Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, June 6, 2016

The Blue Origin New Shepard reusable suborbital launch system has joined NASA’s stable of rides to space and near-space for experiments under its Flight Opportunities Program.

Sixteen of San Francisco-based Planet Labs’ latest Dove CubeSats completed a three-day deployment cycle from the International Space Station late June 1. The small Earth-imaging satellites were deployed two at a time using NanoRacks commercial deployment hardware beginning May 30 at 7:40 a.m. EDT. The activities were complete with the eighth deployment on June 1 at 10:15 p.m. EDT. The Planet Labs’ Dove Flock 2 e and Flock 2 e prime satellites were delivered to the ISS earlier this year aboard a NASA-contracted Orbital ATK Cygnus re-supply mission.

The U.S. Army launched the in-development Lockheed Martin Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) from a General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft system (UAS) on May 25, hitting a moving truck target.

DIEHL DEFENSE and ELBIT SYSTEMS expanded their cooperation on Directional Infrared Countermeasures (Dircm) self-protection system beyond Bundeswehr AIRBUS A400Ms to include self-defense systems for combat- and military transport helicopters. NORTHROP GRUMMAN has $62.4m U.S. Navy contract for operation and maintenance services in support of Broad Area Maritime Surveillance-Demonstrator (BAMS-D) program. FOKKER will produce and support landing gear for GENERAL ATOMICS AERONAUTICAL SYSTEMS INC. Predator B/MQ-9 UAV.

Sikorsky’s entry into Darpa’s VTOL X-Plane competition may not have been selected, but the company sees missions for an unmanned aircraft that can operate from small-deck warships with high speed and long range.

Naval Sea Systems Command Expeditionary Missions Program Office, Visual Augmentation Systems program recently began to transition Wide Field of View night vision goggles to the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command warfighters, Navy officials say.

Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP) and its branch clinics are helping aircraft pilots cut down on the noise and still communicate as needed.

The U.S. Navy’s P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and American ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems are helping stitch together a security net for the U.S. and its allies in the Asia-Pacific region, Defense Secretary Ash Carter says.

The U.S. Navy is struggling to meet traditional service readiness needs for aerial missions, says Capt. Randy Stearns, commodore for the Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic.

Airbus Defense and Space’s electronics and border security (EBS) business will be relaunched under the new brand name Hensoldt in 2017.

To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. For a complete list of Aviation Week Network’s upcoming events, and to register, visit www.aviationweek.com/events (Bold type indicates new calendar listing). June 6-7—Global Conference on Space and the Information Society - GLIS, “Connecting the world via space – policies, technologies, applications,” Geneva, Switzerland. For more information go to www.iafastro.org/events/global-series-conferences/glis-2016/