Aerospace & Defense Roundup: April. 27

Artist's concept of HLS.

Collins Aerospace said it recently transmitted data via the new Iridium Certus satellite communications (satcom) service using a high-gain antenna, marking a critical milestone in its development of Certus hardware. Credit: Collins Aerospace

NASA and Space X have announced that the planned splashdown of four Crew-1 Dragon astronauts returning from the International Space Station will now take place on May 1 rather than April 28. The change, announced late April 26, was made due to a forecast of out-of-limit wind speeds across potential landing zones in the waters off Florida’s Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Credit: NASA

Frank Kendall, a veteran defense acquisition and engineering executive, will be nominated to become the next U.S. Air Force secretary, potentially bringing a skeptical eye to the service’s current strategy for acquiring and developing the next generation of combat aircraft, a source tells Aerospace DAILY. Credit: Office of the Secretary of Defense

Depressed commercial aerospace returns still could not dampen earnings or sentiments at Raytheon Technologies after the company on April 27 reported its mildly better-than-expected financial results for the first quarter of 2021, and even raised expectations for the rest of the year. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Heidi Shyu, a U.S. Army acquisition bureaucrat during the Obama administration and veteran Raytheon executive, is President Joe Biden’s pick for undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. Credit: U.S. Government

Arianespace is planning on a Vega launch on April 28, five months after mission VV17 failed due to an assembly error. Mission VV18 will be the first one this year from Europe’s space port in Kourou, French Guiana. It was delayed to March and then April (from early this year), notably due to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. During the preparation, prime contractor Avio, Arianespace and the European Space Agency (ESA) have followed all the recommendations that the Independent Inquiry Commission issued, according to Arianespace. Credit: ESA / CNES / Arianespace - Optique video du CSG / S. Martin