The decision to declare the Air Force’s F-35A operational close to its target date of Aug. 1 is a triumph for a program with a long history of cost overruns, technological challenges, and schedule delays.
Patricia Sanders, an independent aerospace consultant and retired executive director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, will chair NASA’s seven-member Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, an independent group of experts responsible for advising the agency’s administrator on a range of safety issues.
The National Nuclear Security Administration’s $7.3 billion rejuvenation of the B61, America’s 1960s-vintage thermonuclear bomb, has entered the “production engineering” phase after four years of development work, with the first refurbished unit expected by fiscal 2020.
Building on the success of the government-industry Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) in reducing airline accident rates, the FAA is chartering an Unmanned Aircraft Safety Team (UAST) to address issues raised by growing unmanned aircraft system (UAS) operations.
South Korean and U.S. officials have begun hammering out details of technological transfers for the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) KF-X fighter program, with Seoul seeking knowhow in such fields as avionics integration and twin engine installations.
With about 80,000 ft² of envelope to inspect during assembly and maintenance, Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works has developed a robot to scour the hull of its LMH-1 commercial heavy-lift hybrid airship for helium-leaking pinholes in the Vectran fiber.
The Philippines will receive the first of 10 multi-role rescue vessels (MRRVs) from Japan in a month. The first MRRV, BRP Tubbataha, is undergoing sea trials in Japan.
LOCKHEED MARTIN delivered 30th upgraded LEONARDO Merlin Mk. 2 helicopter to U.K. defense ministry July 28 at Leonardo facility in Yeovil. HINDUSTAN AERONAUTICS LTD. (HAL) flew first DASSAULT Mirage-2000 fighter upgraded to final operational configuration by HAL on July 28. SPACE SYSTEMS LORAL will build SXM-7 and SXM-8 satellites for SiriusXM, replacing XM-3 and XM-4 satellites in 2019 and 2020, serving 30.6m North American subscribers.
Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works has developed an inspection and repair robot to significantly reduce the manhours required in final-assembly and operations of its LMH-1 heavy-lift hybrid airship. The autonomous Spider (Self-Propelled Instrument for Damage Evaluation and Repair) has inner and outer halves that magnetically couple through the airship envelope and traverse the inflated hull together. The outer half shines a light on the surface of the hull.
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is having a difficult time maintaining its traditionally high percentage of research and development spending as the cost of buying, operating and supporting developed weapons claims an ever greater portion of its budget top line.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. For a complete list of Aviation Week Network’s upcoming events, and to register, visit www.aviationweek.com/events (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Aug. 1-3—World Congress On GIS and Remote Sensing Global Conference, New Orleans, Lousiana. For more information go to http://gis-remotesensing.conferenceseries.com/
The survival of human explorers on Mars will depend in part on how well experts size up the Red Planet’s environmental risks and resources, a NASA astronaut says.
“I think the future is optionally manned right now,” said USMC aviation chief Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, speaking about the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program
Researchers associated with NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission propose the seasonal thawing of carbon dioxide frost as the mechanism for pervasive gully features on the Red Planet.
South Korea has selected the new Angara 1.2 rocket to lift a high-resolution radar satellite to low Earth orbit in 2020 in a deal that marks the first commercial contract for Russia’s next-generation light launcher.
The U.S. Army has moved quickly to adopt Special Operations Command’s degraded visual environment pilotage system (DVEPS) as an “interim” brownout solution for its helicopters.
U.S. defense technology and services conglomerate L-3 Communications is nearing the end of a major restructuring effort but increasingly is eyeing new, albeit relatively small, acquisitions, executives said July 28.
