Aerospace & Defense Roundup: Sep. 16

Modernity and adaptability are among the characteristics that Boeing is promoting in proposing its T-7 trainer for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Like rival Leonardo, the company also emphasizes flight performance, perhaps the weakest point of the contender that has the obvious advantage in cost, the BAE Systems Hawk. Credit: Boeing

Working with Nanoracks, LLC, NASA is about to mark a milestone in its push to transition oversight of human scientific research and tech development in low Earth orbit to the private sector as it sets its sights on the Moon and Mars. Credit: nanoracks.com

In an audit of NASA’s Planetary Science Division (PSD), the agency’s inspector general expresses concerns over the adequacy of funding and oversight of the recently established lunar Commercial Launch Provider Services (CLPS) initiative and efforts to identify potential impact threats to Earth posed by asteroids and comets as mandated by Congress. Credit: NASA

NASA is removing a planned secondary payload from the August 2022 launch of its Psyche asteroid probe, leaving a pair of small satellites without a piggyback ride to Mars. The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) mission was slated to ride aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy in August 2022 along with the Maxar-built Psyche spacecraft, which is being designed to explore a metal-rich asteroid of the same name. Credit: UC Berkeley image courtesy of Robert Lillis.

Turkish unmanned aircraft system developer Baykar Makina has carried out the first flight of its Cezeri ducted multicopter electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Credit: Baykar Makina

U.S. Air Force and Space Force leaders said they are in discussions with other service heads to resolve assignments over a broad range of overlapping roles and missions, including the amount of organic space capabilities that should remain in the other services. Credit: General Atomics

The FAA’s plan to amend the collision-avoidance methodology it uses in licensing commercial space launches will support safer operations with more flexible launch windows as space at low Earth orbit (LEO) becomes increasingly congested, the agency says. Credit: FAA

The Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie is often regarded as the technology precursor to the autonomous technology pursued by the Skyborg project, but another, little-known program played a key role with the development of alternative aircraft, Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) officials said. Credit: AFRL

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has accomplished what it described as the world’s first successful landing of a UAV at a major airport while integrating the vehicle into commercial traffic.Credit: IAI

Leonardo is proposing a military variant of its AW139 twin-engine medium helicopter for Poland as a replacement for the country’s aging W-3 Sokol and Mi-2 rotorcraft. Leonardo maintains a presence in-country through its ownership of PZL-Swidnik. The company says adoption of the AW139 would lower operating costs up to 40-50% compared to the older Polish-built aircraft, and that delivery could be made in two years. Credit: Leonardo

Kopter Group is moving the prototype of its SH09 single-engine light helicopter back to the company’s home base in Switzerland following an extensive flight test campaign in Sicily. Credit: Kopter Group