Defense

The U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (Navcent) Task Force 50 is now under the command of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, which now plans and conducts coalition strike operations in the Middle East, the U.S. Navy says.

The major military components of the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System in Romania have been transferred to U.S. 6th Fleet, the Navy reports.

The guided-missile destroyer DDG 90 USS Chafee returned to Pearl Harbor earlier this month from an independent deployment to the U.S. 3rd, 4th and 7th Fleet areas of operations.

NASA has scuttled plans for a March 2016 launch of the multinational Mars InSight lander because of an inability to resolve a small vacuum leak in a key European instrument.

Virgin Galactic is expected to complete assembly of the second SpaceShipTwo suborbital space vehicle in time for external painting to take place over the holiday break.

Turkey’s Baykar Makina and Kale Kalip have completed the first tests of an indigenous armed UAV capability.

The French government has formally ordered an additional seven Airbus Tiger HAD attack helicopters in line with the defense ministry’s 2014-2019 plan.

New Zealand-based space launch company Rocket Lab has announced the start of construction of an orbital launch site on the Mahia Peninsula, an outlying spit of land on the east coast of the country’s North Island.

With the new acquisition directions from Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, the U.S. Navy will soon have to better address some of its bedeviling bandwidth issues.

Japan will join NASA and the space agencies of Russia and Canada in extending operations of the International Space Station from 2020 to 2024.

Expanded Tables Online Download expanded specifications on in-production and under-development military transports and search more than 3,100 other systems at AviationWeek.com/specs

Success in recovering the Falcon 9 first stage marks a major step toward the long-sought dream of reusable commercial space launchers.

Two U.S. astronauts, working against the clock, hustled through a 3 1/2-hr. spacewalk on Dec. 21 to unjam the International Space Station’s unlatched 1-ton Mobile Transporter rail car.

Northrop Grumman has performed the first test flights of the Global Hawk-based Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) platform.

A new U.S. Government Accountability Office report continues to question the Littoral Combat Ship's lethality – especially when it comes to its offensive missiles.

The U.S. Navy is spotlighting the LCS 3 USS Forth Worth’s successful year at sea in the Western Pacific.

The probe of a fatal crash of a Hawker Hunter fighter at an airshow in August is focusing on regulations surrounding the maintenance of former military aircraft and the fitment of ejection seats in them.

Two Indonesian pilots died when their almost-new Korea Aerospace Industries TA-50 trainer-attack aircraft crashed during an aerobatic display at an air show on Dec. 20.

Rapid advances in commercial smallsat launch technology, plus an explosion-prone energetic propellant, cause research agency to drop plans to flight-test air-launched smallsat booster.

Northrop Grumman wind-tunnel tests and tail-sitter VTOL concept for Darpa’s Tern program and hopes for a contract to build a demonstrator for seaborne flight trails

India has decided to buy five S-400 supersonic air defense systems from Russia for an estimated 400 billion rupees ($6 billion) to guard against airborne threats from across the country’s borders.

The Ingalls Shipbuilding division of Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) was awarded a $34.8 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract earlier this month for lifecycle engineering and support services on the U.S. Navy’s LPD 17 USS San Antonio class of amphibious transport docks, the company has confirmed.

The Russian navy is continuing to make improvements in its naval aviation, a recent report by the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) shows.

U.S., Indian and Japanese officials recently recognized the importance of working with China on global issues, but agreed that such agreements are not moderating Chinese behavior in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, a CSIS report says.

While the U.S. Navy, contractors and analysts are still digesting this month’s directed shakeup of the service’s acquisition strategy by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, some potential winners are emerging.