Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

As the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff nears the end of his term, he sees several areas for improvement at the Pentagon.

The Missile Defense Agency and Boeing successfully launched a Ground Based Interceptor, to evaluate a new selectable-boost vehicle.

NASA is gradually acknowledging that efforts to return human explorers to the surface of the Moon in 2024 through the Artemis initiative are fading.

The U.S. Transportation Department (DOT) has identified 313 aerospace businesses to be awarded $482.3 million in funding, with Spirit Aerosystems garnering the lion’s share at more than $70 million.

The UK Royal Air Force is to spend £400 million ($553 million) on upgrades for its Boeing C-17 Globemaster and CH-47 Chinook fleets.

General Atomics has completed a flight of one of its MQ-9 medium-altitude, long endurance uncrewed air systems over Canada’s High North.

UK advanced air mobility startup Vertical Aerospace is gearing up to begin assembly of its VA-X4 engineering prototype to fly in 2022.

As first electric aircraft enter service airports and operators come to grips with infrastructure for recharging batteries.

Northrop’s engineers are actively discussing a new version of the unmanned RQ-4 with the Army that would require substantial modifications to the baseline aircraft.

Virgin Galactic ordered additional inspections after an unidentified vendor contacted the company about a potential problem with its components.

Energy giant Chevron and renewable fuel producer Gevo have signed an LOI to build one or more facilities to process inedible corn into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

D-Orbit UK is to lead development of a spacecraft “deorbit kit” for the European Space Agency.

North Korea has claimed to have successfully fired a new locally developed cruise missile capable of reaching targets across the Korean peninsula and into Japan.

Equitix Investment Management is paying £189 million ($261 million) for the engine-maker’s 23.1% holding in Airtanker Holdings Ltd.

The tracking service will use laser ranging to monitor objects in low Earth orbit, offering satellite operators the ability to identify collision threats and maneuver accordingly.

The grant supports an A$8 million program that will run to December 2023 which involves development and optimization of a quiet, efficient and lightweight propulsion system that increases the range and reduces the noise and cost of the Vertiia.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced the intention to order the six additional aircraft in a speech at the Thessaloniki International Fair on Sept.11.

Originally planned for Aug. 24, the spacewalk was delayed when NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei experienced a pinched nerve in his neck and had to be replaced for the excursion.

High-profile electric air taxi startup Lilium will become a publicly traded company Sept. 15 when its Class A ordinary shares and redeemable warrants will be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbols “LILM” and “LILMW” respectively.

Woolpert, a century-old mapping and surveying specialist, has acquired Optimal GEO, an Alabama-based company that specializes in providing photogrammetric mapping, orthography, lidar and GIS data to defense and intelligence communities.

Airbus Helicopters says it has achieved much of what it wanted to get out of its flight test campaign of its CityAirbus advanced air mobility demonstrator.

A group of California lawmakers is pressing the Department of the Air Force to base the U.S. Space Force’s new training command in their home state, while warning that political interests should not influence future basing decisions and pointing to ongoing criticism of U.S. Space Command’s move to Alabama.

The U.S. Air Force is turning the charred remains of a Lockheed Martin F-35A that crashed last year into tools to help maintainers train on the jet.

U.S. Navy F-35Cs and CMV-22Bs are in the South China Sea for the first time as the USS Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group and the embarked Carrier Air Wing 2 are operating in the area.

A group of four amateur astronauts poised to become the first privately funded orbital spaceflight crew arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for launch at 8 p.m. EDT on Sept. 15.