Defense

By Tony Osborne
The UK has outlined plans to spend nearly £1 billion ($1.35 billion) to develop an on-orbit intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability.
Space

By Steve Trimble
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced a plan on Feb. 1 to deploy a “laser wall” in the country’s south later this year to shoot down rockets from Gaza.
Missile Defense & Weapons

By Irene Klotz
After waiting out poor weather and a wayward cruise ship in Florida, SpaceX on Jan. 31 launched the newest member of Italy’s synthetic aperture radar Constellation of Small Satellites for Mediterranean basin Observation network, completing the fourth of 52 missions SpaceX plans this year.
Commercial Space

By Mark Carreau
Crowdsourcing platform HeroX is again working with NASA through a just-announced competition aimed at tackling another technical challenge to enable a two- to three-year roundtrip human expedition to Mars.
Space

By Steve Trimble
The British Army has confirmed plans to join the Lockheed Martin Precision Strike Missile program as part of a wider upgrade to the Land Deep Fires capability.
Missile Defense & Weapons

Bahrain – the first nation in the world to operate the F-16 Block 70 fighter jets – is to receive new flight simulators for the type, developed by Lockheed Martin, to train pilots for national defence missions under a new agreement approved by US government..
Maintenance & Training

By Chen Chuanren
To patrol the Pacific, nations in Southeast Asia are turning to UAS, business jets and even space.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Graham Warwick
With funding support from the U.S. Air Force’s AFWerx innovation unit, Piasecki Aircraft plans full-scale ground tests and a scaled flight demonstration of hydrogen fuel-cell propulsion leading into development and certification of its planned PA-890 helicopter.
Aircraft & Propulsion

The F-35 Joint Program Office has delivered a modernized sustainment tracking system to 14 U.S. and European bases, completing the first phase of the rollout for the replacement of its glitch-prone predecessor.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Steve Trimble
A Kansas-based team plans to offer a tanker variant of a passenger-to-freighter converted Boeing 777-300ER to the U.S. Air Force.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Steve Trimble
Then-Vice Adm. Mat Winter, the former head of the F-35 Joint Program Office, introduced a new framework more than four years ago that would guide the Lockheed Martin fighter’s follow-on modernization program with a grand new vision for a software-enabled weapon system.
Budget, Policy & Operations

By Brian Everstine
Lockheed Martin’s entrant in the U.S. Air Force’s KC-Y “bridge tanker” program would be assembled in Mobile, Alabama, and missionized Marietta, Georgia, should it win the award, and the company expects requirements to be outlined in a draft request for proposals (RFP) this year.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Tony Osborne
Belgium has committed to around €10.2 billion ($11.4 billion) in additional defense spending over the next eight years, with procurements of helicopters and special forces aircraft to follow.
Budget, Policy & Operations

By Graham Warwick
Under a joint project to create an optical internet service connecting low-orbiting satellites with high-flying unmanned aircraft, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Sony researchers have demonstrated high-speed, large-capacity communications in a low-quality, error-prone environment.
Commercial Space

By Graham Warwick
Masten Space Systems is touting progress with its Nighttime Integrated Thermal and Electricity system, designed as a low-cost/low-mass method for keeping electronics and payloads on commercial lunar landers alive during nights on the Moon.
Commercial Space

By Mark Carreau
Now that NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover team has cleared a pebble obstruction from its sample collection mechanism, the robot geologist is ready to resume drilling into selected rocks that may host evidence of past microbial life on the red planet.
Space

By Tony Osborne
Austria’s Diamond Aircraft has decided to adopt a Pratt & Whitney Canada turboprop engine for its DART tandem-seat training aircraft, after what the manufacturer described as an adjustment of its development program.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Graham Warwick
Already cooperating with the U.S. Air Force through its Agility Prime program, startup Beta Technologies has received a contract from the U.S. Army to support flight testing of its Alia electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.
Advanced Air Mobility

By Graham Warwick
A Middle Eastern air force has conducted the first deployments of Yates Electrospace’s Silent Arrow GD-2000 unmanned cargo glider to take place outside the U.S., the company announced Jan. 31.
Advanced Air Mobility

By Steve Trimble
Lockheed Martin has delivered the first F-16 from a year-old depot opened in Greenville, South Carolina.
Aircraft & Propulsion

Speculation has begun that the UAE has, once again, revived its interest in acquiring a combat aircraft of Russian origin.
Defense

By Brian Everstine
Russia’s buildup of forces near Ukraine, including the deployment of combat aircraft and ballistic missiles, is at a scale not seen since the Cold War, and top U.S. and NATO officials are continuing to press the Kremlin to draw down and trying to make room for diplomacy.
Budget, Policy & Operations

By Michael Bruno
A private investing firm associated with Boeing has invested more money in artificial intelligence specialist SparkCognition, helping to push the latter into the coveted “unicorn” realm of pre-revenue companies sporting valuations of $1 billion or more.
Sensors & Electronic Warfare

By Brian Everstine
The Pentagon has stood up new efforts to reduce civilian casualties following high-profile incidents across the Middle East in which civilians were killed in U.S. airstrikes, with a new mitigation plan expected within 90 days.
Budget, Policy & Operations