Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

By Graham Warwick
To achieve the stated goal of reducing the flyaway cost by approximately $10 million by the end of 2019, to $85 million for the conventional F-35A, will require the government customer to begin investing in manufacturing improvements beginning in 2017.
Defense and Space

By Mark Carreau
The crew's activities are scheduled to include the addition of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module space habitat and the belated installation of the first docking port for U.S. commercial crew transport vehicles.
Defense and Space

RAYTHEON has $573m U.S. Air Force contract for Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile (Amraam) production.

Republican leaders of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee remain unenthusiastic about NASA’s ...

View the Forecast Friday: C4ISR Aircraft Deliveries chart in PDF format.

Airbus Group reached an agreement to sell its defense electronics business to global investment firm KKR for €1.1 billion ($1.24 billion).
Defense and Space

Russia has approved a 10-year, 1.4 trillion ruble ($20.51 billion) budget for space programs, according to a March 17 announcement posted on the government’s website.
Space

By Bradley Perrett
Navantia is poised to win another Australian naval construction program following the choice of the Spanish company as preferred supplier for two replenishment ships.
Defense and Space

By Tony Osborne
Norwegian defense firm Kongsberg has purchased the minority stake in its Finnish counterpart Patria, consolidating a chunk of the Scandinavian defense industry.
Defense and Space

By Tony Osborne
The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority has postponed a planned price hike in air show charges that would have seen administration fees for U.K. air displays increase by 100%.
Defense and Space

By Tony Osborne
Saab says it still has hopes to export the Gripen fighter to Indonesia, despite Jakarta’s decision to order the Sukhoi Su-35.
Defense and Space

LOCKHEED MARTIN has $106m U.S. Air Force contract for long lead efforts on 11 fiscal 2017 C-130J aircraft.

The U.S. Army has awarded Boeing an $897 million contract modification to its ongoing multiyear contract for ...

By Graham Warwick
With two Sikorsky CH-53Ks now in flight testing, a key operational test to validate the heavy-lift helicopter’s performance is planned by ...
Defense and Space

Seeker Aircraft will begin manufacturing its light observation aircraft in the U.S.

Adding radar reflectors and transponders to cubesats and other tiny spacecraft is one way private industry can make it easier to deconflict increasingly crowded orbits, a top U.S. Air Force officials suggested March 17.
Defense and Space

By Mark Carreau
The U.S./European Jason-3 oceanography satellite has successfully generated its global map of sea surface elevation measurements, data that reveals a tailing off of high eastern Pacific sea levels associated with El Nino that peaked in January.
Defense and Space

By Graham Warwick
Industry needs more clarity on what the U.S. Defense Department plans for its Future Vertical Lift (FVL) initiative beyond the Joint Multi Role (JMR) technology demonstration now underway, the head of Sikorsky’s military business says.
Defense and Space

By Jen DiMascio
After years of squabbling with Congress over high-altitude intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, Lockheed Martin is continuing to pitch its UAV concept as a way to settle the matter.
Defense and Space

By Tony Osborne
The U.K. defense ministry is sponsoring a firing trial of MBDA’s Brimstone 2 air-to-ground missile from an AH-64E Apache as it mulls whether the weapon will be become the primary armament of a planned fleet of the upgraded attack helicopter.
Defense and Space

L-3 has started wing modification work on Virgin Galactic’s decommissioned 747-400, “Cosmic Girl,” the mother ship for the company’s LauncherOne small satellite launch service.
Defense and Space

By Bradley Perrett
China appears to have too few conventional intermediate-range ballistic missiles for even attacks on the most crucial targets, raising the possibility that the numbers of such weapons will be increased, a report says.
Defense and Space

By Graham Warwick
The next new U.S. fighter might not enter service for 30 years, but may not be needed before then if the Pentagon invests in modernization of the “5th-generation” F-22 and F-35, the head of Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works says.
Defense and Space

U.S. and European thought leaders in air traffic management are confident that civil unmanned air vehicles will drive the architecture of the next-generation ATM system.
Defense and Space

Although the U.S. Navy continues to be plagued by breathing issues reported by pilots flying F-18 line aircraft, the described severity of those issues is decreasing, according to service officials.
Defense and Space