A United Launch Alliance Atlas V lifted off from Cape Canaveral AFS on March 26 to deliver the sixth and final member of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency secure communications satellite network into orbit for the U.S. and allies’ national security agencies.
A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, pulled into Guam during a deployment because of a growing outbreak of the novel coronavirus spreading among sailors throughout the decks.
A European Union-funded research project to improve aircraft ice protection is preparing upgraded wind tunnels for testing of a hybrid system capable of detecting icing caused by supercooled large droplets (SLD).
Bell and Sikorsky have been chosen to enter the second phase of design and testing potential replacements for AH-64 Apaches used for armed reconnaissance.
A portion of a $2 trillion spending bill to provide relief to a nation reeling from the novel coronavirus pandemic would provide $10.5 billion in additional funding for the U.S. military.
The Orion spacecraft slated to fly aboard NASA’s first Space Launch System flight test next year arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 25, as six more NASA facilities were shut down to help stem the spread of COVID-19.
Austrian aerospace parts and services provider FACC said March 25 that “a large part” of its staff is expected to apply for “short-term work” starting April 6, and that it will revise plans to ramp up a new Croatian factory, as well as suspend its dividend payment to shareholders for 2019.
Although F-35 Joint Strike Fighter test operations had to cease March 25 because of the novel coronavirus, the U.S. military has not seen “anything major” that would delay full-rate production, the Navy acquisition executive says.
The European Space Agency is reducing on-site personnel at its mission control center in Darmstadt, Germany, and switching some science missions into standby mode.
The European Space Agency is planning a public webcast on March 26 for astronauts to share their experience and techniques for living in confined spaces.
The Pentagon’s acquisition arm is tackling the military’s response to the novel coronavirus with a two-pronged approach: securing authorities for the defense industrial base to continue work while simultaneously supporting the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a DOD official said.
The U.S. Space Force is looking forward to “voice recognizable” communications with the expected completion of the six-satellite Advanced Extremely High Frequency constellation.
Preparations for Rocket Lab’s next launch, a rideshare mission of small research satellites, have been suspended because of newly announced New Zealand government restrictions designed to limit the spread of the COVID-19 disease.
Using the International Space Station’s robot arm, ground controllers removed Bartolomeo, the recently launched European commercial external experiment platform, from the SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule late March 24.
