Workers are preparing more than $2 billion worth of James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) elements for a rigorous integrated-testing schedule that will continue until shortly before launch in the fall of 2018.
U.S. and European astronomers believe they have detected a hint of silicate-rich material dating back to the formation of the inner Solar System’s rocky planets emerging from a comet believed to have its origins in the Oort Cloud.
Before Lockheed Martin acquired Sikorsky in November 2015, the companies were shaping up to be rivals in the market to bring autonomous capabilities to rotorcraft. Now they are seeing synergies between the previously separate development efforts.
Textron Systems has demonstrated a version of its Aerosonde fixed-wing small unmanned aircraft adapted to take off and land vertically and provide runway-independent operating flexibility.
As the U.S. Navy refines the surface action group (SAG) concept in Pacific waters, Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Scott Swift is looking to use ships bolstered with enhanced Aegis combat systems for a different air defense role.
The U.S. Navy’s philosophy of distributive lethality will likely have more of an impact on naval strategy than operational concepts, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
World View says its “Stratolite” concept can keep communications, Earth observation, weather and other payloads over a single spot for as long as six months.
The U.S. Air Force estimates it has achieved a 40% cost savings with its $82.7 million standalone contract award to SpaceX for the May 2018 launching of the Pentagon’s second GPS III satellite.
Russia kicked off operations at its new Vostochny Cosmodrome in Siberia early Thursday with a multi-satellite launch on a Soyuz vehicle from a new pad that closely mimics the venerable “Start-1” site in Kazakhstan that orbited Sputnik-1 and Yuri Gagarin.
India has successfully launched its seventh and last satellite to form a regional navigational system similar to the U.S.-based Global Positioning System.
SpaceX and NASA wrapped up 16 months of behind-the-scenes negotiations Tuesday with an unfunded Space Act agreement to cooperate on sending an unmanned Dragon crew capsule to the surface of Mars as early as 2018.
Astronauts preparing for commercial flight crew operations in private spacecraft say the human-in-the-loop autonomous procedures that take them to the International Space Station (ISS) will be similar to the way UAVs are flown today.
The U.S. Air Force’s largest weapon program, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, on which the U.S. will spend more than $400 billion, has hit a stride. The question is how long the program will be able to sustain it.
