Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

The Czech Republic has become the sixth nation to join the Dutch-led Multinational Multi Role Tanker Transport Fleet.

The USAF has released the final requests for proposals to two companies for a dramatically reduced acquisition plan for light attack aircraft.

XTI Aircraft says it has signed an initial agreement with a potential lead investor in its $25 million Series B funding round.

The last RAF Tucanos performed a 10-ship formation flight over RAF Linton-on-Ouse, North Yorkshire, on Oct. 25, marking the end of the last basic fast jet training course to use the platform.

Northrop Grumman “looks forward” to submitting its bid for the U.S. Air Force’s Ground-based Strategic Defense intercontinental ballistic missile replacement program in December,

First it was hypersonic missiles, now the U.S. is reacting to advances in directed-energy weapons by potential adversaries by exploring ideas for countering high energy laser (HEL) systems.

FAA and the German Aerospace Center have signed a memorandum of cooperation to identify data that should be shared when space launch and re-entry operations traverse the airspace of different countries.

The cabin electronics branch of Thales and telecom operator SES have demoed the use of a hybrid geostationary and medium Earth orbit sat network for improved inflight connectivity.

The CST-100 Starliner's trial run to the International Space Station will set the stage for a crewed flight test as early as March 2020.

Germany looks set to have the largest NH90 helicopter fleet in the world as it gears up to equip its naval air arm with an all-NH90 force by the late 2020s.

The pressure on the B-21 stealth bomber development program is rising ahead of a scheduled first flight milestone in December 2021.

The first two upgraded Atlantique 2 (ATL2) maritime patrol aircraft were delivered this past summer to the French Navy’s Lann-Bihoue air base.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has assembled the second stage of the first H3 medium-lift space launcher.

Eighteen competitors were prequalified and three finalists were selected, but only one company remains in the running to win up to $12 million in the DARPA Launch Challenge.

The two leading defense prime rivals for hypersonics work, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, said this week they expect Pentagon work toward counter-hypersonics defense systems to ramp up over the next year.

HTV-X will succeed JAXA’s HTV spacecraft, which is due to make its ninth and final mission to the International Space Station in 2020. The spacecraft also is a candidate for supplying NASA's lunar-orbiting Gateway space station.

Virgin Galactic will become the first major publicly traded new-space provider Oct. 28 when its shares become available on the New York Stock Exchange.

A Taiwanese company plans to enter the market for light space launches with what it says will be 10% of the costs of current major operators.

RAYTHEON announced delivery of first high-energy laser counter-drone system.

Arianespace is offering a rideshare mission to the Moon in 2023 aboard its new Ariane 6 rocket.

Collins Aerospace has been selected to deliver up to 3,018 ACES 5 ejection seats over the next decade to replace the escape systems in five different combat aircraft fleets.

SAAB is partnering with VRICON on new 3D global terrain and elevation database for aircraft.

Japanese startup SkyDrive has raised $14 million to advance development of its fly/drive electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) vehicle.

Eight teams will participate in a virtual competition, the AlphaDogfight Trials, under DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program.

A key component in the U.S. Air Force’s strategy to develop advanced domestic rocket engines has completed testing, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) announced on Oct. 23.