The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has rescheduled the launch of its fifth resupply mission to the International Space Station for Aug. 19, following two previous delays blamed on heavy rains at Tanageshima Space Center.
Engineers at Naval Ship Systems Engineering Station (Navsses) are creating a 3-D model of Norfolk Naval Shipyard’s (NNSY) dry dock from laser scans taken in June to create an advance-planning 3-D layout of the site and determine optimum placement of support services during future dry dockings.
Canada plans to test a small unmanned aircraft fitted with magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) sensors to see how well a UAV flying lower and slower than manned aircraft can detect submarines, mines and other metal objects beneath or on water.
While unmanned aircraft have received bad press for forcing firefighters to halt aerial operations when one is sighted, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are widely regarded as potentially powerful tools for fighting wildfires that are becoming increasingly destructive as urban development expands into unoccupied land.
Airbus Defense and Space has demonstrated its next-generation Sferion sensor, designed to assist helicopter pilots operating in degraded visual environments.
Lockheed Martin Skunk Works has completed another demonstration of using a high-flying U-2 spy aircraft to support a growing variety of missions and technologies compliant with the U.S. Air Force’s open mission systems (OMS) architecture-compliant standard.
“Launching aboard the more powerful Atlas 5 allows us to better support NASA’s ISS cargo needs with a full load of about 3,500 kg of pressurized cargo, consisting of essential supplies, equipment and science experiments,” says Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK’s space systems division.
Russia’s Progress 58 cargo capsule departed the International Space Station early Aug. 14, kicking off a month-long series of spacecraft comings and goings that will bring supplies and new crewmembers to the six-person orbiting science laboratory.
While the U.S. Marine Corps has kept to its plan for developing and buying its Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ator), there are still some potential problems, according to the Pentagon Inspector General (IG).
Alpha Space Test and Research Alliance has reached a cooperative agreement with NASA that will establish a commercial materials exposure lab outside the International Space Station, a facility being structured for clients well beyond the traditional military and civil aerospace communities.
North America Alenia Aermacchi is in talks with a new U.S. partner for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X advanced trainer program, and a deal should be announced “very soon.” The company’s T-100 trainer proposal, based on the M-346, has been in limbo since its original partner, General Dynamics, backed out in March.
A discussion of the Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) program in Washington on Aug. 13 demonstrated how the secrecy surrounding the project and its precursors continues to block effective public discussion of what is expected to be a $90 billion program.
“The bone of contention is mainly over the cost escalation and offset clause,” a defense ministry official says. “Both the governments are trying to iron out these issues at the earliest.”
Pilots have reported seeing unmanned aircraft more than 650 times so far this year, the FAA says, a dramatic increase over the 238 sightings reported in all of 2014.
Could spacecraft-to-spacecraft power beaming place satellites in orbit more quickly, particularly cubesats too small for conventional propulsion systems?
