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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Twelve-year-old Satellogic, an Earth observation satellite systems and analytics company, became publicly traded in late January after the reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), as well as an 11th-hour investment boost via former Trump administration Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
The U.S. Air Force has launched a market survey for a newly christened F-35 Adaptive Engine Replacement program, disclosing the first details of a still-unfunded proposal to replace the Pratt & Whitney F135 within five years of a possible contract award in the first quarter of fiscal 2024.
With the absence of adequate Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT) aircraft and the precarious fall out on the operational training of Indian Air Force (IAF), India is working to reduce live equipment utilisation with enhanced use of simulators.
Thales Australia welcomed the move, saying it will accelerate collaboration and represented “a boost to the development of Australian sovereign hypersonic weapon capability.”
Roscosmos plans to start testing the new Angara A5M and Soyuz-5 rockets as well as the Oryol spaceship, all of which are intended to replace legacy Soviet hardware still in operation.
