Long March 5, the critical launcher for China’s space program over the coming decade, flew for the first time on Nov. 3, demonstrating the country’s advances in hydrogen-fueled propulsion.
DARPA program plans to field navigation-grade MEMS IMU by 2020 as a drop-in replacement for today’s tactical-grade sensors to extend the time for which precision weapons can fly without GPS.
The newly revealed Avic Cloud Shadow appears to have a span of around 20 m (66 ft.), like the General Atomics Avenger used by the U.S. Air Force, though the Chinese aircraft is less bulky and probably lighter.
In this week’s Washington Outlook, the Pentagon acquisition chief defends procurement reforms; the FAA maintains a ban on flights over Ukraine; and insiders speculate who will lead Senate space policies.
The U.S. Navy has confirmed that its fifth Mobile User Objective System satellite has begun testing and will not become a multimillion-dollar piece of space junk, despite not quite reaching its intended geosynchronous orbit.
The Marine Corps has already witnessed the Insitu RQ-21 Blackjack fly for 19 hr. with a 30-lb. payload before dropping out of the sky. But but what if it could continue flying for another nine days?
NASA and its congressional funders are not keeping pace with the demand for space-based data on Planet Earth, the NASA inspector general’s office reports.
Despite troubles maintaining its old and shrinking inventory of Boeing AGM-86B air-launched cruise missiles, the U.S. Air Force says speeding up development and fielding of the follow-on Long-Range Standoff weapon is not the answer.
In this week’s roundup: Turkey adds to F-35 fighter request; U.S. black budget ticks up; IAI wins key Asian cyber security contract; and UK extends its Sentinel ISTAR aircraft life.
Nuclear weapons captured the interest of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and the issue of how to counter Russian and Chinese weapons will be at the forefront of the whoever wins the presidency. Aviation Week & Space Technology editors discuss some of those pending issues: programs to upgrade nuclear ICBMS, cruise missiles and bomber aircraft—and how to afford it all.
The Pentagon has unilaterally issued a $6 billion F-35 contract to Lockheed Martin without first securing a mutual agreement, signaling ongoing discord.
The U.S. Navy’s fifth Mobile User Objective System satellite has been maneuvered into a “roughly geosynchronous” orbit with enough fuel remaining to “keep us in an operational condition,” a Navy official says.
A U.S. Air Force KC-10 tanker from the 60th Air Mobility Wing lost its refueling boom during a Nov. 1 flight and was forced to make an emergency landing.
The European Space Agency and the European Commission last week issued a first-of-its-kind joint statement on a shared vision for Europe in space, drawing praise from the industry.
A two-decade-old remote sensing technology used by the U.S. military to detect harmful airborne pathogens and toxins may find new life seeking organic biosignatures in the atmosphere and on the surface of Mars and other planetary science destinations.
India has postponed the launch of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation communications satellite, which had been scheduled for later this year, a space scientist says.
New modeling of the Earth-Moon system attempts to further explain the explosive nature of the lunar formation and the complex interactions between the battered Earth, its offspring and the Sun that followed.
Turkey has committed to purchase an additional 24 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, one of the largest single orders for the aircraft placed by a foreign country.
The Pentagon expects the number of deployed U.S. nuclear warheads to rise by the next State Department reporting period in March as more of its nuclear delivery vehicles—bombers, submarines and missiles—come out of maintenance.
