Defense and Space

The Netherlands has restarted flights of its NHIndustries NH90 naval helicopters after a three-week hiatus prompted by a crash in the Caribbean.

NATO’s Multinational Multi-Role Tanker Transport Unit has taken delivery of its second Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport.

Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon will compete for the U.S. Air Force's future hypersonic cruise missile program.

Israel has stood up its second front-line F-35 squadron and taken delivery of an aircraft to be used for flight testing new systems.

Bell unveiled plans for a new 140,000-ft.² manufacturing technology center Aug. 10 to support the U.S. Army’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) effort.

Facing flat budgets, the military will need strategic focus to leverage every dollar.

Selected U.S. military contracts from the past week.

News in brief

Brief news items of interest to aerospace & defense professionals.

A hypersonic glide vehicle program led by DARPA is now combined with the U.S. Air Force's AGM-183A program as the 419th Flight Test Sqdn. completes the last step ahead of powered booster flight tests later this year.

The service wrapped up its business case analysis and is pushing for Next Generation Air Dominance to become a program of record.

The U.S. national security space agencies will remain with incumbents United Launch Alliance and SpaceX for medium and heavy-lift launch services over the next five years

A bipartisan group of senators has introduced legislation to block President Donald Trump from loosening a treaty obligation that restricts the export of large U.S. unmanned aerial systems.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 7 carrying 57 new Starlink broadband satellites—all outfitted with visors to cut Sun glint that interferes with astronomical observations—and two BlackSky Global imaging satellites.

The U.S. Space Force has wrapped up a major upgrade to its GPS Military-Code signal that will improve its anti-jamming and anti-spoofing capabilities.

As the push to return to deep-space exploration becomes more international and commercial, so too do concerns over norms of behavior among those who venture beyond Earth’s orbit.

South Korea’s defense ministry and Hanwha have rolled out a prototype for the radar of the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) KF-X fighter, following delivery of a ground-test unit in April.

The new Mi-8AMTSh-VN military helicopter intended for Russian special forces has started flight tests, Rostec Corp. subsidiary Russian Helicopters says.

This fleet snapshot is excerpted from Aviation Week's Fleet Discovery Database. To learn about Aviation Week fleet data products and services, go to pgs.aviationweek.com/FleetDataServices.

Brief news items of interest to aerospace & defense professionals.

Conferences and events for professionals in the aerospace & defense community

The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office is pursuing an “integrated hybrid architecture” for its constellation of intelligence-gathering satellites

Two NASA astronauts return from extended SpaceX flight test to the ISS.

A two-year evaluation has coalesced into plans to field a sea-based interceptor as quickly as possible.

This week, NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Benhken splashed down in their SpaceX Dragon capsule in the Gulf of Mexico after two months at the