Industry News

The New York Times  reports that NASA scientists announced at a news conference Wednesday that “there was a 1-in-1,750 chance that an asteroid named Bennu, which is a bit wider than the Empire State Building is tall, could collide with Earth between now and 2300.” The most likely day for an impact “would be Sept. 24,

Aviation Week reports that The Boeing Company has flown two KC-46A tanker aircraft “to demonstrate tracking technology for future autonomous air-to-air refueling (A3R) capability.” Full Story (Aviation Week)

ExecutiveGov reports that NASA has installed “software designed to facilitate the flight and guidance of the Space Launch System rocket, which will lift the Orion spacecraft for future exploration missions.” NASA said Tuesday that engineers are running tests to certify the software, installed upon assembly of the SLS at the Kennedy Space Center. SLS Systems Engineering

Aviation Today reports that Volansi’s Voly 10 UAV “completed the first-ever completely autonomous maritime drone delivery demonstration with the Navy and Coast Guard on July 18 near Key West, Florida.” The VOLY 10 had a “5-pound payload and completed a 15 nautical mile trip from a Navy ship to the Coast Guard Cutter William Trump

SPACE reports that the Parker Solar Probe made its ninth pass by the sun Monday at 3:10 p.m. EDT. The Parker Solar Probe is “focusing on understanding the mechanism by which the sun’s atmosphere gets so hot – thousands of degrees hotter than the sun’s surface – and the origins of the solar wind, a constant

ExecutiveGov reports that the US Navy received its first TH-73A Thrasher training helicopter Friday. The TH-73A Thrasher “is developed to deliver better power, speed, payload and endurance than the Sea Ranger, with the enhancements being intended to address capability and capacity challenges and improve preparations for naval pilots.” Rear Admiral Robert Westendorff said, “Using current cockpit

Aviation Today reported that DHL Express announced August 3 that it purchased 12 Alice eCargo electric aircraft from Eviation. DHL Express CEO John Pearson said, “We firmly believe in a future with zero-emission logistics. Therefore, our investments always follow the objective of improving our carbon footprint. On our way to clean logistics operations, the electrification

USA Today reports that NASA is looking for four volunteers to live in the Mars Dune Alpha, “a 3D-printed 1,700-square-foot module inside the Johnson Space Center in Houston” for a year. NASA plans to conduct three experiments in fall 2022, 2024, and 2025, respectively. NASA Advanced Food Technology Research Lead Scientist Grace Douglas said, “The analog

The Washington Post reported that The Boeing Company had Starliner inspected for water or electrical damage after the cancellation of Tuesday’s launch. NASA declined to give a date for the next launch. A NASA spokesperson said, “NASA and Boeing will look for the next available opportunity after resolution of the issue.” Boeing said that the mission was

Reuters reports that Qatar Airways announced Thursday it grounded 13 Airbus A350 aircraft under instruction of its regulator due to deterioration of fuselage surfaces. Qatar Airways has been in a dispute with Airbus for months over the dispute and insisted that it would not take further A350 deliveries until the issue was resolved. Qatar Airways Chief

CNN Business reports that The Boeing Company’s Starliner test flight was delayed once again on Tuesday to an unspecified date. Officials have so far only been able to rule out software issues, indicating the issue is unrelated to the 2019 Starliner misfire. Full Story (CNN Business)

FlightGlobal reports that the US Marine Corps is to receive two MQ-9A Reapers in August to increase its ISR capabilities over the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The MQ-9A Reapers are also being used to “inform future requirements for the service’s revamped MUX (Marine Air-Ground Task Force Unmanned Aircraft System Expeditionary)” program. The MUX program, an effort

The Hill reports that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared photos this week “of Raptor engines being fitted onto the Super Heavy booster that makes up the bottom half of the two-stage Starship rocket.” SpaceX plans to launch the Starship from its Boca Chica, Texas, facility. The reusable Super Heavy booster will separate three minutes into the

The Daily Mail (UK) reports that NASA shared a time-lapse video showing construction of the X-59 QueSST aircraft at the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California. The 43-second clip shows development of the fuselage and the 29.5-foot-wide wing. Full Story (Daily Mail)

SPACE reports that NASA’s Flight Director at mission control in Houston during the Nauka docking, Zebulon Scoville, said that the ISS tilted more severely than the reported 45 degrees. Scoville said that Nauka caused the station to spin “one-and-a-half revolutions – about 540 degrees – before coming to a stop upside down. The space station

Aviation Week reports that widebody aircraft manufacturers are focusing on freighters as demand for airliners has stagnated. Airbus already has promoted a freighter version of its A350 airliner, and The Boeing Company is considering producing the 777X freighter, an upgraded version of its popular 777F freighter. Full Story (Aviation Week)

Space News reports that NASA and The Boeing Company are to make a second attempt to launch the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on a test flight August 3. On Friday, NASA announced “they were proceeding with [the August 3] … launch, in an instantaneous launch window at 1:20 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Aviation International News reported that Volocopter made the first FAA-approved flight of an eVTOL aircraft Tuesday at the EAA AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The crewed Volocopter 2X prototype flew a four-minute sortie at around 164 feet. Volocopter confirmed that it is working on the four-seat VoloConnect aircraft, expected to have a 60-mile range and top

Space News reports that GeoOptics plans to deploy a constellation of smallsats over the next five years to collect Earth science and weather data. GeoOptics announced Thursday that it would be launching its new CICERO-2 satellites to collect GNSS radio occultation data and GNSS signals reflected off the Earth Full Story (Space News)

Aviation Today reports that AFWERX Director Col. Nathan Diller said that the US Air Force’s Agility Prime program has been investing in electric air taxis and could have them in use by 2023. The vertical takeoff and landing capable air taxis potentially could be used to evacuate downed aircrew. Full Story (Aviation Today)

The Drive reports that the first XQ-58A Valkyrie stealthy, affordable UAV is being retired after having completed four public test flights. The test platform will be used as a museum exhibit. The XQ-58A in question “suffered a mishap in late 2019 while completing its third flight, but was subsequently repaired and flew again.” Full Story (The

Space News reports that US Space Force Vice Chief Gen. David Thompson said Wednesday that space vehicles powered by small nuclear reactors could be used for military missions in deep space. Thompson said at the Mitchell Institute virtual forum that nuclear propulsion “holds the potential for significant advantages in terms of efficiency compared to standard chemical

Space News reports that NASA and The Boeing Company “say a second test flight of the company’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle remains on track for launch July 30, with weather the biggest concern.” A launch readiness review “for the uncrewed Orbital Flight Test (OFT) 2 mission July 27 confirmed that both the Starliner spacecraft

TechCrunch reports that Joby Aviation has carried out the lengthiest “test flight of an eVTOL to date: Its unnamed full-sized prototype aircraft concluded a trip of over 150 miles on a single charge, the company said Monday.” The test was carried out this month at the company’s Electric Flight Base in Big Sur, California. The

TechCrunch reports that iRocket “has entered into a new partnership with NASA in its quest to reach commercialization in just two years.” The partnership “will give iRocket access to testing facilities and engineering support, chiefly at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.” The company “is hoping that it will conduct its first rocket

ExecutiveGov reports that NASA “has completed the high-voltage testing of its all-electric X-57 Maxwell aircraft at the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California.” The test “plugged an auxiliary power to the” Empirical Systems Aerospace-developed aircraft “to ensure that all integrated systems could function as designed at full power, NASA said Friday.” The test was

Reuters reported that former Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides “will fly to space on the aerospace company’s next test spaceflight, CNBC reported on Friday.” Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson “announced the news about Whitesides during a party in New Mexico on July 11, following his own spaceflight, the report said.” Full Story (Reuters)

National Defense Magazine reported that Mike White, principal director for hypersonics in the office of the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, recently indicated that the “Air Force’s AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon is poised to be the first hypersonic offensive system to move from development to procurement. … There will be a number of

Reuters reports that “seismic waves from quakes detected by NASA’s robotic InSight lander have helped scientists decipher the anatomy of Mars, including the first estimates of the size of its large liquid metal core, thickness of its crust, and nature of its mantle.” The findings, disclosed Thursday, “shed light on what had been a poorly understood

FlightGlobal reports that the Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant rotorcraft “demonstrated the ability to lift a 2,400kg (5,300lb) sling load in a recent test flight.” The co-axial helicopter “with a pusher propeller is still undergoing flight tests as the US Army reportedly recently sent out request for proposals for its Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) to

The AP reports that Spirit AeroSystems “expects to hire more than 4,600 workers in Wichita by 2024, after losing more than 5,000 jobs during the coronavirus pandemic and since the 737 Max was grounded.” Adam Pogue, Spirit AeroSystems vice president of manufacturing services, “said in a presentation given to the City Council Tuesday the aviation company also

Space News reported that during an AIAA online event Tuesday, Jennifer Warren, Lockheed Martin’s vice president of civil and regulatory affairs, “said space sustainability is a common objective of many countries ‘but I really think achieving and maintaining it requires a level of international collaboration and cooperation that we’re still aspiring to.’” Warren said that

CBS News reports that on Monday, NASA released two new images from the Hubble Space Telescope – the first images released since the telescope resumed operations after fixing a computer anomaly. The two images, captured over the weekend, are of “a ‘rarely observed’ pair of colliding galaxies, and a large ‘unusual’ spiral galaxy, NASA announced.

Reuters reports that on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin “inspected a prototype of a new Sukhoi fifth-generation fighter” that Russia “unveiled at its annual MAKS air show with an eye on export markets.” The project Checkmate fighter “is likely to be touted as a rival to the U.S. F-35 stealth fighter, said Oleg Panteleyev, head

Aviation Week reports, “Honda Aircraft Co. is offering a new upgrade package for the HondaJet Elite…

Spaceflight Now reports that The Boeing Company’s “second Starliner crew ferry spacecraft rolled out of its factory early Saturday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for mounting on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket set for liftoff July 30 on a redo of a problem-plagued unpiloted test flight in 2019.” ULA’s “ground crew

FlightGlobal reports that US Air Force “plans to start updating its fleet of MQ-9A Reapers with an automatic land-and-take-off capability starting in…

Forbes reports that on Sunday, Blue Origin “announced that everything looks set and ready to go for its first human spaceflight, which will launch” company founder Jeff Bezos “and three others over 100 kilometers above the Earth’s surface before their safe return.” The mission is scheduled to launch Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. EDT. Chief engineer

SlashGear reports that the James Webb Space Telescope “has hit three new significant milestones, as NASA prepares to launch the powerful instrument later this year.” The tower assembly on the telescope “was recently deployed to its full, 10 meter (33 feet) length, before being stowed” in the telescope. The “‘lens cap’ of the telescope – officially

Reuters reports that on Thursday, The FAA “issued a directive to operators of all Boeing Co 737 series airplanes to conduct inspections to address possible failures of cabin altitude pressure switches.” The order, which “covers 2,502 U.S.-registered airplanes and 9,315 airplanes worldwide,” requires operators “to conduct repetitive tests of the switches and replace them if needed.”

The Drive reports that a “total of 46 F-35 stealth fighters are currently without functioning engines due to an ongoing problem with the heat-protective coating on their turbine rotor blades becoming worn out faster than was expected.” During Tuesday’s hearing before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, “Air Force Lieutenant General

ExecutiveGov reports that NASA “will send its small spacecraft with solar sail propulsion to space as part of the Artemis I human exploration mission.” Artemis I mission principal technology investigator Les Johnson “said in a statement published Wednesday the flight of the Near-Earth Asteroid Scout payload is partly meant to demonstrate the use of solar sailing

Space News reports that NASA has selected three companies for one-year $5 million contracts “to perform concept studies of nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) reactors while making plans to fund similar studies for nuclear surface power systems.” NASA contracted BWX Technologies, which will work with Lockheed Martin; General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, which will work with X-energy

Air Force Times reported that the US Air Force “has approved the Boeing KC-46 tanker to move into limited operations with its centerline drogue system, allowing the aircraft to be tasked for everyday refueling missions that meet certain criteria.” Air Mobility Command Commander Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost said, “The last six months of operational use

Defense News reports that the US Army “has launched its future long-range assault aircraft competition, quietly releasing a request for proposals limited to two industry teams.” The Army also has “homed in on a schedule to deliver FLRAA prototypes after debating two different options to stay on schedule.” The service “will choose a winner – after

Reuters reports that the FAA announced Monday that it is approving Blue Origin’s application to carry humans into space on the New Shepard launch system. The license “is valid through August and is approved to conduct these missions from its Launch Site One facility in Texas.” Fox Business reports that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos “is scheduled to

The Drive reports that on Friday, NASA said that its “experimental X-56B unmanned aircraft suffered what it described as an ‘anomaly.’” The incident occurred at “around 7:30 AM local time at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, which is collocated with the U.S. Air Force’s Edwards Air Force Base in California. The drone had just taken off

ExecutiveGov reported that Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled to lift off atop an Antares rocket August 10 for a mission to the International Space Station. The spacecraft will “deliver another batch of NASA’s science investigations, supplies and equipment to” the ISS. The mission “will support research on 3D printing in space, the behavior of slime

SPACE reports that at 10:40 a.m. EDT Thursday, SpaceX’s CRS-22 Cargo Dragon spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station’s Harmony module. NASA officials said that the spacecraft is expected to land off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, on Friday at 11:30 p.m. EDT. Experiments from the cargo spacecraft “will be sent back to NASA’s Space Station

Bloomberg reports that “Chinese aviation officials” are considering conducting a “validation flight” for the Boeing 737 MAX, “a step toward lifting the plane’s grounding in that nation after more than two years, according to people familiar with the matter.” The Boeing Company “is preparing to send a delegation of around 35 pilots and engineers to