Defense

KBR, Inc. will train commercial astronauts selected for missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and perhaps other destinations under a nonexclusive NASA Reimbursable Space Act Agreement.

Ball Aerospace expects to hire around 1,000 new employees in 2020, following similar annual increases in recent years, executives said Feb. 6.

The market for radar images and radio frequency mapping from space still relies on military and government customers.

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

A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying a batch of 34 satellites for aspiring broadband operator OneWeb lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Feb. 6, setting the stage for monthly flights to build an initial constellation of 648 spacecraft.

After forming a strategic partnership in 2019, Alphabet company Loon and SoftBank subsidiary HAPSMobile have jointly developed a broadband-internet communications payload for the AeroVironment-designed Hawk30 high-altitude pseudo-satellite.

In addition to a software problem that ultimately forced Boeing to abandon a docking of its first CST-100 Starliner at the International Space Station, the uncrewed capsule suffered a second, previously unreported software problem during its December flight test.

Airbus has been awarded additional study contracts to support the militarization of the company’s H160 twin-engine medium helicopter to meet the needs of the French military.

The first modernized Tupolev Tu-160M, the latest variant of the Cold War-era Tu-160 Blackjack heavy strategic bomber, made its first flight on Feb. 2..

L3Harris has received the green light to develop an experimental spacecraft that will improve the military’s positioning, navigation and timing assets.

General Atomics is expanding its ambitions across the Asia-Pacific area.

Russian Helicopters announced on Feb. 6 a “road map” that establishes a fixed schedule for localizing assembly tasks for the Ka-226T helicopter in India.

Record-setting NASA astronaut Christina Koch was among three U.S., European and Russian International Space Station crewmembers who ended long missions to the ISS on Feb. 6.

The U.S. Space Force may be up and running, but it is still working out the details of how it will run, what its uniformed members will be called, and how it will acquire the future tools it will need.

Don’t let the snow, ice and freezing temperatures fool you; it’s that time of year—the curtain is about to rise on Air Show Season 2020.

UK gains P-8 maritime patroller; L3Harris spacecraft clears design hurdle; IAI makes deals in India; Germany scraps UAV purchase plan.

Under agreements with French, UK and U.S. authorities, Airbus will pay $4 billion to settle a large-scale bribery scandal.

The JF-17 Thunder (also known as the FC-1 Xiaolong “Fierce Dragon”) is a single-engine, multirole, light fighter aircraft developed by Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) and Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC).

AVIATION WEEK NETWORK forecasts that over the next decade, 1,491 new-build training and light combat aircraft (LCA) will be delivered to military

The U.S. Government Accountability Office should rule on the protest by mid-May.

Seven months after being ousted as the Space Development Agency’s first director, Fred Kennedy is warning industry that the U.S. Space Force is not a quick fix for all the Pentagon’s acquisition problems.

Wall Street remains dubious that aircraft subsystems provider Woodward and composites supplier Hexcel can provide one of the main benefits they promised from their recent merger, particularly as the commercial aviation sector reels from the Boeing 737 MAX production halt and both companies lower their 2020 guidance as a result.

RAF has received its first P-8A Poseidon for service. It has ordered nine.

A German think tank is calling on Germany’s defense ministry to reconsider Lockheed Martin’s F-35 as a successor for the country’s Panavia Tornado fleet.

Although Dynetics has yet to accomplish the airborne recovery of an air-launched unmanned aircraft, DARPA has announced plans to award the company a sole-source follow-on contract for a mission demonstration under its Gremlins program.