Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

LOCKHEED MARTIN has $302m U.S. Navy contract for ancillary mission equipment for F-35 Lightning II low-rate initial production Lot 12 aircraft for U.S. military, foreign military sales customers.

This week Secretary of Defense James Mattis makes his first diplomatic trip to South America, visiting Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Colombia to assess military-to-military relations.

Sentient Digital Inc., doing business as Entrust Government Solutions, New Orleans, is awarded a total $49,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for information technology (IT) engineering support services.

President Donald Trump has authorized $716 billion in national defense spending by signing the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis now supports creating a sixth U.S. armed service, known as Space Force.

Northrop Grumman performed a successful fit check for the U.S. Marine Corps of the APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar on a Boeing F/A-18C Hornet in California.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe launched early Aug. 12 to begin a $1.6 billion, seven-year mission to study our nearest star in greater detail than ever before.

Afghanistan can provide full surveillance of its airspace now that the multilateration system at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul has been restored, the NATO-led Resolute Support mission says.

The launch of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has been tentatively reset for early Aug. 12, following a scrub late in the initial countdown in response to several issues.

The Pentagon has renamed its innovation unit that focuses on attracting nontraditional companies to work on artificial intelligence, autonomy, human systems, information technology and space to reflect its permanence within the Defense Department, a memo signed by the deputy defense secretary says.

AVIATION WEEK NETWORK forecasts that maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) demand for Western-designed aircraft performing maritime missions will increase 11.9% from 2018 to 2027, from $2.9 billion to $3.2 billion, for a total demand of $31.1 billion.

LOCKHEED MARTIN has $19.9m U.S. Navy contract for Aircraft Management System (AMS) and Panoramic Cockpit Display (PCD) components and work to support Lot 15 F-35 Lightning II production.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems will nearly quadruple the space it occupies at the Grand Sky research and development park in Grand Forks, North Dakota,.

India’s central auditor is challenging the rationale behind the country’s purchase of eight P-8I Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft from Boeing.

UK UAV developer Blue Bear Systems Research is to work with Cranfield University to create a corridor through national airspace for BVLOS drone testing.

NASA’s $1.6 billion, seven-year Parker Solar Probe mission was developed for the closest-ever reconnaissance of the Sun.

South Africa’s Paramount Group is looking to establish a “center of excellence” for the Dassault Mirage F1.

Cubic will offer government customers an “affordable” ISR UAV capability with expanded range and payload over other existing systems in its class.

The U.S. Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Aerospace Systems, Melbourne, Florida, a $29,914,475 firm-fixed-price order providing for the procurement and delivery of 45 end items of Peculiar Support Equipment (PSE).

Maxar Technologies has won one of nine contracts to help the Missile Defense Agency build a prototype missile tracking system.

Pentagon officials are trying to gather feedback from the aerospace and defense industry for the Trump administration’s review of the U.S. automotive industry.

NORTHROP GRUMMAN has $29.9m U.S. Navy contract for procurement/delivery of 45 end items of Peculiar Support Equipment (PSE) for E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft.

Zipline International is working with the DOD's Defense Innovation Unit to demo the potential for medical drone delivery.

Kaman Aerospace hopes a recently unveiled leasing deal for its K-Max helicopter with Rainier Heli International will help sell the heavy-lift helicopter.

The Pentagon is in the early stages of building a statistical model to predict what U.S. foreign military sales will be executed in the future.