Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

By Tony Osborne
BAE Systems says it has reached an agreement to purchase British startup Prismatic, a high-altitude pseudo-satellite (HAPS) manufacturer.
Defense

By Lee Hudson
The Sikorsky HH-60W program will meet with U.S. Air Force leadership Sept. 24 to determine if the new search-and-rescue helicopter is green lighted for low-rate initial production, a company executive says.
Defense

By Mark Carreau
Efforts by the Indian Space Research Organization to re-establish comms with the Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lunar lander continued Sept. 9, a day after imagery revealed Vikram had landed in one piece but hard.
Defense

By Mark Carreau
Efforts by the Indian Space Research Organization to re-establish comms with the Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lunar lander continued Sept. 9, a day after imagery revealed Vikram had landed in one piece but hard.
Defense

By Tony Osborne
Britain’s approach to developing a future combat aircraft is studying new business models that could see industry compete to write new software for the platform while the aircraft itself could be built for a shorter service life than its contemporaries.
Defense

By Bill Carey
Drone delivery service provider Flirtey on Sept. 9 unveiled the Flirtey Eagle, a boxy quadcopter that it expects will begin delivering food and packages to households by year’s end.

By Thierry Dubois, Michael Bruno
The market for geostationary satellites, which until recently was going through a trough, is picking up, according to the CEOs of launch service operator Arianespace and satellite manufacturer Maxar Technologies.
Defense

By Steve Trimble
USAF officials have demoed a weapons bay modification that would expand the internal weapons capacity of the B-1B by 75% and allow the bomber to carry a hypersonic missile.
Defense

By Graham Warwick
German air taxi developer Volocopter has raised an additional €50 million ($55 million) in the first part of a Series C funding round, taking the total capital raised so far to €85 million.

By Tony Osborne
Sweden will increase defense spending by 5 billion Krona ($500 million) a year from 2022 through 2025.
Defense

By Mark Carreau
Worchester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is developing a an algorithm to eliminate imperfections in carbon fiber composites for materials used in the production of propellant tanks and other spacecraft components.
Defense

By Bradley Perrett
Japan has flight tested an integrated suite of sensors for its next fighter, creating a single system from a gallium-nitride radar, a passive radio-frequency sensor and an infrared camera.
Defense

By Tony Osborne
Indra is to lead Spain’s involvement in the tri-national European Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program.
Defense

By Steve Trimble
The environmental impact statement released as part of the Air National Guard “beddown” process that establishes several new F-35A bases also identifies the unique radar chaff system tailored for the F-35.
Defense

TURKISH AEROSPACE announced Sept. 2 it delivered 51st T129 ATAK attack helicopter to Turkish Land Forces.

Saab has promoted Deputy CEO Micael Johansson to take the helm of the Swedish aerospace and defense company.

LEONARDO will study future Eurofighter Typhoon’s “Praetorian” Defensive Aids Sub System (DASS) for BAE SYSTEMS.

India and the U.S. Air Force are discussing co-development and production of a small unmanned air system, a U.S. spokesman says.

By Mark Carreau
Communications between the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lander were lost moments before a scheduled landing at the Moon’s south pole Sept. 6 U.S. time, during the braking phase with the spacecraft and its Pragyan rover about 2.1 km above the lunar surface. The autonomous descent, which got under way at 4:08 p.m. EDT, was considered to be going as planned until that point. The loss of signal was reported by the ISRO control center at Istrac, Bengaluru at 4:24 p.m. EDT.
Defense

By Bill Carey
The FAA has postponed the release of a draft rulemaking for remote identification of drones by two months until December.

By Lee Hudson
The U.S. Army vehemently maintains that Future Vertical Lift will remain relevant as some say the concept of operations for the effort is obsolete against potential adversaries like Russia.
Defense

By Irene Klotz
NASA’s long-standing Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) is encouraged by the agency’s early efforts to speed up a crewed lunar mission to 2024, but cautions that the NASA workforce may be stretched too thin.
Defense

By Steve Trimble, Lee Hudson
Six weeks after deciding not to submit an independent proposal to the U.S. Air Force, Boeing has opened discussions with Northrop Grumman to create a combined team to win the $85 billion Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program.
Defense

By Mark Carreau
Russia’s unpiloted Soyuz MS-14 test spacecraft departed the International Space Station on Sept. 6, headed for re-entry and a parachute-assisted landing in south central Kazakhstan.
Defense

Sept. 9-13—European Space Agency Earth Observation Week 2019, Various locations. For more information go to https://earth.esa.int/web/guest/events/all-events/-/article/esa-earth-o…