Soil-moisture data continues to flow from SMAP’s passive radiometer, but at lower resolution than would have been possible in combination with the radar.
FHI and Bell Helicopter will improve the 412 for the army’s UH-X requirement, the U.S. company says, although Japanese sources have said the changes will be slight.
Australia should intensify its relationship with the U.S. by offering greater military support to Washington, including more access to its territory, according to a think tank analysis.
Champion Aerospace and United Technologies have finalized a life-of-program long-term supply agreement to support UTC’s forecasted aerospace production ramp-up.
The 10-day “taxi flight” will exchange Soyuz spacecraft and personnel on the station as well as deliver experiments and tech demonstrations sponsored by the European Space Agency and Kazcosmos.
A U.S. Navy dive team replaced five blades on the guided-missile cruiser CG 68 USS Anzio’s port side propeller earlier this month at Naval Station Norfolk after cracks were found.
U.K. DEFENSE MINISTRY will spend more than £500m ($770m) modernizing Royal Navy’s flagship submarine base, HM Naval Base Clyde at Faslane. Work will take 10 years to complete, starting in 2017, with upgrades to ship lifts, sea walls, jetties. U.S. AIR FORCE delayed launch of fourth Mobile User Objective System (MUOS-4) military comms satellite from Cape Canaveral, FL, to no earlier than Sept. 2, due to storm concerns.
As Congress prepares to return to Washington, Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-R.I.) is taking a detour to Kiev this week to “get a direct look at the situation in Ukraine.” Meanwhile, Reed and SASC Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) are castigating the Pentagon over the U.S. Air Force’s Long Range Strike - Bomber program, which saw its 10-year cost estimate jump from $33.1 billion in the Pentagon’s fiscal 2015 budget plan to $58.4 billion in its 2016 request. “Such dramatic discrepancies ...
Selected U.S. military contracts for Aug. 24, 2015 U.S. ARMY Allied Mechanical Wisconsin , Grenville, Wisconsin, was awarded a $9,946,272 firm-fixed-price contract with options for 500-lb. iron practice bombs (BDU-50) for Air Force training requirements. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, is the contracting activity (W52P1J-12-C-0051). U.S. NAVY
A panel of outside experts who advise NASA on International Space Station (ISS) operations says the risk of using a new version of Russia’s Soyuz launch vehicle to orbit Progress cargo carriers may be “unacceptable."
Thales has partnered with Polish defense electronics firm WB Electronics to offer an armed version of the Watchkeeper unmanned system for Poland’s Gryf (Gryphon) tactical UAV requirement.
India’s Defense Acquisition Council (DAC) has approved the purchase of 48 more Mi-17 V5 transport helicopters from Russia, but deferred a decision on acquiring 100 naval utility helicopters (NUH).
Russian defense electronics conglomerate Kret (Concern Radio-Electronic Technology) introduced a range of new electronic warfare (EW) systems at the 2015 MAKS air show here last week, including a new helicopter-borne jamming system and a high-power ground-based system designed to blind the widely used Boeing E-3 Airborne Warning & Control System (Awacs) and other systems using the S-band (2-3 GHz).
As the U.S. and Chinese navies continue to successfully conduct joint drills using the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), Adm. Jonathan Greenert, U.S. chief of naval operations (CNO), says he sees CUES expanding even more, possibly involving international coast guards as well.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the FAA has a structural flaw in its efforts to ensure that the FAA’s modernized air traffic management systems and procedures, also known as NextGen, will be compatible with similar programs at least nine other countries are deploying.
As new military pilots begin their first training exercises, it is increasingly likely their aerial foes will be veterans flying commercially operated fighter aircraft.  
Three new or derivative weapons were unveiled at the MAKS show here last week by Tactical Missiles Corporation, all designed specifically to fit the internal weapon bays of the Sukhoi T-50 stealth fighter.
