Aerospace & Defense Roundup: Jul. 16

Boeing is leaning on the development of its Airpower Teaming System (ATS) in its offer for the UK’s Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft (LANCA) initiative. Boeing Autonomous Systems is working with Marshall Aerospace and Cranfield University and submitted its proposal for a LANCA platform in the spring.

Two state-owned companies in Singapore and Israel agreed on July 16 to set up a joint venture (JV) to market advanced anti-ship missiles. The equally-split JV between Singapore Technologies (ST) Engineering and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) will be called Proteus Advanced Systems.

NASA astronauts Chris Cassidy and Bob Behnken all but completed a long-running series of battery replacements on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) during a 6-hr. spacewalk July 16.

After overcoming years of delays to resolve technical issues, launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a long-awaited successor to the 30-year-old Hubble observatory, is being postponed at least seven months, largely due to pandemic-related workplace shutdowns, NASA said on July 16.

Pentagon

RQ-4

Launch of the United Arab Emirates’ Mars Hope mission, already twice delayed by poor weather, has been reset for no earlier than July 20. “Due to continued thunderstorms, clouds and unstable weather conditions in the coming days on Tanegashima Island, the launch site for the Emirates Mars Mission’s Hope probe, the launch is now scheduled to take place between the 20th and 22nd July 2020, depending on improved weather,” the Emirates Space Agency and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center said in a July 16 statement.