In Pictures: Top Aerospace & Defense Stories, Nov. 16 2022

Credit: NPO Lavochkin. Russia plans to more than double its government-owned constellation of Earth-observation satellites in 2023-25, Valery Zaichko, deputy head of Roscosmos’ space navigation department, told an Earth-monitoring conference in Moscow.

Credit: U.S. Air Force. Turboprop light attack aircraft could be a partial alternative answer to Ukraine’s air-defense needs as the country battles a growing threat of low-cost Iranian-made loitering munitions.

Credit: U.S. Defense Department. Representatives of almost 50 nations pledged to continue helping Ukraine strengthen its air- and defense-missile systems during a Pentagon-led meeting Nov. 15, the day after Russia launched one of its largest waves of strikes as part of its invasion.

Eurofighter

Credit: Mark Wagner/Aviation Week. U.S. Air Force fleet plans include keeping Boeing F-15Es with higher-thrust engines for the long-term, leaving the majority of the 30-year-old fleet vulnerable to retirement, a senior Air Force official says.

Credit: INSA. The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office has opened a new call to industry for hyperspectral imagery, following similar calls for electro-optical, radio-frequency and synthetic-aperture radar.

Credit: U.S. Defense Department. The Pentagon has failed its fifth straight audit and though the department has made movement toward cleaning up its books, the top official in charge of the effort says there should have been more progress.

Credit: SpaceX. SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System (HLS) will support the second and first NASA Artemis-era missions to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon under a $1.15 billion contract modification.

Credit: Alamy stock photo. Japan is mulling a low-Earth-orbit (LEO) constellation of satellites to help it track modern hypersonic ballistic missiles, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun has reported, citing government sources.