The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has shelved a proposal to use the F-35 to shoot down ballistic missiles, and paused another study looking at firing lasers at missiles from unmanned aircraft systems, the agency’s director said March 4.
Ahead of flying its privately owned habitat to the International Space Station, Houston startup Axiom Space has signed a contract with SpaceX to ferry three fare-paying tourists and a professional commander to the station as early as June 2021.
NASA’s Mars 2020 rover was formally named “Perseverance” March 5, the winning entry in a contest that spawned 28,000 entries submitted from students in grades K through 12 from every U.S. state and territory.
The U.S. Defense Department plans to invest billions of dollars to begin mass-producing a new class of hypersonic missiles, a senior defense official said March 4.
Canada has taken up the mantle of leading an international effort to improve airspace safety over and near conflict zones, Transport Minister Marc Garneau said.
R&D company UAVOS has revealed an improved version of Saudi Arabia’s Saker-1 medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft system developed with King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology.
NASA’s Osiris-Rex asteroid sample return spacecraft descended to its lowest altitude yet over the asteroid Bennu earlier this week to gather high-resolution imagery of its primary sample collection site.
Developers of the revived Stratolaunch carrier aircraft project aim to restart flight tests of the giant twin-fuselage mother ship in September as part of plans to provide a launch platform for rocket-powered hypersonic test vehicles.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is close to launching the competitive phase for the Next Generation Interceptor program, said Vice Adm. Jon Hill, the agency’s director, on March 4.
The Embraer EMB-314 Super Tucano is a tandem-seat turboprop light attack aircraft developed from the EMB-312A Tucano, a basic flight trainer with secondary light attack capabilities.
U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Michael Boyle has assumed operational control of the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) before the service begins flight deck certification of the nation’s newest aircraft carrier.
The U.S. Navy has ditched its plan for a dual-phased delivery of the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) and instead will use a single-phased approach, meaning the entire ship will be delivered at the same time.
The Regional Glide Phase Weapon System—a concept for an interceptor against a hypersonic glide vehicle—will be initially constrained to a ship launch application with a Mk. 41 vertical launch system, Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Director Vice Adm. Jon Hill said March 4.
The U.S. Navy made a “reality-based” decision to pause MQ-4C Triton production in the fiscal 2021 budget request, according to the service’s acquisition executive.
Satellite communications terminal supplier Isotropic Systems will license components of its optical multi-beamforming antenna technology to aerospace and defense companies to build products “capable of unleashing a new era of inflight connectivity.”
