championship Air Races are held every September just north of Reno by the Reno Air Racing Association, a 501(c)(3). The event has become an institution for Northern Nevada and aviation enthusiasts from around the world with seven racing classes, a large display of static aircraft and several military and civilian flight demonstrations. Independent economic impact studies show that the event generates as much as $100 million annually for the local economy. For more information on the National Championship Air Races, visit AirRace.org.

Daher has recently surpassed 500 deliveries of the TBM 900 series single turboprop. The milestone aircraft was handed over to a U.S. customer just ahead of NBAA-BACE 2023.
The TBM 900 was first introduced in 2014, following the production of 324 TBM 700s and 338 TBM 850s. The first of these aircraft—the TBM 700 initially developed jointly by Socata (formerly Morane-Saulnier) and Mooney—made its first flight on July 14, 1988. The more powerful TBM 850 first flew in 2005, shortly before Daher took a 70 percent stake in what had become Eads-Socata. It subsequently acquired the remaining 30 percent from Eads.
Notably, the TBM 900 ushered in winglets and a Hartzell five-blade scimitar propeller, among other improvements to the turboprop. The family evolved through the 930 (2016, a higher-end version with Garmin G3000 touchscreen cockpit), the 910 (2018, similar to the 900 with G1000 NXi avionics), and the 940 (2019, a derivative of the 930 with autothrottle and, from 2020, the Homesafe emergency autoland system).
Today the flagship is the TBM 960, which is powered by a PT6E-66XT turboprop with dual-channel digital electronic propeller and engine control. Following its unveiling in 2022, the TBM 960 has been a strong seller. Deliveries had reached 92 at the end of September, and more than 100 aircraft are on order. That equates to more than two years of production.