Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

By Mark Carreau
U.S. and European astronomers believe they have detected a hint of silicate-rich material dating back to the formation of the inner Solar System’s rocky planets emerging from a comet believed to have its origins in the Oort Cloud.
Defense

By Graham Warwick
Before Lockheed Martin acquired Sikorsky in November 2015, the companies were shaping up to be rivals in the market to bring autonomous capabilities to rotorcraft. Now they are seeing synergies between the previously separate development efforts.
Defense

By Tony Osborne
Airbus Helicopters has handed over the first of five H145M twin-engine utility helicopters to the Royal Thai Navy.
Defense

By Graham Warwick
Textron Systems has demonstrated a version of its Aerosonde fixed-wing small unmanned aircraft adapted to take off and land vertically and provide runway-independent operating flexibility.
Defense

As the U.S. Navy refines the surface action group (SAG) concept in Pacific waters, Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Scott Swift is looking to use ships bolstered with enhanced Aegis combat systems for a different air defense role.
Defense

The U.S. Navy’s philosophy of distributive lethality will likely have more of an impact on naval strategy than operational concepts, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Defense

SAAB picked ATECH NEGOCIOS EM TECHNOLOGIA S/A as partner in Brazilian ...

South Korea’s president warns that North Korea is planning another, fifth nuclear ...

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World View says its “Stratolite” concept can keep communications, Earth observation, weather and other payloads over a single spot for as long as six months.
Defense

By Mark Carreau
The U.S. Air Force estimates it has achieved a 40% cost savings with its $82.7 million standalone contract award to SpaceX for the May 2018 launching of the Pentagon’s second GPS III satellite.
Defense

Russia kicked off operations at its new Vostochny Cosmodrome in Siberia early Thursday with a multi-satellite launch on a Soyuz vehicle from a new pad that closely mimics the venerable “Start-1” site in Kazakhstan that orbited Sputnik-1 and Yuri Gagarin.
Defense

Europe’s next-generation Ariane 6 launcher in development at Airbus Safran Launchers (ASL) will kick off its preliminary design review April 28.
Defense

New technical issues plaguing the A400M airlifter’s TP400-D6 engine could pose a significant financial risk to Airbus Group.
Defense

Europe’s next-generation Ariane 6 launcher in development at Airbus Safran Launchers (ASL) will kick off its preliminary design review April 28.
Defense

By Tony Osborne
Russian Helicopters has reportedly performed the first flight of its long-delayed Kamov Ka-62 twin-engine medium helicopter.
Defense

By Jay Menon
India has successfully launched its seventh and last satellite to form a regional navigational system similar to the U.S.-based Global Positioning System.
Defense

The Proteus unmanned undersea vehicle from Undersea Solutions Group successfully completed endurance testing earlier this month.
Defense

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT approved $1.22b Foreign Military Sale to Australia of up to 450 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AIM-120D) ...

SpaceX and NASA wrapped up 16 months of behind-the-scenes negotiations Tuesday with an unfunded Space Act agreement to cooperate on sending an unmanned Dragon crew capsule to the surface of Mars as early as 2018.
Space

Astronauts preparing for commercial flight crew operations in private spacecraft say the human-in-the-loop autonomous procedures that take them to the International Space Station (ISS) will be similar to the way UAVs are flown today.
Defense

By Jen DiMascio
The U.S. Air Force’s largest weapon program, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, on which the U.S. will spend more than $400 billion, has hit a stride. The question is how long the program will be able to sustain it.
Defense

One day after Thales Alenia Space launched its Sentinel-1B Earth-monitoring satellite to a 700 km orbit, the Franco-Italian spacecraft manufacturer signed initial contracts to build a stratospheric platform capable of many of the same remote-sensing functions.
Defense

By Tony Osborne
Flying demonstrations at this year’s Farnborough Airshow will face more challenging restrictions on aerobatic maneuvers as a result of the fatal Shoreham, England crash last August.
Defense

By Mark Carreau
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have initiated trials of new laboratory equipment intended to enable routine gene expression analysis of biological specimens in orbit
Defense