Top U.S. officials revamped acquisition of weapons, engaged non-traditional companies and pushed for new technologies and thinking in the Defense Department.
The U.S. Air Force is launching a new cyber swat team to build resiliency into new programs and troubleshoot existing problems, Secretary Deborah Lee James announced Jan. 6.
Startup Vanilla Aircraft is preparing to attempt a 100-hr. flight with its VA001 small unmanned aircraft system, having already set a world endurance record for its powerplant type and weight class of 55.9 hr.
Thales has received a firm order from the French armament procurement agency DGA for 105 Spy’Ranger “mini drones” which the country’s army will use for surveillance and reconnaissance.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter, his deputy, Bob Work, and procurement czar Frank Kendall have squeezed procurement costs and reached out for new technologies. Will their reforms last? Listen in as our editors discuss.
Like Juno, Lucy will derive enough energy from its advanced solar cells to eliminate the need for a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, the previous norm for probes operating at that distance from the Sun
Dassault Aviation received orders for 36 Rafales last year, while a mere 21 Falcons were sold, thus confirming healthy export sales for the French fighter and a sluggish business jet market.
The Lockheed Martin Skunk Works U-2S fleet appears to have fully transitioned to the RQ-4 Global Hawk’s primary communications and electronic intelligence collector, the Northrop Grumman ASQ-230 Airborne Signals Intelligence Payload (ASIP).
Airbus Helicopters has begun airframe studies on the Tiger attack helicopter to assess whether the aircraft will need structural modifications to see out a 40-year operational life.
Britain’s Empire Test Pilots School (ETPS) is to receive a new fleet of turboprop trainers and single-engine light helicopters as it prepares to align its training regime with European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) regulations.
One of the most tightly choreographed joint human and robotic activities ever undertaken aboard the International Space Station, unfolding since New Year’s Eve, reaches a milestone on Jan. 6.
French aerospace industry lobbying group Gifas is worried that cuts in public research funding may jeopardize the leading position of French companies at a time when other European countries are maintaining their support to aerospace research.
In this week’s roundup: India’s nuclear-capable Agni-V ICBM heads to user trials; Serbia modernizes its helicopter and fighter fleet; upgrading the KC-10 tanker and another order for Patriot air defense.
One of eight medium-thrust engines fell off a U.S. Air Force B-52 heavy bomber from Minot AFB, North Dakota, in a Jan. 4 incident, the service confirmed to Aviation Week.
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.
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.
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.
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.
