Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer spacecraft is poised to launch Oct. 9 on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus XL rocket from Cape Canaveral.

With Britain once again close to a no-deal Brexit, the government has started issuing guidance to the aerospace industry to get ready.

Boeing delivered nine KC-46A tankers to the U.S. Air Force in the third quarter and 21 overall so far this year despite a series of quality control issues and a newly discovered design flaw, the company announced on Oct. 8.

A senior House Democrat has warned that U.S. withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty would only benefit Russia and be harmful to allies, partners and national security interests.

In a ceremony at Dassault Aviation’s Bordeaux, France, factory, the government of India on Oct. 8 officially received the first of 36 Rafale fighters it ordered from France under a 2016 intergovernmental agreement.

Finland has capped the procurement budget for its HX future fighter program at €10 billion ($10.95 billion) and will allow tenders to offer fewer than the specified 64 aircraft.

Elbit Systems Ltd. has been awarded a $153 million contract to supply battlefield and medium-altitude drones to “an Army of a country in Southeast Asia,” possibly Vietnam.

Spanish defense electronics firm Indra has taken the lead in a European project to develop technologies for the traffic management of unmanned air systems.

Swiss helicopter manufacturer Kopter says it has restarted flight tests of its third prototype SH09 single-engine light helicopter with a new, improved gearbox.

Under the deal, Boeing’s HorizonX capital investment arm will inject $20 million into Virgin Galactic in exchange for new shares.

Boeing and Virgin Galactic will work together to develop commercial space access and high-speed exo-atmospheric transport systems under a strategic alliance announced on Oct. 8.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) for the near-term should apply existing interceptor missiles to shoot down hypersonic glide vehicles and avoid investing in a purpose-built, glide-phase interceptor until the technology matures, a Raytheon executive says.

It is high time the French and German governments launched the demonstrator phase of their joint Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program, Airbus Defense and Space CEO Dirk Hoke and Dassault Aviation CEO Eric Trappier said in an Oct. 7 joint statement.

Helicopter operator Bristow Group says it has reached agreements with bankruptcy courts to emerge from Chapter 11 by the end of October.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) announced Oct. 7 that its MQ-9B SkyGuardian remotely piloted aircraft will fly above San Diego to survey infrastructure next year during flight tests the company is organizing with NASA.

Airbus says it has successfully performed the dispatch of 80 paratroopers in a single pass using the side doors of its A400M airlifter.

Avic is planning to develop a series of four successively larger pilotless cargo aircraft, an official of the state company said at a conference.

The UK defense ministry says it is considering a purchase of BAE Systems’ Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System (APKWS) II to equip the UK’s future fleet of AH-64E Apache attack helicopters.

NASA astronauts on Oct. 6 successfully initiated a month-long spacewalk campaign to replace batteries on the International Space Station’s nearly 360-ft.-long solar power truss.

LOCKHEED MARTIN has $164m U.S. Air Force contract for Space Based Infrared System contractor logistics support.

Boeing and Embraer on Oct. 3 formally acknowledged that they do not expect their commercial aircraft joint venture deal to close until “early 2020.”

View the Fleet Snapshot: French Air Force 2019-2029 chart in PDF format.

Raytheon’s next-generation GPS ground control system, GPS OCX, has completed development and entered the system integration and test phase on track to meet its delivery deadline of June 2021

GENERAL ATOMICS has $12.3m U.S. Navy contract for repair work and technical assistance for Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems (EMALS) and Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG).

The campaign, which also is to include the first all-female spacewalk, likely will extend into December.