Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

Sat tracking, data and comm provider Blue Sky Network has acquired Applied Satellite Engineering, a designer and manufacturer of advanced sat comm equipment.

NASA’s budget represents one half of one percent of the federal budget, Administrator Jim Bridenstine says. “If we had a full 1% of the federal budget you can imagine the impact we would have.”

Boeing has received the first installment of $2.38 billion the U.S. Air Force will spend on the Huey replacement effort.

Defense Secretary James Mattis says the S-300 missile system keeps Assad in a position of obstruction.

The Pentagon’s innovation unit has hired Silicon Valley veteran Michael Brown as its new managing director.

ISS Commander Drew Feustel and astronaut Serena Aunon-Chancellor, both of NASA, are to command the station’s Canadian robot arm to grapple the Japanese cargo capsule upon rendezvous on Thursday, Sept. 27, at about 8 a.m. EDT.

L3 Technologies continues to invest in the unmanned maritime systems space, acquiring ASV Global, LLC, an unmanned surface vessel and autonomous vessel control systems company.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will have to use “special tactics” to overcome expected restrictions to be posed by the Russians in Syrian airspace.

Airbus has partnered with German company AMSilk to develop a composite material based on a synthetic spider-silk fiber.

India has test-fired the indigenously developed Prahaar surface-to-surface short-range tactical ballistic missile.

Two Japanese mini-rovers touched down on the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu early Sept. 22 and are in motion and transmitting imagery.

UNITED TECHNOLOGIES CORP. has U.S. Defense Logistics Agency contract worth up to $2.46b to supply Air Force depot-level repairables, consumable parts.

U.S. trackmaker Workhorse Group has formally begun the process to sell the SureFly operating unit that is developing a hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft.

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HARRIS CORP. has $9.7m U.S. Air Force contract for continued space control depot support.

India’s national defense research agency conducted the first trials of a lightweight, homegrown anti-tank guided missile on Sept. 15 and 16 at the Ahmednagar test range in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

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The additional funding allows ATEC and GE to keep a small number of engineers working over the next six months on minor improvements to their competing engine designs.

Release of the hexagonal mobile explorers from the bottom of the mothership came at 12:06 a.m. EDT, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The U.S. faces an uphill battle for hypersonic supremacy, warns Michael Griffin, the Pentagon’s new undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.

The U.S. Navy rapidly delivered and approved the use of additive manufactured dorsal assembly ribs to keep T-6B Texan II training aircraft in the air.

The French air force is gearing up for the entry into service of the single-turboprop Pilatus PC-21, which will become its mainstay in pilot and weapon system officer (WSO) training.

The service “is considering a number of options to keep the MRTT relevant, safe and effective in the modern battle space, including advanced technologies such as automatic boom refueling and communication-node capabilities,” a spokesperson said.

The Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) has ordered four more H225M Caracal utility helicopters, taking acquisitions of the type beyond a target set when the program began in 2012.