In Pictures: Top Aerospace & Defense Stories, Oct. 25 2022

Credit: Saab. Although Sweden has begun the process of becoming a NATO member, its longstanding position outside the alliance has historically necessitated the maintenance of a highly capable air force. 

Credit: Kongsberg NanoAvionics. Kongsberg NanoAvionics plans to make a “multimillion” euro investment to increase its manufacturing capacity to produce several hundred small satellites annually.

Credit: SpaceX. NASA is now spending more money with SpaceX than Boeing, Lockheed or any other single contractor aside from the California Institute of Technology, which operates the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

Credit: Beta Technologies. Airports and fixed-base operators (FBO) that plan to service electric air vehicles should have plans in place at least a year ahead of their arrival, says the developer of the Alia-250 electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.

Credit: Ampaire. Monte Aircraft Leasing has placed a firm order with hybrid-electric propulsion startup Ampaire for 25 Eco Caravans with an option for an additional 25 of the converted Cessna Grand Caravans.

Credit: Boeing. The Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) has taken delivery of its first remanufactured AH-64E Apache. 

Credit: NASA. Redwire’s upgraded Biofabication Facility (BFF) is set for a Nov. 6 launch to the International Space Station (ISS), intended to advance efforts to culture human tissues and organs in microgravity for surgical transplant on Earth.

Ben Wallace

Credit: Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin is pitching a three-phase adoption of datalinks, processing and enhanced situational awareness for its LMXT tanker, as the U.S. Air Force works through its requirements and decides whether to continue with a competition for the KC-Y “bridge tanker.”

Credit: XPeng. Chinese electric vehicle maker XPeng has unveiled a revised design for its planned fly/drive electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) “flying car.”

Credit: Aero Vodochody. Czech aircraft manufacturer Aero Vodochody has completed the first flight of an upgraded version of the L-159 Advanced Light Combat Aircraft (ALCA), boosting its capabilities in the advanced trainer and aggressor role. 

Credit: Defense Department. Ash Carter, an academic and physicist turned Pentagon leader who served as President Barack Obama’s last secretary of defense from 2015-2017, died Oct. 24 at the age of 68.

Credit: NASA. The seven-person International Space Station (ISS) conducted an altitude-raising maneuver late Oct. 24 to avoid orbital debris associated with a former Soviet electronic and signals intelligence satellite that was the target of a November 2021 Russian anti-satellite test.

Credit: Lockheed Martin. In August, Lockheed Martin delivered its first flight software package for an updated national missile defense system, the Next Generation Interceptor (NGI). 

Credit: NASA. NASA plans to attempt first flight of its X-57 Maxwell electric aircraft “no earlier than” this December.

Electra.aero has provided details about its hybrid-electric short-takeoff-and-landing (eSTOL) aircraft development road map as assembly of a piloted, sub-scale demonstrator gets underway.