Defense Secretary Mark Esper has chosen White House Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios as the acting undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, replacing Mike Griffin.
The arrival of the first KC-10 at the “boneyard” on July 13 begins a five-year retirement process for the 59-aircraft fleet as the Boeing KC-46 enters service with a capability limited by unresolved deficiencies through at least 2023.
Bye Aerospace is to begin work on the first production-conforming prototype of its eFlyer 2 electric training aircraft after closing $10 million in strategic and venture financing.
Drone delivery company Volansi is to partner with U.S. Special Operations Command to demonstrate its Voly M20 long-range cargo unmanned aircraft under a small business contract awarded by the U.S. Air Force.
Australian air taxi startup AMSL Aero is to build a flight-test center at Narromine in New South Wales thanks to an A$950,000 ($660,000) grant from the state government. AMSL is developing the Vertiia, a two-passenger tandem tilt-wing electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicle.
Interest in the human and robotic exploration of the Moon and Mars is on the rise—politically influenced budgets, the global economy and COVID-19 pandemic permitting.
The first half of 2020 has been brutal for the aerospace and defense (A&D) sector, and increasingly industry insiders and outside investors are trying to figure out what it means for longer-term prospects.
German air taxi startup Lilium is in “detailed discussions” with major suppliers as it prepares the next stage in development and service-entry of its Lilium Jet after concluding an agreement with Toray Industries to deliver composites for the aircraft’s structure.
The Japanese defense ministry is recommending tighter contracting arrangements for the Next Generation Fighter than applied in the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) F-2 program of the 1990s.
The House Appropriations defense subcommittee’s (HAC-D) mark of the fiscal 2021 defense funding bill is encouraging the U.S. Air Force to partner with industry for a turn-key solution for undergraduate pilot training.
Fiscal 2021 may be the last time the Pentagon will be able to circumvent its base budget caps by filtering funds through the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account.
The Pentagon awarded $13.4 million under Defense Production Act Title III as an investment in the U.S. small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) industrial base.
House appropriators are concerned the U.S. Army has not clearly defined the acquisition strategy for mission equipment payloads and sensors for its Future Vertical Lift family of rotorcraft.
The Italian Army has taken delivery of the first of two commercial-model Leonardo AW169s in a move that paves the way for the wider introduction of a military version of the rotorcraft.
The House Appropriations defense subcommittee (HAC-D) is fully funding the beleaguered F-35 logistics system in its mark of the fiscal 2021 defense funding bill, but lawmakers are blasting the program and describing similarities between it and the troubled KC-46A tanker.
The Democrat-controlled House Appropriations defense subcommittee agreed to support the higher development cost for the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon in the fiscal 2021 spending bill, but the members do not “intend to approve funding for further cost increases” beyond the latest estimate of $1.364 billion.
Spain is in negotiations with Airbus to acquire at least 20 new-build Eurofighter Typhoons to replace early model F/A-18 Hornets based in the Canary Islands.
