Defense

IAI's loitering munitions don't just hover in the sky, like alert hunters they ensure that ground forces are monitoring the right area, waiting to detect and pounce on targets as soon as they appear.

Britain is planning to restart arms sales to Saudi Arabia, a year after judges found that government ministers had been unlawfully signing off on export licenses.

Damaging attacks by SUAS on Saudi oil facilities last September prompted the Pentagon to quickly seek to rationalize a counter-small unmanned aircraft systems (C-SUAS) architecture,.

AVIATION WEEK NETWORK forecasts that maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) demand for Western-designed maritime helicopters will increase 9.9% during

Brief news items of interest to aerospace & defense professionals.

An improved version of the Russian-built engine for the Sino-Pakistan FC-1/JF-17 fighter has been passed to a Moscow high pressure chamber to start

U.S. Military bureaucracy has neglected serious risks to the system and its users for decades.

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is looking at suborbital flights.

Here is a look at missions that have landed and attempted to land on Mars, as well as upcoming projects by the U.S., China and Europe.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has a strategy for winning support from a Republican-led Senate for NASA’s full $25.2 billion fiscal 2021 budget request, after Democrat-led House authorizers voted against a requested 12% topline increase.

NASA and Boeing have completed a joint review of software and verification problems that cut short the uncrewed flight test of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, resulting in 80 recommendations to be implemented prior to a repeat test targeted for late this year.

LUFTHANSA TECHNIK has contract to install multi-mission equipment on two new A321LRs for German Armed Forces from 2H21 for redelivery in 2022

SPIRIT AERONAUTICS, Columbus, OH completed communication systems upgrades on two E-9A Widgets (Dash 8) for USAF.

DARPA has selected Calspan to modify up to four Aero Vodochody L-39 Albatros jet trainers to test whether pilots will trust the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to automate dogfighting.

The U.S. Navy is taking another step in improving the readiness of F/A-18 and EA-18G aircraft by reversing a more than 10-year-long shortfall of generator control units (GCU).

A U.S. emergency medical services (EMS) helicopter operator has become the first commercial customer to order an instrument flight rules (IFR)-certified AW119 single-engine light helicopter.

Near-term acquisition programs are hardly altered. Most proposals will go ahead late in the 2020s or in the 2030s.

UAE and China are looking for Mars debuts, joining eight spacecraft currently operating at the Red Planet.

News in brief

Brief news items of interest to aerospace & defense professionals.

A draft of the House Appropriations Committee’s (HAC) mark of the fiscal 2021 defense funding bill, released July 7, would give the Pentagon $9.3 billion for 91 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, an additional 12 aircraft above President Trump’s budget request.

The Mars InSight lander’s mission team has decided to give its 6-ft.-long robot arm a rest from applying pressure into the red planet’s surface.

The U.S. Air Force has received nominations from 26 states to become the future home of U.S. Space Command (Spacecom).

Legislators’ first draft of a fiscal 2021 budget for NASA scales back the Trump administration’s requested 12% increase to current spending levels of $22.6 billion, which would moot a 2024 crewed landing on Moon.

Austria is to phase out its aging Saab 105 jet trainers without a replacement as ministers attempt to figure out the country’s future airspace surveillance plans.