Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has resumed drilling rock after more than a year’s hiatus.

The UK government is providing £10.7 million ($14.3 million) in funding toward two research programs led by Rolls-Royce.

SAAB will supply AN/SPS-77 Sea Giraffe radar for two Philippine Navy frigates under U.S. Foreign Military Sales deal.

The UK’s National Audit Office is warning of a £2.9 billion ($3.9 billion) “affordability gap” in the country’s £51 billion nuclear submarine plans.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told a U.S. Senate CJS subcommittee that he intends to work through lingering cost and schedule obstacles facing the JWST.

Aerojet Rocketdyne plans to test fire the main engine for Boeing’s Phantom Express spaceplane 10 times in 10 days in June.

Boeing and the U.S. Navy are working to add an automatic ground collision avoidance system to the F/A-18 strike fighter in the hope of saving pilot lives.

Piaggio Aerospace’s P.1HH Hammerhead unmanned air system (UAS) has completed flight tests using a beyond-line-of-sight communication system.

BAE Systems’ Advanced Hawk development aircraft has achieved many of its goals. But interest from India, its primary potential customer, appears to have waned.

Sikorsky’s second S-97 Raider has completed ground testing and is planned to fly in June.

Iridium Communications and possibly China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System will have the chance to offer satellite-based safety services to mariners.

The U.S. Navy has ordered Saab Sea Giraffe naval radars for the Philippines Navy under Foreign Military Sales arrangements.

Both pilots are safe after a U.S. Air Force T-38C Talon II crashed May 23 in Mississippi, the service confirmed.

Both pilots are safe after a U.S. Air Force T-38C Talon II crashed May 23 in Mississippi, the service confirmed.

United Technologies has unveiled plans to fill 35,000 job positions and spend more than $15 billion in R&D and CapEx in the U.S. over the next five years.

NASA lags in managing IT functions, which combined with its strategic missions and global outreach leaves it vulnerable to cybersecurity breaches, the GAO says.

India’s space agency has given the go-ahead for the launch of the GSAT-11 communication satellite, the heaviest to be built so far.

Sikorsky is “reviewing its options” after the U.S. GAO rejected its pre-contract protest of the U.S. Air Force’s UH-1N Huey replacement program.

BOEING has $22.6m U.S. Navy contract for redesign of Data Bus Interface Unit and the Deployable Flight Incident Recorder of the Deployable Flight Incident Recording Set (DFIRS) for F/A-18 A-F and EA-18G aircraft for the Navy and Australia; and $9.5m U.S. Navy contract to incorporate Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT) into U.S. Navy F/A-18E/Fs and EA-18Gs.

This week the Senate Armed Services Committee is due to mark up its version of the fiscal 2019 defense authorization.

Quantitech Inc., Huntsville, Alabama, was awarded a $15,240,466 modification (000012) to domestic and foreign military sales (Mexico, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Columbia, Sweden, Tunisia, Japan, Israel, Thailand, Taiwan, Slovakia, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia) contract W31P4Q-16-A-0010 for support services for the Utility Helicopter Project Office. U.S. Army Contracting Command Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off May 22 to deliver five more Iridium satellites into orbit and dispatch a pair of Earth-gravity mapping spacecraft.

Two Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On mission (Grace-FO) spacecraft were launched on May 22 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg AFB.

The Pentagon is looking for a new sensor to monitor pilot breathing for the F-35 a year after a rash of hypoxia-like physiological episodes.

After a multiyear pause in mergers and acquisitions, aerospace and defense supplier Curtiss-Wright could be back into making regular, significant deals.