Aerospace & Defense Roundup: July 13

Scramjet powered missile.

The UK Ministry of Defense plans to retire its BAE Systems Hawk T1 fleet at the end of March 2022 after nearly 50 years of service. The jet trainer is currently used by the Royal Navy to simulate anti-ship attacks and by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the aggressor mission. It will be formally withdrawn from service on March 31, 2022. Credit: Tony Osborne/Aviation Week

Hard on the heels of being appointed chief executive of delivery-drone developer Volansi, former assistant U.S. Air Force Secretary Will Roper has been named to the board of electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) aircraft developer Beta Technologies. Credit: Beta Technologies

The U.S. Forest Service notified Bell Textron of a “potentially serious maintenance issue” with its Bell medium helicopters just before Transport Canada and the FAA issued emergency airworthiness directives (ADs) requiring operators to inspect the aircraft’s main-rotor hubs for potentially faulty hub strap pins. Credit: CAL FIRE

The FAA has approved a modification to Blue Origin’s launch license to fly passengers, clearing the way for company founder and financier Jeff Bezos and three crewmates to fly on the New Shepard suborbital launch system on July 20, pending weather and technical checks. Credit: Blue Origin

Drone Delivery Canada plans to test expedited deliveries from Edmonton International Airport in Alberta to local businesses under a yearlong project with the airport, Apple Express Courier and Ziing Final Mile. Credit: Drone Delivery Canada

United Airlines and its regional affiliate Mesa Airlines have conditionally agreed to order 200 19-passenger electric airliners from Heart Aerospace as part of a deal that includes investment in the Swedish startup. Credit: Heart Aerospace

Germany has established a military space command in response to the growing militarization of the domain. The space command comes under the control of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe), the Luftwaffe. It was formally established on July 13 and will operate from a facility in Kalkar in northwest Germany that already commands German and NATO air operations in Northern Europe. Credit: Bundeswehr

As alternative propulsion concepts show promise to help decarbonize aviation, leaders in the commercial aviation, advanced air mobility and business aviation markets have joined forces to establish carbon credits for emissions reductions enabled by electric- and hydrogen-powered aircraft. Credit: Joby Aviation

NASA, working in concert with the Department of Energy (DOE), has selected three reactor design concepts for space nuclear propulsion systems using high-assay, low-enriched uranium fuel. The contracts to be awarded through the DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) are each valued at about $5 million over 12 months. Credit: NASA

Only a fraction of the investment required to make urban air mobility (UAM) an economically or socially relevant mode of transportation has been raised, and players in the market will need to take the long view if they want to see a return on their investment, cautions a report by Porsche Consulting. Credit: Volocopter