The U.S. Navy has decided to acquire stealthy cruise missiles instead of developing a powered version of a long-range glide munition, a spokeswoman said on June 1.
The Air Force spared the U-2S from a list of hundreds of proposed aircraft divestments next year, but details buried deep within the fiscal 2022 budget request unveiled on May 29 reveal the aircraft’s long-term fate.
The James Webb Space Telescope will not make its targeted Oct. 31 launch date, but should be ready to fly before the window for its ride to space aboard an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket closes in early December, the European Space Agency said on June 1.
Astronauts will be upgrading the International Space Station’s solar power system and focusing on future human deep space exploration research with a 7,300-lb.cargo to be launched to the station on June 3.
The 2.8-metric-ton-class aircraft would be a clean-sheet design aimed at meeting the UK Ministry of Defense’s rotary-wing unmanned air system (RWUAS) requirements.
Budget justification documents released by the Navy on May 29 list the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) and the Supersonic Propulsion Enabled Advanced Ramjet (SPEAR) demonstrators as candidates for the Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare (OASuW) Increment II program.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s fiscal 2022 budget request for $8.9 billion is a decrease of 2.5% compared to the previous year, but the agency continues to fund key programs like the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor and a Guam defense system to compete with China.
The Biden administration has proposed substantial boosts in spending across NASA’s human exploration, planetary science, and Earth science/climate research as part of a 2022 budget proposal that could ease the previous administration’s plans to return to the Moon’s surface with U.S. astronauts in 2024.
The Pentagon’s fiscal 2022 budget request proposed $936.7 million for the U.S. Space Development Agency, which is an increase of $600 million or 36% compared to the previous year.
Within a budget request for aeronautics research in fiscal 2022 of $914.8 million, up from $828.7 million enacted for 2021, NASA plans to accelerate the launch of the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator program to produce a full-scale, ultra-efficient subsonic X-plane.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is working with Japanese toymaker Takara Tomy to build a transformable lunar robot to collect data on the Moon’s surface to use in development of a manned pressurized rover.
The Pentagon’s fiscal 2022 budget request is designed to keep the U.S. up with China by proposing the largest R&D investment in history, $112 billion, according to a senior defense official.
The fiscal 2022 spending request forwarded to Congress on May 28 proposes fewer units of aircraft across all fleets, including fighters; mobility; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; and rotorcraft.
The service’s fiscal 2022 budget request includes $65.5 billion for operations and maintenance, $21.3 billion for procurement and $12.8 billion for research, development, test and evaluation.
The White House is requesting that the U.S. Space Force’s budget grow by nearly 13% to $17.4 billion in fiscal 2022, according to budget documents obtained May 28 by Aviation Week.
