LONG BEACH, CA--Last Sunday night, Elon Musk shared a photo of the tooling that will be used to make carbon-fiber composites for the SpaceX Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) spaceship, reports Ars Technica. SpaceX intends to manufacture the BFR components near its Hawthorne, CA, headquarters for easy shipping to test sites and launch pads.

Arcs and sparks are commonly used to dramatically depict welding in television commercials, photographs and other images. But in resistance projection welding (RPW), such flashes of light indicate poor welding.

Airplanes old and new share many of the same types of components. One is a nacelle, or engine housing, with an inlet lip skin that ensures smooth air flow. However, not all planes have similarly shaped lip skins.

Engineers at Stelia Aerospace, an Airbus subsidiary that specializes in aerostructures and aircraft seating, have created the world’s first self-reinforced fuselage panel. They used additive manufacturing to integrate stiffening structures that provide the reinforcement.

ASHEVILLE, NC--GE Aviation is set to invest around $105 million in its ceramic matrix composite (CMC) components manufacturing plant here to meet growing product demand.

The key to Orville and Wilbur Wright’s historic 1903 flight was wing warping. Today, NASA engineers are developing a similar technique to increase the performance and efficiency of fixed-wing aircraft.

LAFAYETTE, IN--Production of LEAP engines at the GE Aviation factory here will approximately double, to more than 1,000 this year, and the rate is slated to grow to 2,000 engines a year by 2020. Employment is on track to reach 230 by 2019, from the current 130.

For the past decade, carbon-fiber composites have been the darling of the aerospace sector, receiving countless praise and widespread attention. Reinforced polymers have dramatically changed the way that many types of airframes are designed and built.

WASHINGTON--Lockheed Martin has proposed to relocate production of the F-16 from Forth Worth, TX, to India if the country decides to buy a large number of jets. Indian defense contractor Tata Advanced Systems Ltd. would perform final assembly of the aircraft.