Defense and Space

The DOD increased the size of its acquisition workforce from about 126,000 in September 2008 to about 153,000 in March 2015, the GAO says, while questioning whether the new personnel collectively possess all the skills the department needs.
Defense and Space

By Mark Carreau
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is poised to resume scientific observations this week, including further scrutiny of dozens of mysterious bright spots.
Defense and Space

By Mark Carreau
The International Space Station resumed six-person operations Dec. 15 following the successful launch and docking of Russia’s Soyuz TMA-19M crew transport.
Defense and Space

By Mark Carreau
NASA has again topped the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service’s annual rankings of federal employers.
Defense and Space

By Jay Menon
India is set to launch six Singapore satellites into space on board its indigenous Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle on Dec. 16.
Defense and Space

The U.S. aerospace manufacturing industry bounced back from an early year slowdown in orders and monthly backlogs to get into position again to break production records this year, the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) reported Dec. 15.
Defense and Space

By Jay Menon
India is considering putting in place an intensive security framework for regulating UAVs to check their misuse by enemies, a top government official says.
Defense and Space

Thales Alenia Space has signed a €402 million ($440 million) contract with the European Space Agency to build the Sentinel-1C and 1D radar imaging satellites.
Defense and Space

By Jay Menon
India’s Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. plans to develop a new helicopter engine – the Hindustan Turbo Shaft Engine (HTSE) 1200.
Defense and Space

Outside experts advising NASA on safety will recommend that the agency reconsider a decision to drop an integrated flight test of the Orion crew capsule’s launch abort system.
Defense and Space

By Mark Carreau
This year shaped up as a momentous one for planetary science, especially for discovery in the outer Solar System, and NASA’s Jupiter-bound Juno mission promises to help make 2016 memorable as well.
Defense and Space

By Guy Norris, Jen DiMascio
Northrop hints that if its plan prevails final assembly will occupy the same Building 401 hangar at Palmdale’s Plant 42 site used for the construction of the B-2 stealth bomber in the 1980s and 1990s.
Defense and Space

The Proton launch vehicle lifted off from Pad 81 at 3:17 a.m. local time, marking the seventh Proton launch of 2015.
Defense and Space

By Graham Warwick
A detailed study of more than 900 unmanned-aircraft sightings reported to the FAA by pilots and air traffic controllers has concluded that 90 involved encounters with commercial aircraft close enough to meet the agency’s definition of a near midair collision.
Defense and Space

Thales Alenia Space has signed a contract with O3b Networks to produce eight Ka-band communications satellites that will expand the fleet operator’s existing constellation of 12 Thales-built spacecraft by early 2018.
Defense and Space

By Guy Norris, Jen DiMascio
Northrop Grumman will begin wind tunnel tests next month of a tail-sitting vertical take-off and landing UAV capable of operating from smaller U.S. Navy warships.
Defense and Space

By Jen DiMascio, Guy Norris
Northrop Grumman provided a first glimpse of its T-X trainer offering to a group of reporters Dec. 10 in Palmdale, California. It plans to roll out the demonstrator in Mojave in January.
Defense and Space

By Graham Warwick
Jails fear UAV smuggling; France leads UAV smallsat launcher; Darpa aims for ubiquitous lidar; Roke takes cellular to high altitude; Airbus Perlan glider moves to new test phase.
Aerospace

By Guy Norris, Jen DiMascio
Amid signs of growing U.S. Air Force and Navy interest in a sixth-generation combat aircraft, Northrop Grumman is accelerating studies of key technologies for directed energy weapons and thermal management, which it says will be fundamental to future capability.
Defense and Space

By Guy Norris, Jen DiMascio
PALMDALE -- Amid signs of growing U.S. Air Force and Navy interest in a sixth-generation combat aircraft, Northrop Grumman is accelerating studies of key technologies for directed energy weapons and thermal management, which it says will be fundamental to future capability.
Defense and Space

As the U.S. Navy gets down to developing its future cruiser or large surface combatant, the service wants to design and build a ship that can be upgraded to face new threats in a way that does not mean ripping apart most of the ship, as it does with the current fleet.
Defense and Space

By Jay Menon
Pakistan has successfully conducted a test flight of the Shaheen-III surface-to-surface ballistic missile, which has a maximum range of 2,750 km.
Defense and Space

By Graham Warwick
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons is seeking information on systems that would provide protection against UAVs.
Defense and Space

By Mark Carreau
Staffing of the International Space Station temporarily dropped from six to three people on Dec. 11, as NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko descended to Earth.
Defense and Space

In the first live-fire intercept test of Aegis Ashore, contractor Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Navy and the Missile Defense Agency successfully destroyed a ballistic missile target at the Pacific Missile Range Facility.
Defense and Space