The U.S. Air Force resumed flying T-6A Texan II training aircraft on April 15 after standing down the fleet five days earlier. Air Education and Training Command (AETC) had found indications of a malfunctioning engine oil line, and ordered the stand-down for an inspection of the fleet of 445 single-engine, two-seat primary trainers. The inspection focused on engine oil cooler supply and return lines. If chafing causes a failure in the supply and return lines, oil loss can damage the engine. All aircraft that have passed the inspection are returning to flight, according to AETC.
NASA has conducted the agency’s first flight of the X-56A testbed as part of a broader research effort to develop system and design technology for a future generation of aircraft with lighter, higher aspect ratio wings.
The head of U.S. Air Force Space Command envisions a future in which all of the Air Force’s satellites — ranging from communications, precision navigation and timing, weather and missile warning — are controlled by a common ground station.
The French government will establish two state-owned companies this year to purchase and leaseback Airbus A400M airlifters and multimission FREMM frigates to the nation’s armed forces under a plan aimed at filling a gap of more than €2 billion ($2.1 billion) in the nation’s 2015 defense budget.
With one satellite in house here, another on the way, and plans afoot for new spacecraft conceived on the path-finding model of its U.K. parent, Surrey Satellite Technology U.S. is taking root in fresh soil.
Ukraine’s aircraft manufacturer Antonov rolled out the first prototype of the An-178 transport aircraft on April 16. The first flight is scheduled for early May.
Brazilian Defense Minister Jacques Wagner did not rule out a possible sale of JAS 39E Gripen NG fighters to Argentina at the LAAD defense show here, but industry sources still confirm that such a deal is hypothetical at best.
Although investigators appear to be in broad agreement that wear in the bearings of the main engine turbopump is the “most probable” cause of the explosion that destroyed an Orbital ATK Antares launch vehicle on a crew resupply mission to the International Space Station last October, questions remain over what caused the wear in the first place.
NASA is spending too much of its tight budget on Earth science missions and not enough on space exploration, according to House Republican lawmakers who also faulted the U.S. space agency on its most ambitious new exploration program.
Just days after BAE Systems announced it would not attend the Paris air show, Italian defense and aerospace group Finmeccanica said it will greatly reduce its presence at the event as the company continues its restructuring and cost-reduction programs.
Fatigue cracks discovered in the airframes of several Swiss air force Northrop F-5 Tigers have forced the Swiss defense ministry to retire 10 aircraft.
Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Navy have completed the first inflight dry hookup of the X-47B unmanned combat air system demonstrator (UACS-D) and a tanker in a precursor to the first air-to-air refueling of an unmanned aircraft.
AEL Sistemas, the Brazil-based subsidiary of Israel’s Elbit, is showing prototypes of the cockpit hardware planned for Brazil’s Saab Gripen fighter at the LAAD defense and security show in Rio De Janeiro.
The U.S. Marine Corps has adopted a new Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) acquisition approach since last year that both uses and deviates from best practices as defined by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the watchdog agency says.
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has called for greater cooperation between civil and military air traffic management agencies after a significant increase in the number of proximity incidents between what it calls “non-cooperative military traffic.”
The Eurofighter consortium says a final assembly line for the Typhoon could be set up in Indonesia if the combat aircraft is selected to replace that country’s aging fleet of F-5 Tigers.
SpaceX is thought to be focusing on static friction in an engine throttle valve as the prime suspect for the loss of the Falcon 9 first stage during the third attempt at recovering the booster.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN’s ASTRO AEROSPACE delivered Deployable Tower Assembly (DTA) for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to Northrop’s Space Park facility in Redondo Beach, CA; DTA supports spacecraft and the telescope structures. RAYTHEON plans to test a new multi-mode seeker for Tomahawk cruise missile in second quarter captive flight; test is key milestone in Tomahawk modernization and will help enable missile to strike moving targets on land and sea.
United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno says his choice of planning to reuse only the BE-4 engines – not the entire first stage – of the company’s new Vulcan rocket was driven purely by the economics.
United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno says Aerojet Rocketdyne’s claim of delivering an AR-1 rocket engine capable of operating on the Atlas V or Vulcan vehicles by 2018 is “ridiculous.”
