Defense

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), one of two large warship manufacturing companies for U.S. naval services, is continuing to make headway in its efforts to diversify its business portfolio with a major new U.S. Air Force contract to support intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).

Most in industry and government see high-level, multinational efforts as a pipe dream, leaving airlines to fend for themselves.

IPOs, mergers and strategic moves reshuffle industrial landscape for Israeli aerospace.

Following a successful demonstration of Dragon’s launch abort system, SpaceX is in the home stretch for a crewed flight test.

Israel’s precision weapons are sold all over the world, but struggled to break into world’s most lucrative market until recently

Optical sensors have joined Israel’s elaborate and increasingly more powerful air surveillance network

RIP Boeing Phantom Express; UK offloads AWACS aircraft; CMV-22B delivery imminent; UK upgrading training helo requirements.

AVIATION WEEK NETWORK forecasts the world’s fleet of western-designed fighter aircraft will generate $321.6 billion in maintenance, repair and

Total deal value in 2019 grew 62% to almost $94 billion compared with 2018, PwC says.

General Atomics wants to turn the MQ-1C into a “mothership” for the Army’s future Air Launched Effects (ALE).

The dedicated final assembly line for the F-35C is intended to overcome production delays that emerged in 2019.

A new European helicopter show is being established through a partnership of the European Helicopter Association and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.

The UK Royal Air Force has sent one of its Boeing E-3D Sentry airborne early warning aircraft for storage in the U.S. as it shrinks its operational fleet.

The European Commission has “prebooked” four Ariane 6s for Galileo positioning satellite launches, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton announced Jan. 22.

NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft has carried out its closest look yet at “Nightingale”—the nickname for the primary site on the asteroid Bennu where the mission is to gather a sample of surface material for a return to Earth in late 2023.

A Lockheed Martin C-130 air tanker has crashed in Australia during a firefighting mission, killing all three crewmembers on board.

Britain’s Military Flying Training System is to take delivery of four more Airbus H145 Jupiter helicopters to support an upgrade in pilot training requirements.

For lack of $14 million a year, premier infrared space telescope’s mission ends Jan. 30.

The country that popularized unmanned aircraft systems in modern warfare is at the forefront of a new strategic change.

A new automation mode to improve strafing accuracy by F-16s also highlights a new approach to fielding new capabilities.

Welcoming the sixth and newest U.S. armed service the Space Force which has its first official member.

News in brief

Brief news items of interest to aerospace & defense professionals.

Boeing has abruptly ended its participation in the development of the Phantom Express reusable launch vehicle, effectively terminating DARPA’s XSP (Experimental Spaceplane) program for which it was being built.