Defense

Private space sector jobs reached a nine-year high in 2020, according to new Space Foundation analysis of U.S. government data, with the industry employing 148,000 people, while space-related mergers, buyouts and equity financings totaled $18.2 billion.

Hunt for hypersonic interceptor; Smith wants May 10 budget request; Air Force’s SIAW shift, and Austin scraps European drawdown.

Startup ABL’s launcher is well-sized for Lockheed’s new satellite bus.

An intense private feud erupted publicly over Air Force objections to Army plans to encroach on long-range strike mission.

Turkey’s indigenous within-visual-range air-to-air missile, Bozdogan/Merlin has scored its first aerial kill in flight trials.

Poland is buying five surplus Lockheed C-130H airlifters and will develop Lask AB as the main operating location for its future F-35s.

Blue Origin simulated pre- and post-launch passenger operations as its 15th suborbital launch of the New Shepard lifted off on April 14.

Astranis, a startup aiming to provide lower-cost broadband service from geostationary orbit, has announced $250 million in new financing.

Israel Aerospace Industries and Thales team to offer IAI’s Gabriel V anti-ship missile to meet a UK need for an interim anti-ship weapon.

Airbus completes low-speed flight-envelope testing of its VSR700 naval rotary-wing uncrewed air system.

The “fleet” of defense competitors has been growing in recent years, and new entrants may have different tactics, resources and goals.

The House Armed Services Committee chairman says the Lockheed Martin F-35 program characterizes its flying-hour cost as “a big problem.”

The House Armed Services Committee chairman wants the U.S. to review national security policy and the White House to release the budget.

A Broad Area Announcement (BAA) entitled “Enhanced Hypersonic Defense,” which the MDA released on April 12, requests companies to submit white papers by May 12 for the Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI) program.

The move announced in a March 17 acquisition notice scratches the original plan to award the contract without a competition to Northrop Grumman Mission Systems.

Astrobiotic’s Griffin lunar lander, carrying NASA’s water-hunting VIPER rover, will fly on a Falcon Heavy, perhaps in late 2023.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced an additional 500 troops will be based in Germany by the fall.

In the first of our SPOTLIGHT programmes where we turn the beam of discovery onto products and companies to keep abreast of their plans and successes, we head to Abu Dhabi.

Fixing an issue with NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter will require a slight modification to the vehicle’s software, delaying the first flight test.

The second Mission Extension Vehicle, MEV-2, autonomously docked with the Intelsat 10-02 satellite on April 12 in its operational GEO location at 1 deg. West longitude.

KF-21 fighter development will strengthen economy and national defense, says South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in.