Defense

The U.S. Air Force has named a re-formed squadron that will fly its first overseas-based F-35s from the UK.

This webinar took place February 19, 2021 and sponsored by Element. The U.S. and Europe are pursuing development of next-generation combat aircraft

Dennis Muilenburg will once again be chief executive of a publicly traded aerospace and defense company—in fact, it may be more than one, according to comments he made in an exclusive interview with Aviation Week.

The U.S. Army has retired the Bell TH-67 Creek training helicopter as part of its transition to the Airbus UH-72 Lakota. The last of the TH-67s, a derivative of the Bell Model 206B3 JetRanger, made their final flights at Cairns Army Airfield, Alabama, part of the Army’s Fort Rucker Aviation Center of Excellence training center, on Feb 17.

The UK is establishing a counterpart to the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, backed up with £800 million ($1.1 billion) of funding over the next four years.

Egypt will buy over 100 units of Block 2 variant of the Raytheon-built Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAM) guided missile weapon system from the United States. The U.S. State Department has made a determination approving the possible foreign military sale.

Prague-based Aero Vodochody recently received three Nigerian Air Force (NAF) L-39ZAs for overhaul and upgrade. Normally, this would have been straightforward but, as Alan Warnes explains, nothing is simple when Covid-19 is involved.

Perseverance to cache samples and demo for tech for future missions.

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

NASA’s independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel raised a number of concerns about the International Space Station Feb. 18 during its first quarterly meeting of 2021.

Perseverance is NASA’s fifth rover and ninth spacecraft to safely reach the surface of Mars.

The U.S. Air Force is whittling down upgrade options for the brand-new HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopter fleet because new threats from China and Russia outpaced the design before delivery of the first aircraft.

BlackSky, a startup with a burgeoning constellation of imaging satellites and its own data analytics service, will become a publicly traded company.

The target launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial space taxi on a second flight test is being delayed from March 25 to April 2 to complete replacement and testing of avionics boxes following a power surge at Starliner’s Kennedy Space Center processing facility.

Israel and the U.S. have formally launched development of the Arrow-4 interceptor missile and released a concept image that identifies the new defensive weapon as an upgrade of the 21-year-old Arrow 2 design.

Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury has said negotiations with partner nations and industry on the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) have entered a “challenging” phase.

Nominate a recent achievement of a mission, program, person or technological advance at Laureates.AviationWeek.com

NSF mulls next steps after premier radio telescope collapse.

Soyuz rockets may again begin launching civilians to the ISS.

UAE’s Hope and China’s Tianwen-1 open new chapters in Mars exploration.

SOCOM plans Armed Overwatch buy; GBSD moves past initial review; GE engine to power Italian helo and Denmark bolsters Arctic defenses.

The U.S. Air Force has begun retiring the aging B-1B to make room for the new B-21 bomber, but notably not all 17 Lancers slated for retirement will go to the boneyard.

The U.S. Air Force chief of staff envisions a 4.5-generation, or fifth generation “minus,” as the F-16 replacement.

The U.S. State Department has notified Congress of a possible $91 million foreign military sale to Finland of the Extended Range Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System.

Launch services provider Spaceflight Inc. has purchased NewSpace India Ltd.’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle to launch Spaceflight’s largest spacecraft to date at the end of February from Sriharikota, India.