Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

By Mark Carreau
NASA’s Mars InSight lander has paused efforts to pry into the planet’s subsurface with the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) for about two weeks.
Defense and Space

India will launch three defense satellites over the next six months aimed at boosting the strategic communications and networking potential of its military.
Defense and Space

By Bradley Perrett
Boeing is laying groundwork for a possible sale of T-X trainers to Canberra, briefing the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) on the type.
Defense and Space

LOCKHEED MARTIN has $30.8m U.S. Navy contract for initial lay-in of repair material for ten F-35 Lightning IIs.

This week SpaceX is due to conclude its Demo Mission-1 to the International Space Station with the departure and Atlantic Ocean splashdown of its Crew Dragon spacecraft on Friday.

RiverTech, LLC,* Colorado Springs, Colorado, has been awarded a $34,513,979 firm-fixed-price contract for command and control technical support.

By Tony Osborne
MD Helicopters has revealed it has entered the U.S. Army’s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) technology demonstration contest with a platform that will use the company’s NOTAR anti-torque system.
Defense and Space

By Jen DiMascio
The U.S. should withhold F-35s from Turkey if the Eurasian member of NATO accepts delivery of an advanced Russian air defense system, the head of U.S. European Command told Congress March 5.
Defense and Space

By Thierry Dubois
After two years away from operational service, including 18 months of overhaul and upgrade, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier has left Toulon, France, for a wide-ranging mission.
Defense and Space

By Graham Warwick
Raytheon, now the second company on the TBG program after Lockheed Martin, has released a new artist’s impression of its concept.
Defense and Space

By Tony Osborne
Switzerland’s Kopter Group plans to carry out helicopter assembly in the U.S. by moving into a Louisiana facility originally built for Bell.
Defense and Space

By Tony Osborne
Organizers of the Farnborough Airshow have decided to halt its public weekend air show days.
Defense and Space

By Lee Hudson
Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) became House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee chairman in January, after serving as ranking member.
Defense and Space

By Mark Carreau
Following up on the legacy of NASA’s aging Great Observatories may depend on breaking a cost spiral that has delayed the JWST and threatened the WFIRST.
Space

By Michael Bruno
The U.S. Commerce Department will lead an investigation into whether titanium sponge imports into the U.S. threaten national security.
Defense and Space

By Mark Carreau
The JAXA Hayabusa 2 mission team thinks there is “high potential” that the first attempt at a sample collection from the surface of the near Earth asteroid Ryugu was successful.
Defense and Space

By Mark Carreau
Mars’ northern hemisphere was dotted with at least two dozen large craters that appear to have been filled by groundwater about 3 1/2 billion years ago, and possibly part of a global subsurface aquifer, according to observations gathered by Mars orbiters.
Defense and Space

By Irene Klotz
Acknowledging the reusable rocket technology pioneered by SpaceX and Blue Origin, the U.S. Air Force has dropped the word “expendable” from the name of its orbital launch services acquisition program.
Space

By Steve Trimble
The U.S. Army is considering extended-range, maritime strike versions of the Precision Strike Missile as the U.S. government negotiates a withdrawal from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Defense and Space

Piotr Butowski
The proposal will include sensors and armaments to enable the Yak-130 trainer’s conversion into a combat aircraft.
Defense and Space

By Steve Trimble
Saudi Arabia has signed a $945 million downpayment for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system from Lockheed Martin, the Defense Department announced March 4.
Defense and Space

By Bradley Perrett
The Japanese Ministry of Defense is likely to move ahead with an attack helicopter acquisition in 2019, even though the program was left out of a five-year procurement plan published in December, an industry source says.
Defense and Space

By Tony Osborne
Safran is planning to develop a turbogenerator system for future hybrid-electric vertical take-off-and-landing air vehicles.

By Bradley Perrett
Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) has more than one prospective buyer for the C-2 airlifter, a company executive said.
Defense and Space

By Tony Osborne
The company is predicting growth in the law-enforcement market and increased fleet utilization from oil-and-gas crew change operators.