Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

A private Chinese company says it will launch its first rocket, a suborbital research vehicle, around May 17.

SpaceX remains on track to begin vertical takeoff and landing testing of the upper stage of its Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) in 2019.

A House subcommittee quickly marked up a $62.5 billion fiscal 2019 spending bill late May 9 that includes more than $21.5 billion for NASA.

India’s state-run space agency has built an atomic clock that will fly in an upcoming indigenous navigation satellite.

Futuristic designs for inner city air vehicle terminals, or Skyports, which will serve uberAIR’s aerial rideshare system in the 2020s have been unveiled.

Uber is inviting international cities to bid to become the first global test site of the company’s proposed uberAIR aerial rideshare program.

BELL has $21.7m U.S. Navy contract for seven Bell 407 variant commercial airframes through fiscal 2020 for the MQ-8C Fire Scout UAV.

Chipmaker Intel is carving itself a growing niche in the commercial unmanned aircraft market, introducing industrial UAVs for automated inspection and mapping.

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has revealed the governments that her department has selected to take part in the UAS Integration Pilot Program.

Australia is holding course on its military spending buildup.

An intercept test of the Arrow-3 to be performed in Alaska to adapt the hit-to-kill missile interceptor to evolving threats has been indefinitely delayed,

The European Commission has given the green light for United Technologies Corp. (UTC) to acquire Rockwell Collins.

Made In Space, Inc. plans to advance its Vulcan Advanced Hybrid Manufacturing System for the in-space production of precision aerospace-grade metal parts.

Indonesia has taken delivery of six more Grob Aerospace G120TP turboprop trainers.

RAYTHEON has $28.5m U.S. Navy contract for 20 EO/IR common sensor payloads for MQ-1C Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft.

On Wednesday U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford will appear before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee to discuss defense posture.

FlightSafety Services Corp., Centennial, Colorado, has been awarded a $35,364,695 modification (P00020) to previously awarded contract FA8621-13-C-6247 for KC-46 Aircrew Training System production.

NASA is kicking off a return to the Moon, with instruments and payloads possibly ready to fly as early as next year.

The U.S. Army’s laboratories are advancing degraded visual environment technology to allow pilots to fly and fight in blackout conditions.

USAF Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein has directed a one-day pause for all Air Force flying and maintenance wings to conduct a wing-level safety review.

Explore Mars Inc., finds urgency in a Mars sample return mission as well as new communications relay and reconnaissance assets in orbit around the red planet.

Uber has announced new partnerships, and its partners have revealed new vehicle concepts.

The USAF intends to award contracts to Lockheed and Northrop to build five sats that will form the basis of an interim space-based missile warning system.

India has built a prototype of the “Quadruple Canisterized Inclined Launcher” that will allow warships with space constraints to launch the BrahMos missile.

The U.S. Navy has awarded General Dynamics Mission Systems of Fairfax, Virginia, a $9.7 million firm-fixed-price modification to a previously awarded contract to exercise options for the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (Sewip) Block 1B3 full-rate production, the Pentagon has announced. Sewip is an evolutionary acquisition and incremental development program to upgrade the existing AN/SLQ-32(V) electronic warfare system.