NASA plans to add five more Crew Dragon missions to SpaceX’s Commercial Crew flight services contract on a sole-source basis, as the agency continues to work with Boeing to certify a second transportation system to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
The U.S. Space Force this month will finalize its force design for how it will move the ground moving target indication mission from aircraft to space, with the plan to shape the 2024 budget request. The U.S. Air Force wants to retire its E-8C Joint Stars that currently serve in this role, with much of the capability to come from satellites. This plan faces several hurdles, however, not the least of which is physics.
Sukhoi and MiG have formally merged with parent company United Aircraft Corp., with both legacy Soviet fighter manufacturers having ceased to exist as separate entities as of June 1. “Strong and worldwide-known Sukhoi and MiG brands will last in the assembled aircraft, while their reputable design schools will continue to evolve,” said Sergey Chemezov, CEO of Rostec, UAC’s parent company.
Startup propulsion company Ursa Major announced June 2 that it is offering a 200,000 lb. thrust liquid oxygen and methane staged-combustion rocket engine called Arroway.
The Pentagon and the intelligence community are close to wrapping up a Space Strategic Review to outline the government’s policies for operations in space, including the mix of offensive and defensive systems and the extent to which they need to be classified.
Despite the fact that it won’t be declared operational for at least another two years, the Boeing KC-46A has flown thousands of operational missions and offloaded tens of millions of pounds of fuel under a plan that has freed up the troubled tanker to refuel 97% of receiver aircraft.
South Korea’s Defense Project Promotion Committee has OK’d spending KRW750 billion ($605 million) to upgrade the country’s MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missiles from the PAC-2 to the PAC-3 standard.
A Canadian procurement official on June 2 restated the government’s commitment to finalizing a contract by year’s end to buy 88 F-35As, but an industry executive raised new doubts that the goal could be achieved.
A discussion of the blockbuster movie’s aviation-geek-pleasing details, from the recreation of Lockheed Martin’s SR-72 concept to why Maverick didn’t fly the F-35 and more.
The U.S. Navy has signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Kleos Space to provide radio frequency geolocation data as part of an experiment.
NASA has selected Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace as part of a potential $3.5 billion public private partnership for the development, training and operations of a new generation of astronaut spacesuits to support the agency’s human exploration of the Moon as well as continuing maintenance and upgrades to the International Space Station (ISS) through 2030.
The U.S. Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance fighter has begun engineering and manufacturing development based on progress from a previous DARPA program t
A diverse set of options and timelines has come forward as the Canadian government begins evaluating options for a new maritime patrol fleet to replace the Lockheed CP-140 Aurora aircraft.
