Industry News

Defense News reports that the US Air Force announced Monday that during the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie UAV’s “sixth flight test at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, it opened its payload bay doors during flight for the first time and released an ALTIUS-600, a small, tube-launched autonomous drone made by Area-I.” The Valkyrie is “an ‘attritable’

Bloomberg reports that Flydubai said that it plans to return its Boeing 737 MAX jets to service April 8. The airline “idled 14 Boeing Max jets in March 2019, when the model was grounded worldwide in the wake of a second deadly crash in five months. The low-cost carrier has ordered 251 Max jets as it

SPACE reported that NASA’s Perseverance rover’s SuperCam laser is studying a green rock that the rover discovered on the Red Planet. The laser works by creating “a cloud of vaporized rock, the composition of which can be analyzed by SuperCam’s cameras and spectrometers.” Scientists “hope that over time, the laser will give us more information about

SPACE reports that NASA has pushed the earliest date for its Ingenuity helicopter to make its first flight on Mars from April 8 to April 11. NASA’s JPL said in a tweet that Ingenuity “is preparing to do something that’s never been done: controlled, powered flight on another planet. Takeoff is now slated for no

The Canadian Press reports that according to Canada’s Department of National Defence Assistant Deputy Minister of Material Troy Crosby, officials remain on track to ending its “decade-long search for a new fighter jet for the Royal Canadian Air Force next year despite challenges and delays from the pandemic.” In an interview with the Canadian Press, Crosby

Spaceflight Now reports that NASA Astrophysics division director Paul Hertz said that the two issues the Hubble Space Telescope recently experienced are likely related to aging hardware. The Hubble Space Telescope is approaching the 31st anniversary of its launch. It went into safe mode on March 7 because of a software issue. Efforts to recover the

FlightGlobal reports that China Eastern Airlines expects that deliveries of the Boeing 737 MAX will resume from 2023 – “even while it works with the airframer to return the aircraft to service.” According to fleet plans included in its full-year results for 2020, the airline indicated that it expects to introduce 46 737 MAX aircraft in

Spaceflight Now reports that NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter “is being lowered from the belly of the Perseverance rover this week as ground teams run through a choreographed long-distance command sequence to safely release the $80 million rotorcraft onto the surface of Mars.” The deployment “is projected to take around six days, assuming everything goes as planned.

Defense News reports that on Monday, the US Air Force announced that “three F-35A squadrons will officially call Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., home starting in September 2023.” Seventy-two Lightning IIs “will join the 325th Fighter Wing, which previously handled F-22 Raptors at the Florida Panhandle base. Each squadron will take charge of 24 aircraft.

CNBC reports that on Tuesday, Virgin Galactic “unveiled the latest spacecraft addition to its fleet, VSS Imagine, with the spacecraft representing the first of its next-generation SpaceShip III class of vehicles.” The rollout “of VSS Imagine gives the space tourism company a second spacecraft to begin testing, as Virgin Galactic continues to work through final

Aviation International News reports that Aerion announced the initial details for its second aircraft Monday. More details on the 50-passenger Mach 4-plus AS3 are expected later this year, but Aerion “sketched out a goal of reaching near-hypersonic speeds and a 7,000-nm range.” The company projects the aircraft to fly before the end of the decade

SPACE reported that NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has completed its first two years of work and has found 2,241 new exoplanet candidates to study. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Researcher Natalia Guerrero, who is lead author in the study, said, “The exciting thing is to look at the map of TESS exoplanets as a

Reuters reports that Southwest Airlines “said on Monday it had reached a deal with planemaker The Boeing Company for 100 orders for a variant of the 737 MAX aircraft, with the first 30 jets scheduled for delivery in 2022.” Full Story (Reuters)

The Drive reports that the US Air Force “invested $134 million in repairs for 39 T-1A Jayhawk twin-engine jet trainers grounded after being severely damaged in a Texan hailstorm,” for an average of $3.4 million per jet. The two repair lines “were at an L3 Harris facility in Waco, Texas, and at the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and

SPACE reports that SpaceX “may attempt to test fire – then launch – its latest Starship rocket prototype at the company’s South Texas facility on Friday.” Cameron County, Texas, officials “have approved road closures ahead of an engine test and launch of the Starship SN11 vehicle on Friday.” SpaceX “has not stated it actually will attempt

Aviation International News reports that Ryanair hopes the FAA and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) “will finalize the licensing process of the Boeing 737 Max 200 in the coming days, paving the way for Europe’s largest LCC to finally take delivery of its first example in April.” Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary said during

Florida Today reports that the team at Kennedy Space Center are preparing for the arrival of the Space Launch System core stage. Inside the center’s Vehicle Assembly building (VAB), “twin solid rocket boosters stand at attention ready” for the core stage, which is expected to arrive in late April. Technicians at KSC “began stacking the

FlightGlobal reports that Airbus will “offer a further range increase on the A220-300 towards the middle of this year, with a 1t hike in the twinjet’s maximum take-off weight.” The update “will take the MTOW of the -300, the larger of the A220 variants, to 70.9t from the current 69.9t and will provide some 200nm additional

The Hill reports that the NASA Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will take its first flight no earlier than April 8. The helicopter has a small amount of material from the wings of the Wright brothers’ first airplane, NASA said in a statement Tuesday. The swatch of fabric is wrapped with tape around a cable located underneath the

Space News reports that on Monday at 2:07 a.m. EDT, a Soyuz rocket launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying 38 satellites from 18 countries. The launch was the “first all-commercial rideshare mission GK Launch Services has arranged without a Russian government satellite onboard.” The rocket’s primary payload was South Korea’s CAS500-1 remote sensing satellite, which “separated

FlightGlobal reports that DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution program tested team dogfighting between AI-controlled fighters in a software simulation in February. The “Scrimmage 1” was run by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and tested AI algorithms in a two-versus-one simulated engagement. DARPA Strategic Technology Office Program Manager Col. Dan Javorsek said, “These new engagements represent an

Space News reported that the Chang’e-5 orbiter successfully entered orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 1 on March 15 as part of an extended mission, the China Aerospace and Technology Corp. stated Friday. The spacecraft will perform a range of tests and solar observations under the control of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center. The mission

The Washington Times reports that DARPA “is taking another crack at personal flying devices, inviting companies to send their proposals for developing and demonstrating ‘novel or unique approaches to personal battlefield mobility.’” Officials “said entries could be a modification of existing prototypes – such as the Bell Rocket Belt – or could embrace entirely new designs.”

CNN reports that on Wednesday, “the final A380 to be assembled took off from Airbus’ Jean-Luc Lagardere plant, a purpose-built facility at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport in southern France.” The aircraft was destined for “the Airbus manufacturing plant at Hamburg-Finkenwerder Airport in Germany,” where “the cabin will be fitted out and the aircraft painted, Airbus media relations

Reuters reports that NASA said Thursday that the agency and SpaceX have agreed to enhance data sharing in order to avoid collisions between their spacecraft. The data sharing agreement will ensure that “both parties are fully aware of the exact location of spacecraft and debris in orbit.” SpaceX “has agreed its Starlink satellites would autonomously

The Wall Street Journal reports that the FAA has revoked The Boeing Company’s authority to inspect and approve several newly produced 787 Dreamliners. The FAA said that its inspectors would perform the routine pre-delivery safety checks instead. Full Story (Wall Street Journal – Subscription Publication)

Spaceflight Now reports that NASA plans to ignite the core stage of the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket Thursday “to confirm it is ready for shipment to the Kennedy Space Center for launch preparations.” The hot-fire test is scheduled for a two-hour window beginning at 3 p.m. EDT at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on a

Space News reports that US Space Force Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson “said it would make sense for the government to pay companies to clean up space junk if such services existed.” Orbital debris “represents a risk to spacecraft and to safe operations in space, Thompson said March 16 in an interview

The Daily Mail reports that the US Air Force is preparing to test its new hypersonic missile “that is said to be capable of flying 20 times the speed of sound.” The test will take place sometime this month and will have a B-52H bomber carry an AGM-183A missile “high into the air and launch it at

Space News reports that DoD has selected Relativity Space for the 2023 launch of a small military payload atop a 3D-printed rocket. The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) “picked Relativity to become a launch services provider for the DoD Space Test Program’s Rapid Agile Launch Initiative [RALI]. RALI is a program managed by the Space Force’s

Warrior Maven reports that Bell and Sikorsky-Boeing are both developing different designs for the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, and both designs are currently able to fly “twice as fast” and “twice as far” as a Black Hawk, which can reach speeds of 150mph. The designs “are considered compound configurations, engineered with an intent to engineer

Space News reported that NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope “resumed observations March 11 after a software error placed it in a protective safe mode several days earlier.” The “software error was traced to what an agency statement called an ‘enhancement’ recently uploaded to the spacecraft. That enhancement was intended to compensate for fluctuations from one of the

Aviation International News reported that global business aviation activity is down 2% year-over-year, according to industry data provider WingX. WingX “said business aviation accounted for a larger percentage of all fixed-wing traffic thus far in 2021 at 19 percent, compared with 12 percent in the same period last year.” The firm noted that business aviation

Space News reports that at 12:51 p.m. EST Thursday, China launched its Long March 7A rocket from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, “sending a classified, experimental payload into geosynchronous transfer orbit [GTO].” The “first launch of the Long March 7A failed in March 2020. A loss of pressure occurred after first stage separation, which led to engine

FlightGlobal reports that on Wednesday, the US Air Force officially accepted the first F-15EX fighter at The Boeing Company’s St. Louis production facility. The Air Force’s “choice to acquire the F-15EX is controversial as the fourth-generation fighter lacks the low radar cross-section of the service’s former favourite jet, the Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter.” The Air

The Hartford (CT) Courant reports that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Sikorsky Aviation “hired more than 1,000 workers last year, doubling the number of workers brought on in 2019. Its workforce was 13,000 as of” February 28, and although Sikorsky President Paul Lemmo “would not say how many will be hired in the future, Sikorsky expects to ramp

Aviation Today reports that Rolls-Royce announced Tuesday that it is building an electric propulsion system for Vertical Aerospace’s VA-X4 electrical vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The system will include the Rolls-Royce 100kw-class lift-and-push electrical propulsion units and its power distribution and monitoring system. The VA-X4 will conduct a flight test this year and start

CNET News reports that on March 3, SpaceX “appeared to make a soft landing of” its Starship SN10 prototype, but several minutes after the landing, the rocket “exploded on the landing pad.” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said Tuesday that the landing was not as soft as it appeared, and that the prototype’s legs and part

SPACE reports that NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope “went into a protective ‘safe mode’ early Sunday morning (March 7), but its handlers seem confident it will bounce back in relatively short order.” Hubble team members said on NASA’s Twitter account Sunday, “At ~4:00 a.m. EST [0900 GMT] on Sunday, the Hubble Space Telescope went into safe

FlightGlobal reports that the US Air Force is seeking air-to-air combat technologies for its family of next-generation UAVs. Initial focus areas are air domain awareness technologies, including “airborne moving target indication sensors and equipment for high-value airborne asset protection, it says in a request for information posted online on 8 March.” The Space Force said

Spaceflight Now reported that NASA and SpaceX are targeting April 22 for the launch date of the next Crew Dragon mission to the ISS. The Crew Dragon spacecraft “is scheduled to blast off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The launch time April 22 is set for 6:11

FlightGlobal reported that General Atomics Aeronautical Systems received an experimental certificate from the FAA for a second Avenger Extended Range UAV. The certificate “will allow the company-owned aircraft to operate within the US National Airspace System, the company said on 3 March.” General Atomics senior director of quick-action programs Pete Latta said, “This [Experimental Certificate] will

SPACE reports that NASA officials gave an update from the Mars Perseverance Rover’s Twitter account Wednesday, which tweeted, “This week I’ve been doing lots of health checkouts, getting ready to get to work. … I’ve checked many tasks off my list, including instrument tests, imaging, and getting my arm moving. Warming up for a marathon of

Aviation Today reports that the US Air Force is “investing in LiquidPiston’s X-Engine technology to create a hybrid-electric propulsion system to power emerging technologies like unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and orbs, the company announced on March 4.” The technology would use fuel to power a generator and charge the aircraft’s batteries, which would extend its flight

CBS News reports that an unpiloted SpaceX prototype launched from Texas on Wednesday and climbed to an altitude of six miles before tipping “over on its side as planned” and plunging “back to Earth in a high-altitude swan dive, flipping back vertical and then successfully landing near the launch pad.”  The launch marked the company’s

Reuters reports that Aerion “said on Wednesday Berkshire Hathaway’s private aircraft firm, NetJets, has obtained purchase rights for 20 of its AS2 business jets.” The AS2 “will be powered by engineered synthetic fuel and can reach supersonic speeds of up to Mach 1.4, or about 1,000 miles (1,610 km) per hour, which is 150% faster

Spaceflight Now reports that the first launch of Arianespace’s Vega Rocket “since an in-flight failure nearly one year ago has been postponed to no earlier than Monday night due to unfavorable upper level winds over the Vega launch base in Kourou, French Guiana.” The rocket will carry 53 small satellites for “21 customers in 13 countries,

FlightGlobal reports that the FAA plans to begin testing of UAV detect-and-avoid systems before the end of this year. The tests “will run through 2023 and will occur at five US commercial airports – those in Atlantic City (New Jersey), Columbus (Ohio), Huntsville (Alabama), Seattle-Tacoma (Washington) and Syracuse (New York), the FAA says on 2

CNET News reports that on Monday, SpaceX delayed the launch of 60 Starlink satellites atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The launch is now set for Tuesday at 7:53 p.m. EST from Kennedy Space Center. For the launch, SpaceX will attempt a “booster landing on a droneship, as well as the attempted recovery of both halves

Reuters reports that The Boeing Company “will use a pilotless, fighter-like jet developed in Australia as the basis for its U.S. Air Force Skyborg prototype, an executive at the plane maker said on Tuesday.” The company conducted its first flight of the “Loyal Wingman” on Saturday, with a Boeing test pilot monitoring “from a ground control