Defense

A newtarget drone designed for the U.S. Navy to replicate the flight patterns and countermeasures of enemy anti-ship cruise missiles and aircraft has moved into low-rate initial production.

House defense authorizers highlighted a spate of hypoxia-like cockpit incidents in U.S. Navy aircraft during a markup of the defense policy bill, with one lawmaker slamming the service for its “insufficient” response to the problem.

The new venture – Space Infrastructure Services (SIS) – will commercialize “sophisticated” satellite servicing capabilities, including refueling.

The House’s version of the defense policy bill, if passed, would authorize the Pentagon to take the next step toward an international F-35 “block buy” valued at as much as $40 billion.

The big winners in the bill are combat aircraft and helicopter manufacturers.

Lt. Gen. Bradley Heithold, principal deputy director of the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office, says after almost 60 years of laser development, high-power laser technology is finally on the cusp of delivering battlefield utility.

The CST-100, along with SpaceX’s crewed Dragon, is one of two space capsules in development under NASA Commercial Crew contracts to fly U.S. astronauts to the ISS...

The Roll-Out Solar Array (ROSA), a power generator with an experimental deployment mechanism launched to the International Space Station (ISS) earlier this month, was jettisoned earlier this week after it failed to retract.

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee has approved legislation that would boost weapons procurement by $18.6 billion above President Trump’s budget request, adding aircraft across the armed services.

The factory in Toulouse already has produced two “qualification satellites” for ground-testing purposes. Production of 10 “pilot satellites” has now started.

Able to detect, track, identify and defeat small unmanned aircraft, AUDS will be used to protect critical assets and personnel. The contract is estimated to be worth about €2 million ($2.3 million).

A senior scientist at the Indian Space Research Organization says the 1,000 Earth days correspond to 973.24 Mars Sols.

Discussions at Le Bourget revealed a handful of topics that seemed to be on everyone’s minds.

China and Russia seem to be far ahead on work hypersonic flight and weaponry, perhaps even forcing rethinking of strategic systems.

Images released by the company show a rail-mounted laser weapon capped by the company’s electro-optical infrared Multi-Spectral Targeting System, typically carried by the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper.

Senior staffers for the committee confirm that the proposal by the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee to create a Space Force has been carried forward to be voted on.

The first spacecraft is in storage, awaiting launch in 2018, and the second is integrated and ready for environmental testing, according to Lockheed Martin.

Lockheed is working through “unexpected issues” in adapting the latest iteration of F-35 simulator software...

The 65,000-ton, 280 meter-long HMS Queen Elizabeth was inched out of the Rosyth naval dockyard on June 26.

Two of the three twin-seat Typhoons ordered by Muscat touched down at the newly built Adam air base in central Oman on June 21.

The launch from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) was the second mission for SpaceX in three days, following Friday’s deployment of Bulgaria’s first communications satellite.

The SmartGlider weapon family, which MBDA says will be available from 2025, is an unpowered glide-bomb fitted with deployable wings offering a high lift-to-drag ratio.

Trump administration boosts military space budget by 5% compared to last year’s projections, provides seed funding for six new programs.

The launch was the second to use a Falcon 9 first-stage rocket that had previously flown and landed.

U.S. lawmakers want the U.S. Air Force to sustain or accelerate fielding of its T-X trainer and consider ditching the General Atomics Block 5 MQ-9 Reaper in favor of the company’s newer MQ-9B.