In Pictures: Top Aerospace & Defense Stories, Apr. 25, 2022

Angola Orders Maritime Surveillance C295s

Angola is the latest customer for the maritime patrol variant of Airbus’ C295 twin-turboprop airlifter. Credit: Airbus

Aerobility Delivers First Updated Grob G109B Able Motorglider

Aerobility, a UK aviation nonprofit offering the disabled the opportunity to fly, is showcasing its Grob G109B Able motorglider at Aero Fridrichshafen in its first public display in Europe. Credit: Aerobility

China’s TCab Completes Transition Flights On Subscale eVTOL

Chinese startup TCab Tech has conducted transition flight tests with a 50%-scale demonstrator of its planned E20 electric vertical takeoff and landing air taxi. Credit: TCab Tech

Axiom Crew Wraps Up Extended Stay At ISS

The four-member Axiom-1 private astronaut mission departed the International Space Station on April 24, ending the first U.S.-backed commercial flight to the orbital outpost and clearing the docking port for the arrival of the next ISS resident crew later this week. Credit: SpaceX

NASA’s Osiris-Rex To Chase Down Near Earth Object

NASA’s long-running sample return mission to the asteroid Bennu has received a nine-year, $200 million extension and the promise of a new name, Osiris-Apophis Explorer (Osiris-Apex), as it travels to its new second destination, Apophis, an asteroid that is to make a close approach to Earth in 2029. Launched on Sept. 8, 2016, Osiris-Rex’s journey to Bennu reached its destination in late 2018 for a lengthy close-up surveillance. On Oct. 20, 2020, the spacecraft touched down briefly in the northern hemisphere of the spinning-top-shaped asteroid to gather samples materials. Credit: NASA

Honeywell APU System Chosen For Defiant X Bid

For its Defiant X helicopter, Sikorsky and Boeing have selected Honeywell’s engine and power systems technology. The Defiant X is competing against Bell’s V-280 to become the U.S. Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA). The service is expected to make a selection later this year and plans to receive the first unit of FLRAA in fiscal 2030. Credit: Sikorsky-Boeing

CH-53K Gains IOC Approval After 17-Year Development Cycle

The U.S. Marine Corps says the Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion reached the initial operational capability (IOC) milestone on April 22, completing a 17-year journey from the award of the development contract in 2005. The IOC criteria required the Marines to have four helicopters acquired as system development test articles, along with trained crews. The heavy-lift CH-53K is scheduled to become fully operational in fiscal 2029. Credit: Lockheed Martin

Avionics Upgrade Drives New F-35 Delays, Costs

A modernization effort for the Lockheed Martin F-35 will take three more years and cost about $741 million more to complete, the watchdog arm of Congress said April 25. The last of 66 capabilities added by the Block 4 program will enter production in 2029, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says in an annual update on the program. Credit: USAF

Proposed Drone Superhighway Would Link UK Cities

In a bid to promote the commercialization of drone-based products and services, a plan to build a 165-mi. network of drone “superhighways” linking cities across the UK has been submitted by a consortium led by unified traffic management (UTM) provider Altitude Angel. Project Skyway would link Reading in southeast England with Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Coventry and Rugby in the Midlands. The project has been submitted for government funding support to the UK Department of Business, Energy and Strategy’s Innovate UK program. Credit: Altitude Angel

SLS Rolls Back To VAB For Repairs

NASA is preparing to return the Space Launch System (SLS) Moon rocket and Orion capsule to the Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) on April 25, following a pair of abbreviated tanking tests at the launchpad. The crawler-transporter carrying the 322-ft.-tall SLS, which is anchored to a mobile launcher platform, is due to begin the 8-12 hr. trek from Launch Complex (LC) 39B to the VAB at 5:30 p.m. EDT on April 25. Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

NASA Has Strategy For Lucy Solar Array Deployment Attempt

NASA has a strategy to secure the second of two circular solar arrays that failed to fully deploy and latch following the launch of the $989 million Lucy mission to conduct first-ever, close-up observations of Trojan asteroids. The asteroids are believed to be remnants of the primordial materials that formed Jupiter and the other outer planets. Credit: NASA

SpaceX Completes Private Charter To ISS

A prolonged, privately financed mission to the International Space Station (ISS) ended on April 25 with the return of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule chartered by Houston-based Axiom Space. The spacecraft, carrying Axiom’s vice president for business development and three paying passengers, splashed down off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, at 1:06 p.m. EDT, ending the 17-day Axiom-1 (Ax-1) mission. Credit: SpaceX/Axiom Space webcast

The Weekly Debrief: Death Of Another Hypersonic Missile Program?

Three test failures in one year first earned a demotion for the hypersonic Lockheed Martin AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), and then they invited a death sentence. As the Pentagon unveiled its fiscal 2023 budget request last month, doubts already swirled around the future of the most ambitious of a group of U.S. hypersonic weapons launched into development and prototyping during the last five years. Credit: U.S. Air Force/Edwards AFB

Poland Looks To U.S. OEMS For Attack Helicopter Need

Poland looks set to choose between two U.S.-produced rotorcraft to fulfill its long-running attack helicopter requirement. Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak confirmed on April 21 that Warsaw is mulling offers for two attack helicopters: one from Bell, likely for the AH-1Z Viper, and a second from Boeing for the AH-64 Apache. Credit: Chen Chuanren

From Angola ordering maritime surveillance C295s, to a UK startup Aerobility, a UK aviation nonprofit firm offering the disabled the opportunity to fly. Take a look at these and more in our daily roundup of aerospace & defense news.

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