Although the airframe manufacturers remain the major integrators and sellers of aircraft, costs of production have shifted increasingly toward the key subsystems of propulsion and avionics and auxiliary equipment such as landing gear and, in the case of military airplanes, armament. Typically, for civil transports the costs average 50 percent for structure and integration, 20 percent for engines, and 30 percent for avionics. For military aircraft, the cost of avionics, including systems associated with self-protection and weapons management, can reach 50 percent, with 20 percent for engines and 30 percent for airframe and integration. In fact, the classic final assembly and test phases represent a mere 7–10 percent of the cost of modern fighter aircraft.

With the exception of lightweight piston engines for private craft, jet engines account for the largest production lines. The manufacture of jet engines, including turboprops and turboshafts, requires critical attention to close tolerances, which in turn demands precision forgings, castings, and machinery from the suppliers of the engine makers. Quality issues clearly drive this production and have stimulated inspection and alignment methods employing laser instrumentation and computer techniques that enhance the application of quality-control methods such as statistical process control.

Avionics production involves not only the precision manufacture of computer processors but also extra safety and reliability issues. This has resulted in extended test requirements and tightened limits on performance parameters and has stimulated the development of new processes for circuit-board assembly.

An increasingly important element of avionics production is the operating software. This is evidenced by the rise in software cost for U.S. defense programs from $5 billion to $35 billion between 1985 and 1995. Modern production methods for software employ “factory” techniques that translate requirements directly to code through an automated process. These have reduced the rate of software defects and substantially cut development time. Such gains are particularly significant in the context of the several million lines of code required by modern fighters and commercial transports, compared with the 20,000 lines associated with military aircraft of the 1960s.

Satellite, launch vehicle, and missile manufacture

The manufacturing processes for aircraft are largely paralleled in the production of satellites, their launch vehicles, and missiles. Because minimum weight is critical for all three kinds of products, the use of composites has grown such that it can include the entire structure for satellites and smaller missiles. For these vehicles, electronics production plays an increased role in manufacture, accounting for as much as 70 percent of the total cost. Nevertheless, the small quantity of satellites necessary, even for large constellations in communications systems, limits some of the benefits of volume production, such as reduced costs, although this is not necessarily true of component products that are common to several satellite designs—for example, sensors, instruments, small rocket motors, and communications equipment.

Building of subassemblies

Assembly of aerospace vehicles at the prime contractor or systems integrator begins with the accumulation of subassemblies. An example of a typical subassembly for a transport aircraft is the rear fuselage section, which is itself composed of several segments. (These segments are often built by subcontractors, who in turn deal with their own suppliers of the segments’ constituent elements.) The segments are taken to the subassembly area, where teams of workers fit them into support jigs or fixtures and join them into a unit, within which the interior equipment is then installed. In similar manner, teams put together other subassemblies such as the remaining fuselage sections, wing sections, tail sections, and engine nacelles. The various subassemblies then are taken to the main assembly line, where final integration takes place.

Similarly, spacecraft comprise subassemblies (typically the structural, propulsion, guidance and control, communication, and payload modules, plus solar arrays when required), each of which is made up of many components. These modules may be built within the plant of the spacecraft integrator or by subcontractors, with final assembly and testing being the usual responsibilities and concentration of the former.

In both aircraft and spacecraft, integration of a subassembly’s components is most often effected in black boxes. In addition to enclosing electronic and electrical subelements, these housings have connectors that interface with various systems in the vehicles.

The performance of subassemblies as units is verified prior to their integration into final assemblies. In the case of structural subassemblies, verification usually is confined to load testing, alignment and assurance of dimensions and tolerances, and electrical conformity checks for installed cabling. For subassemblies with electrical and electronic, hydraulic, and mechanically actuated components, extensive tests are usually performed in simulated flight environments incorporating vacuum, temperature, and vibration excursions. The required time, test equipment, and related computer software represent a significant portion of the cost of these elements, some 10–25 percent.