A House Armed Services panel on tactical aviation is prioritizing the need for combat fighters by asking the U.S. Air Force to investigate an F-22 Raptor revival and fund an increase in the requested number of F-18 and F-35 fighters in its markup of the fiscal 2017 defense authorization bill.
Israel’s Iron Dome is designed to protect against short-range rockets, artillery shells and mortar rounds, but in an April 14 test the system’s Tamir interceptor shot down a UAV after launch from the U.S. Army’s Multi-Mission Launcher (MML).
India will launch its final navigation satellite on April 28, forming a complete system that will provide accurate position information service to the country’s users.
Citing pent-up demand for suborbital flights for research, microgravity manufacturing and education, a Texas-based company has signed a five-year agreement with Spaceport America in New Mexico to begin commercial flights of its reusable suborbital launch vehicle later this year.
A plug-and-play sense-and-avoid system using a single camera for detection and tracking has been flight tested under a Darpa program to develop a drop-in kit that can automate cockpit tasks and reduce crew requirements in manned aircraft.
The U.S. Army is seeking solutions from industry on position, navigation and timing (PNT) systems that will be more robust than single-frequency GPS signals from space.
Bright features that hint at the presence of a briny subsurface water source leap from fresh images of the cratered terrain of the large main belt asteroid Ceres, which is undergoing unprecedented orbital scrutiny from NASA’s Dawn mission spacecraft.
Startup spacecraft manufacturer OneWeb Satellites has selected an industrial park near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as home to a clean-sheet production facility that will crank out dozens of small broadband satellites each month.
The U.S. Navy “Eagles” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 115 concluded three weeks of close air support exercises earlier this month with the Australian Defense Force.
While the U.S. is sending signals in the Asia-Pacific region with some of its more recent actions there, it is Chinese behavior that should be called into question, Defense Secretary Ash Carter says.
Air-launched weapons and other missiles are becoming a greater threat to U.S. forces, says a new Army manual on gathering and using intelligence on such threats.
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has adequate funding to complete the programs it has in development and will be fielding between now and 2020, says U.S. Navy Vice Adm. James D. Syring and MDA director.
Aurora Flight Sciences has flown a subscale model of its LightningStrike hybrid-electric distributed propulsion vertical-takeoff-and-landing experimental aircraft, selected in March to build Darpa’s high-speed VTOL X-Plane.
DIGITALGLOBE completed first phase of continent-scale mapping initiative in support of Geoscape information product from PSMA Australia. In second phase, DigitalGlobe will map and characterize more than 15 million structures across Australian continent. LOCKHEED MARTIN has $25.8m U.S. Navy contract to continue producing Enhanced Laser Guided Training Rounds (ELGTR), extending ELGTR production into late 2018.
Gen. John Hyten, head of U.S. Air Force Space Command, says it is true that the military would rather not carry the burden of helping anyone and everyone with collision avoidance and orbital analysis. But the catch is that the U.S. military will continue to operate the space surveillance network into the future, to maintain control of space, he says. “If we’re talking about [a plan in which] we provide the data, and [the FAA does] the math, I’m good with that.
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.) Apr. 18-19—11th Annual MilSpace Situational Awareness Conference, Holiday Inn Kensington Forum, London, United Kingdom. For more information go to smi-online.co.uk/defence/uk/milspace
