Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

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SINGAPORE — Australia’s defense minister is pressing Lockheed Martin to provide more detail on how the country will be able to maintain its software-rich F-35s. With 19 million lines of computer code, David Johnston is wondering how Australia can make repairs without compromising the platform or having to transport the aircraft to its assembly point in the U.S. “We don’t want to have to reboot the aircraft by calling Fort Worth,” Johnston says.

NASA needs a “disciplined” approach to human space exploration, with clear “pathways” and well-defined shutdown points if a particular approach isn’t working out, according to a detailed National Research Council (NRC) report on U.S. human space exploration released June 4.

REASSURING EUROPE: A $1 billion “European Reassurance Initiative” will be part of the White House’s fiscal 2015 Overseas Contingency Operations budget

Rocket and scramjet developer Aerojet Rocketdyne is looking to additive manufacturing as a way to sustain production of engines over the long term in

ARLINGTON, Va. — As the military and commercial world have come to rely more on GPS for daily operations, there has been a growing concern about the

Airbus Defense and Space in Manching, Germany, is flying a small, vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) unmanned aircraft as a proof-of-concept

SINGAPORE — Vietnam appears to have made no progress in getting the U.S. to lift its lethal weapons ban against the country, even though Vietnam is no

Commercial aerospace growth will continue to offset increasingly pressured defense spending worldwide, investor advisors say, leading to an overall

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Aerojet Rocketdyne is targeting a cost of $20-25 million for each pair of new AR-1 engines as the company continues to lobby the government to fund an

With the Gorgon Stare system operational in Afghanistan on U.S. Air Force General Atomics MQ-9 Reapers, Exelis is testing an exportable wide-area

SPACE FENCE: Lockheed Martin has been chosen over Raytheon to provide the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation “Space Fence” ground radar system for

FAB-T: Raytheon has unseated Boeing to win a $298 million production contract for secure satellite terminals. Raytheon lost its original bid for the U

FORT WORTH — Two Korean air force F-16 fighters — a single-seat KF-16C and a two-place KF-16D — were ferried into BAE Systems’ new facility at

LONDON — AgustaWestland is planning to begin flight trials of its AW159 Wildcat helicopter fitted with a digital automatic flight control system

PARIS — Airbus Defense and Space completed flight trials of a quarter-scale version of its SpacePlane May 1-4, validating the dynamic flight

The film industry is the first to apply for FAA approval to operate unmanned aircraft in carefully controlled conditions under special legislation

While the Bluefin-21 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) System may have failed to find the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 airliner, the unmanned

HOUSTON — Mars One, the Dutch nonprofit with ambitious plans to settle Mars in the mid-2020s with colonists chosen from around the world, has selected

A team of engineers and scientists at the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division (NSWCCD), recently developed a new cost-saving

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ARLINGTON, Va. — Despite a growing Pentagon movement toward fixed-price contracts to keep a lid on costs, U.S. Navy contracting officers should look to cost-plus contracts if there is a greater element of risk, says Sean Stackley, assistant Navy secretary for research, development and acquisition.

With more than 100 unmanned aircraft operators already approved in Australia, the country’s Civil Aviation Safety Agency (CASA) is proposing that

FLYING SAUCER: NASA is preparing to test a flying-saucer-shaped test vehicle in the skies over the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai