Aviation Week & Space Technology

The recent accident that destroyed a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket offers competing launch service providers an opportunity to tout their relative strengths.

New head of Germany’s DLR space agency and her colleagues across Europe lobby for money to fund future projects.

Reaction Engines is firming up plans to build a fighter engine-size ground demonstrator of its reusable hypersonic propulsion system.

Despite its location in the busiest section of airspace in East Asia, Taiwan’s CAA has had no direct access to ICAO for the past 40 years and has only indirectly gained information.

United Launch Alliance is taking the first steps along an alternate path involving recovery of only the first-stage engines.

With little more than a year until the FAA’s authorization runs out, debates over whether air traffic control should be handed to the private sector are raging.

Risk of injury from drones falling on people’s heads appears to be less than expected, but a small UAS hitting an aircraft will not be the same as a birdstrike, initial research indicates.

U.S. Air Force Secretary Deborah James says the new bomber will be called the Raider, in honor of the Doolittle Raiders that fought Japan during World War II.

Lower cost is key for Europe’s future launchers.

From full speed ahead to slamming on the brakes: The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has formally tightened rules on setting up airlines, around five months after it suspended authorizations, unannounced.

Israel’s ducted-rotor cargo UAS; distributed flaps improve efficiency; submarine-launched drone tested; Prodrone’s grasping, clinging UAS; DARPA’s counter-UAS Dragnet.

Bell Helicopter plans to offer tiltrotors for almost every anticipated U.S. military requirement as its V-280 Valor prototype comes together in Amarillo, Texas.

From meager beginnings, this small Miami-based avionics is fast becoming a global powerhouse to supply the backbone for aircraft connectivity.

Boeing is taking no chances on the U.S. Air Force’s T-X trainer competition, which may save its St. Louis factory when F-15 and F/A-18 production ends.

Eric Dautriat has retired as executive director of Clean Sky after seven years leading Europe’s major public-private partnership for civil aeronautics research.

Singapore Airlines is not extending the lease for its first Airbus A380, another blow for the manufacturer and the struggling program.

While Iridium has been able to raise the $3 billion needed to build and orbit the new system, which includes spares for backup, getting back to space has been a challenge.

In this week’s Washington Outlook, the U.S. will provide $38 billion in military to Israel over the next 10 years; business groups want to restore Ex-Im bank’s ability to approve major deals; and the Air Force needs more time to upgrade its air traffic avionics systems.

Aircraft are ever more connected to the internet, in the cabin, the cockpit and to the maintenance shop.

With about $40 million a year to spend, the agency’s Convergent Aeronautics Solutions project has so far funded 15 subprojects in three annual selection rounds.

Among 16 Tigers in Australian Army squadron service, an average of only 3.5 were serviceable in 2015.

Satellite fleet operators old and new see rising growth in aeronautic, maritime broadband.

When aerospace executives look at digital opportunities, too many use the traditional technology lens without sufficiently evaluating business model impacts.

In this week's defense roundup: Belarus testing weaponized UAV, Antonov to fly light airlifter before 2017, NRO focuses on ground systems and algorithms, and Indonesia test flies first of five retrofitted C-130Bs.

An innovative state bureaucracy? South Carolina’s got one—and it has won two key awards, too.