February 17, 2016

Gogo: We’ll Fight to Keep American Airlines Business from ViaSat (Source: ViaSat)
In-flight WiFi provider Gogo Inc.’s stock was down 30 percent early Feb. 16 on news that American Airlines had filed suit to reject its Gogo contract because competitor ViaSat can offer better performance. Gogo did not dispute American’s right, under certain circumstances, to annul the contract if a better technology was on offer. But the company said this is only allowed following a procedure under which Gogo is allowed to make a counter-offer. (2/16)

Honeywell Completes COM DEV Acquisition (Source: Design Engineering)
American aerospace and manufacturing giant Honeywell has announced the completion of its acquisition of Cambridge, ON-based space hardware maker COM DEV International in a $455 million deal. COM DEV manufactures and sells devices such as transponders used in satellites and satellite ground stations, and their hardware is found on 950 spacecraft and 80 per cent of all commercial communication satellites. (2/15)

Hold Up, Did We Just Crack Time Travel? (Source: Daily Beast)
Like a bowling ball sitting amid a trampoline, black holes are massive objects that warp the fabric of space-time. Anything (say, a golf ball) that approaches a black hole (the bowling ball) gets faster the closer it gets because that is where the fabric of space-time (the trampoline) is most warped. This warping is caused by any and everything with mass, but is especially intense around the greatest objects in the universe: black holes. And that’s where the magic happens.

“Time travel might be possible in situations that involve these very strong gravitational fields,” another Princeton astrophysicist, Edwin Turner, tells The Daily Beast. “You would only get time travel in the strong-field gravity.” The greater the warping of space-time, the closer point A on one side of a black hole gets to point Z on the other side. Theoretically, gravity can be so intense around a supermassive black hole that points A and Z can actually touch, allowing for points B through Y to be bypassed altogether. (2/16)

Northrop Grumman Survives Boeing/Lockheed Protest of Bomber Contract Award (Source: Bloomberg)
Boeing and Lockheed Martin lost their challenge to the Pentagon’s choice of Northrop Grumman to build a heavy bomber valued at about $80 billion. The Government Accountability Office denied the protest filed by the two biggest U.S. defense contractors, the agency said Tuesday. The companies could still pursue the dispute in court, and Boeing suggested it may do that.

Northrop, shut out of prime contracts for U.S. warplanes since the B-2 in the 1980s, was chosen by the Air Force in October to produce the military’s first new bomber since the Cold War and one of the biggest U.S. weapons systems of the next decade. In response to the GAO decision, the Air Force is lifting a stop-work order imposed on Northrop when the the protest was filed, service spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said. (2/16)