Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

ESA has signed an $897 million contract with Thales Alenia Space for the manufacturer to deliver cargo to the lunar surface under ESA’s Argonaut Mission.

The Federal Aviation Administration in a statement said the aircraft, operating as American Airlines Flight 5342, was on approach to DCA's Runway 33.

Dassault’s emphasis on Rafale exports has borne fruit for the company in recent years, as has their focus on non-European markets.

The Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) C-2 is a medium airlifter that serves as the Japan Air Self-Defense Force’s (JASDF) primary cargo lifter along with the C-130. More profiles of major military aircraft programs are available to Aviation Week Intelligence Network subscribers at awin.aviationweek.com.

News in brief.

GD reports earnings boost... SES secures loan for new satellites... SIGMA DEFENSE expands in Huntsville...

Manufacturers including Archer and Joby have pushed back against the report’s conclusions.

The flagship product of the collaboration is Site3D, a 3D point cloud map of the Earth’s surface.

Lightspeed Venture Partners led the $70 million Series A capital round.

The M-class has a payload capacity of 1,000 kg (2,200 lb.) and 8 kW of peak power, York announced Jan. 29.

Findings from a pair of extensive research efforts were published Jan. 29 by the journals Nature and Nature Astronomy.

The partners will use Vertix AI, Google Cloud’s machine learning platform, to analyze decades of solar activity data.

The European Space Agency says that as of Jan. 29 “the probability that asteroid 2024 YR4 may impact Earth on 22 December 2032 is 1.2%.”

Iran later tried to muddy the disclosure, deleting the reference to the Su-35.

The engine runs took place at Sikorsky’s facility in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Draken Europe has been awarded a three-year, £173 million ($215.2 million) Interim Medium Speed Operational Readiness Training Services contract.

ADS Chief Executive Kevin Craven warned that without an appropriate plan, the UK aerospace sector’s growth potential would remain “untapped.”

Airbus plans to provide an update on the technical assessment of a major space program when it publishes full-year results next month.

Lithuanian startup Airvolve has adopted horizontal-axis cyclorotor propulsion to develop a compact middle-mile logistics uncrewed air system.

Planet Labs says it has secured a $230 million contract to build Pelican high-resolution satellites for an unnamed customer and announced a data provision deal with the European Space Agency (ESA) to support the Copernicus program.

Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane has completed a series of payload integration tests at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida which keep it on track for a planned mission to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) later this year.

India launched the second in a new series of navigation satellites, NVS-02, using a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle.

News in brief.

ATHENA lunar lander arrives at the Cape... SATCOM ON THE MOVE market seen booming... LOCKHEED gets Singaporean F-16 flight testing award...

The service has supported a steady growth in its launch cadence and does not see it slowing down in the near future.