In Pictures: Top Aerospace & Defense Stories, Jun. 13, 2022

Poland Plans To Buy AW149 Fleet, Defense Minister Says

Poland plans to purchase a fleet of Leonardo AW149 medium helicopters to meet a long-standing requirement for a multimission helicopter. Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak revealed the decision during a June 10 speech to military leaders in Warsaw. He listed several key plans to purchase new armored fighting vehicles, tank destroyers and Earth observation satellites. Credit: Leonardo Helicopters

SpaceX Spared New Environmental Assessment For Boca Chica Ops

SpaceX has some more work to do before it will receive U.S. clearance to launch Starship on an orbital flight test from Boca Chica Beach, Texas, the FAA has determined in its long-awaited study assessing the program’s environmental impacts. However, with the release of the FAA’s Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) on June 13, SpaceX will be spared the time and expense of performing a new Environmental Impact Statement. Credit: SpaceX

French, German NH90 Fleets To Be Supported By OEM

NHIndustries claims that French and German NH90 fleets will benefit from improved availability rates through a new support contract for the rotorcraft agreed to by the OEM and NATO agency NAHEMA. The new performance-based NH90 Operational Support contract will see the two nations handing of much of the NH90 logistics and maintenance activity to NHIndustries, the joint venture of Airbus, Leonardo and Fokker announced on June 13. Credit: NHIndustries

NASA Hurricane-Tracking Cubesats Lost In Launch Accident

NASA’s gamble on a startup launch company to deliver a pair of novel hurricane-probing cubesats into orbit got off to a rough start on June 12 after the upper stage of an Astra 3.3 rocket shut down early, dooming the first two members of the agency’s Tropics constellation. With seasonal Florida afternoon thunderstorms building in the west, Astra Space prepared for the seventh orbital launch attempt of its low-cost, small-satellite Rocket 3.3 booster. Credit: Astra/NASASpaceflight webcast

U.S. Space Force Working To Open Foreign Military Sales Office

The U.S. Space Force is working to launch its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) office, opening the door to what it says will be the first sale of a U.S. military satellite to a foreign country. Space Systems Command’s International Affairs office at Los Angeles AFB in El Segundo, California, is receiving interest from international customers in acquiring U.S. satellites. Credit: Boeing

U.S. Navy, Marine Corps Hold Safety Stand Down Following Crashes

Most U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviation units were grounded for a safety pause on June 13 after a series of fatal incidents within about one week. Vice Adm. Kenneth Whitesell, commander of Naval Air Forces, ordered the stand down to review the services’ risk-management practices and train on threat and error-management processes, the Navy says in a statement. Stateside units conducted the stand down on June 13, and deployed units must conduct a pause “at the earliest possible opportunity.” Credit: USN

Ampaire Links With Black & Veatch On Airport Electrification

Hybrid-electric propulsion startup Ampaire has partnered with sustainable infrastructure developer Black & Veatch to electrify airports to support the deployment of advanced air mobility (AAM). Under their memorandum of understanding, the companies will work to identify opportunities to construct infrastructure for electric aircraft at early-adopter airports in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Credit: Ampaire

Diehl Could Include Datalink In Future Missile Concept

A heat-seeking missile concept proposed by Diehl could feature a datalink to support beyond visual range, air-to-air missile intercepts, a company spokesman says. Diehl’s 225-m² booth at Eurosatory offers a few new details about the secretive Future Combat Air-to-Air Missile (FCAAM), which was first unveiled at the DSEI exhibition last September. Credit: Diehl

The Weekly Debrief: U.S. Air Force Looks To Future Of Tactical Airlift

For most of the past 70 years, the Lockheed Martin C-130 has defined the role of tactical airlift in the U.S. Air Force inventory. Since the Hercules emerged from the drawing board of Lockheed designer Willis Hawkins in 1952, the four-engine airlifter has taken on many roles, yet remains in production as the Air Force’s sole tactical airlifter, even as the Marietta, Georgia, assembly line enters its eighth decade. Credit: USAF

Lockheed Adds Inovor For JP9102 Australian Military Satellite Bid

Lockheed Martin will be teaming with Australia’s Inovor under the so-called Hosted Missions Program for the JP9102 military satellite project. If Lockheed’s proposal is selected by the Australian government, Inovor will be able to build satellites and utilize surplus capacity aboard JP102 launch vehicles. Credit: Inovor Technologies

Lockheed Developing New Roles For JAGM

Medium-range and surface-to-air versions of the AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) are being internally developed, potentially expanding the new weapon’s utility as the baseline version awaits a full-rate production decision, a Lockheed Martin executive says. The rotorcraft-launched anti-tank missile with a dual-mode seeker entered service in 2018 with a listed range of up to about 8 km (5 mi.). Unveiled June 13 at the Eurosatory exhibition in Paris, Lockheed’s JAGM-MR concept proposes doubling the maximum range to more than 16 km. Credit: Lockheed Martin

USAF Wants New Ideas For Sustaining Next ICBM

The U.S. Air Force wants to hear from industry on how to sustain the Sentinel nuclear missile system, including its new re-entry vehicle. The service on June 13 issued a request for information for traditional and “innovative” courses of action to address Sentinel availability, life cycle cost, mission effectiveness, mission constraints, statutes and other potential impacts on the missile’s missions. Credit: http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/ESA_Multimedia/Copyright_Notice_Images

Europe Looking For Alternatives To Russian Titanium

As the war in Ukraine continues to make the supply of titanium from Russia uncertain, the European aerospace industry is pressing on with efforts to find replacement sources. Titanium is a key ingredient in aircraft construction and Russian suppliers accounted for 30-50% of Europe’s needs before the war, says Raphael Danino-Perraud, a researcher at the French institute of international relations. Credit: Thierry Zoccolan/AFP/Getty Images

Rocket Lab To Build Solar Arrays For NASA’s GLIDE Spacecraft

Rocket Lab has been selected by Ball Aerospace to manufacture the solar array panel for NASA’s Global Lyman-Alpha Imager of Dynamic Exosphere (GLIDE) mission spacecraft. NASA plans to launch the GLIDE spacecraft in 2025 on a heliophysics mission intended to study the exosphere, the outermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere, which is between 500 km and 10,000 km in altitude. Credit: NASA

From Poland planning to buy AW149 fleet to SpaceX spared new environmental assessment for Boca Chica Ops. Take a look at these and more in our daily roundup of aerospace & defense news.

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