Defense

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told journalists at RAF Waddington, England, that the UK's new Protector remotely piloted air system will enable the Royal Air Force to operate on the “world stage.”

Aviation Week editors witnessed terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and flew on missions guarding the capital. Listen to their stories.

After several cancellations over decades, the Navy’s revived interest in the Joint Air-to-Surface Missile family also reveals pursuit of more capabilities for it.

The White House either had bad intelligence about the staying power of the Afghan Armed Forces or ignored it. Either was a colossal mistake.

The booster flew for more than 2 min. despite losing one of four engines.

Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.

BlackSky, a small-satellite-based startup providing geospatial intelligence to government agencies and others, will begin trading as a public company Sept. 10 after a successful reverse-merger with a special purpose acquisition company.

As Sierra Space continues final assembly of the Dream Chaser orbital spaceplane ahead of its launch in late 2022, the Colorado-based company is expanding its partnership with Japanese trading corporation Kanematsu to facilitate development of an international commercial economy in low Earth orbit.

Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov conducted a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Sept. 9 despite a smoke alarm that sounded on the ISS several hours before the excursion.

The Space Force’s Space Enterprise Consortium other transaction authority has grown exponentially as the service has matured and evolved its acquisition process, and now expects to award almost $1 billion dollars this year largely to nontraditional companies.

The proliferation of small, cheap unmanned aerial systems is an emergent threat that the U.S. Army needs to address, the service’s top general says.

The Russian Aircraft Corp., MiG, has received an order for the “overhaul and modernization of MiG-31K aircraft to the MiG-31I variant,” according to a video report from a recent contract signing ceremony.

The Russian military has signed an order to upgrade its strategic Tupolev Tu-95MS bombers to the Tu-95MSM version.

Enterprise data platform provider Palantir has invested in solar-powered aircraft developer Skydweller Aero.

Turkish Aerospace (TUSAS) has been awarded two contracts by Spirit AeroSystems. Turkish Aerospace will manufacture and supply Section 48 – Tail Feather for Boeing 737 MAX-8 and over 400 parts and sub-assemblies for various Boeing platforms.

The satellites will be launched on five Electron flights scheduled to take place in quick succession over the second quarter of 2023.

The Model 437, which remains a paper concept, gives Northrop a candidate design as the U.S. and allied militaries develop requirements for a new class of autonomous UAS configured to be attritable.

With no ground forces to guide airstrikes, the Pentagon will rely on long-range drones to keep terrorist groups at bay in Afghanistan.

Sikorsky, Boeing deliver helo proposal; GE’s second XA100 test; Satellite servicing venture gains steam and South Korean missile test.

Luxembourg-based Kleos Space, which aims to provide big-data analytics via space-based radio frequency reconnaissance satellites, said it raised Australian $12.6 million ($9.3 million) by way of a stock sale.

The U.S. Navy’s top uniformed leader is not satisfied with how quickly his service is developing unmanned capabilities and has ordered the creation of a new task force over the next few months to find ways to accelerate.

The continued research and development for a possible F-35 engine replacement is needed, even without a commitment to replace the current F135 powerplant, so the U.S. Air Force can keep the option open and the technology evolving, the top service general said Sept. 8.

OneWeb’s emerging low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation will pair with AT&T’s terrestrial broadband fiber network to expand connectivity for AT&T business customers, particularly in harder-to-reach locations on Earth, the companies announced Sept. 8.