Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

RAYTHEON has $303.7m U.S. Navy contract for 214 Tomahawk Block IV All-Up-Round vertical launch system missiles and spares for the U.S. Navy and UK.

British-born NASA climate researcher and astronaut Piers Sellers died in Houston Dec. 23 of pancreatic cancer.

Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc., Monroeville, Pennsylvania, is being awarded a $303,080,064 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for Naval nuclear propulsion components.

NASA is funding probes that will visit Trojan asteroids in Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun, and a unique main-belt asteroid that may be the surviving metallic core of a long-destroyed planet.
Defense and Space

Boeing and SpaceX are now under contract for six crew flights each to the International Space Station, once NASA certifies their commercial crew vehicles for human spaceflight.
Defense and Space

The days of launching intercontinental ballistic missiles from flying command posts in testing and nuclear war are here to stay, with the U.S. Air Force making provisions to link current and future “Doomsday Planes” with its next-generation missile, the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent.
Defense and Space

By Tony Osborne
Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) will market its indigenous clean-sheet twin-engine utility helicopter under the designation T-625, company officials have confirmed.
Business Aviation

It was 2010, and Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter was on the brink of collapse. But since then, Defense Secretary Ash Carter says the program has been revived.
Defense and Space

By Thierry Dubois
Arianespace is planning on 12 launches this year with its Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega rockets.
Defense and Space

By Mark Carreau
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has selected Gilbert, Arizona-based Atlas Space Operations, Inc. for the installation of remote global satellite tracking stations for the Cosmic-2 network in support of future hurricane analysis and prediction.
Defense and Space

By Thierry Dubois
The Airbus-built Sentinel-2B satellite, to be shipped this week to Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana for a March launch, will contribute to unprecedented optical imaging performance, the European Space Agency (ESA) says.
Defense and Space

By Tony Osborne
The French and Jordanian air forces and Britain’s Empire Test Pilots School have ordered 21 Pilatus PC-21 turboprop trainers.
Defense and Space

By Jay Menon
India has conducted the last developmental test-firing of its homegrown Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile.
Defense and Space

By Mark Carreau
Baltimore’s Space Telescope Science Institute is host to the world’s largest digital sky survey.
Defense and Space

SpaceX hopes to return its Falcon 9 to flight this month but must await final FAA action before scheduling a launch.

By Mark Carreau
NASA’s Mars Odyssey is expected to resume science observations this week, following a Dec. 26 safe mode incident.
Defense and Space

The U.S. Air Force’s six-year development of a guidance kit for the 1968-vintage B61 thermonuclear bomb has entered the final stretch, with qualification flight testing due to begin in March followed by a developmental test and an evaluation series in August.
Defense and Space

LOCKHEED MARTIN has $1.45b U.S. foreign military sales contract for Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC) production, to include 205 Missile Segment Enhancement U.S. and Qatar missiles; 58 cost reduction initiative U.S. and South Korea missiles; spare parts for the U.S., Qatar, South Korea, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia; associated ground support equipment.

Frontier Services Group, which provides airborne logistics and ambulance services, among others, said Dec. 19 it is focusing its corporate strategy along China’s One Belt, One Road initiative. Frontier will open a forward operating base in China’s Yunnan province to help serve clients in Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. It also “is partnering with leading firms in China to bring customers customized insurance and aviation solutions,” according to a statement.

To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. For a complete list of Aviation Week Network’s upcoming events, and to register, visit www.aviationweek.com/events (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) Jan 9-13—AIAA Modeling and Simulation Technologies Conference, Gaylord, Texas. For more information go to www.aiaa.org/research/

By Mark Carreau
Japan’s STAR-C tethered CubeSat duo departed the International Space Station as 2016 drew to a close.
Defense and Space

By Thierry Dubois
The board of French space agency CNES earlier this month green-lighted its contribution to the Franco-Chinese Space-based Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) mission to study gamma-ray bursts.
Defense and Space

By Marhalim Abas
Indonesia has canceled a mysterious order for a Leonardo AW101 helicopter, with President Joko Widodo raising the possibility that the contract’s signing was improper.
Defense and Space

By Mark Carreau
The first U.S. mission to attempt the collection of a sample from an asteroid and return the material to Earth, NASA’s $1 billion Osiris Rex mission, is on a trajectory for a late September 2017 Earth flyby.
Defense and Space

By Tony Osborne
Leonardo-Finmeccanica has completed the first flight of its M345 High Efficiency Trainer (HET).
Defense and Space