Aerospace | featured news

General Electric is on the verge of finalizing a deal to buy Italian aerospace group Avio for as much as €3 billion ($4 billion), according to people familiar with the negotiations.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan are building the world's biggest plane to help launch cargo and astronauts into space, in the latest of several ventures fueled by technology tycoons clamoring to write America's next chapter in spaceflight. Their plans, unveiled Tuesday, call for a twin-fuselage aircraft with wings longer than a football field to carry a rocket high into the atmosphere and drop it, avoiding the need for a launch pad and the expense of additional rocket fuel.

Hang onto your luggage, Boeing wants to fly you into space -- at least into low-Earth orbit. The aerospace company and a Virginia company have reached a preliminary agreement to sell seats on Boeing commercial crew spacecraft to individuals, companies, nongovernmental organizations, and U.S. federal agencies, Boeing said in a news release.

The aerospace company is consolidating administrative staffs in Redondo Beach and El Segundo, but still has more than 850 open positions for skilled, technical jobs.

Northrop Grumman Corp., the region's second-largest private employer, is planning to lay off as many as 750 workers, most of them in Southern California, as it consolidates administrative staffs in El Segundo and Redondo Beach.