FROM THE INSTITUTE
The eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP) awardees, announced on 9 March, mark an incredible example of coalition building for the future of aerospace. AIAA wants to mark this occasion by noting how the technology fueling AAM has developed in recent years. The Institute supports the community in many ways as they explore how best to implement AAM operations and connecting multimodal transportation to novel aircraft use cases.
NASA has not reestablished contact with its MAVEN Mars orbiter since a planned communications blackout ended Jan. 16. As SPACE reports, an “analysis of a fragment of tracking data from the day contact was lost suggests MAVEN was rotating in an unexpected manner as it emerged from behind Mars and was no longer in its planned orbit, according to NASA.”
Full Story (SPACE)
AVWEB reports, “The U.S. Army announced Friday that it has taken delivery of an H-60 Black Hawk helicopter configured for both autonomous and piloted flight, beginning a new phase of testing focused on optionally piloted aircraft. The platform incorporates autonomy technology developed through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) program, which has been under development for more than a decade. According to the Army, the system is designed as a retrofit kit that can be installed on existing aircraft to automate flight functions and reduce pilot workload.”
Full Story (AVWEB)
FROM THE INSTITUTE
Reliable prediction and control of boundary-layer transition are crucial to the design and safe operation of hypersonic vehicles, such as reusable launch and re-entry vehicles, missile interceptors, and missiles for time-critical strike. This virtual collection comprises experimental and numerical research on hypersonic laminar-turbulent transition among different research groups as part of a coordinated international effort.
Space News reports, “The European Space Agency plans to charter a SpaceX Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station to give more flight opportunities for its astronauts. At the conclusion of a meeting of the ESA Council on March 19, the agency said member states endorsed a project called ESA Provided Institutional Crew, or EPIC, to send a European crew to the ISS on a Crew Dragon in early 2028.”
Full Story (Space News)
The Defense Post reports, “Northrop Grumman’s Talon IQ modular testbed, equipped with Shield AI’s Hivemind as its digital brain, has completed its first partner mission autonomy flight in Mojave, California. Following its single‑day hardware‑in‑the‑loop test, Hivemind successfully directed Talon IQ to execute combat air patrol and target engagement in the flight before the aircraft swapped back to Northrop’s Prism autonomy software.”
Full Story (The Defense Post)
FROM THE INSTITUTE
Luminary Cloud, an AIAA Corporate Member, announced the release of three new physics AI defense models designed to dramatically expedite U.S. defense technology development while at AIAA SciTech Forum 2026. “The new physics AI models are intended to complement simulation technology, and instead of giving execution times in hours, they will provide answers in less than a second,” said Juan Alonso, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder, Luminary Cloud. “This is a significant acceleration of engineering workflows, which is made possible by the very large data sets we are able to create with GPU-native physics solvers and by the revolution in Physics AI methods.”
Military Aerospace reports NASA’s “Earth Science Technology Office is seeking submissions for the agency’s Space to Soil Challenge, an initiative focused on advancing adaptive sensing and onboard processing technologies for small satellite (SmallSat) missions supporting land resilience applications.”
Full Story (Military Aerospace)
Aerotime reports, “The US Army’s 12th Combat Aviation Brigade (12th CAB) has used the AH-64E Apache in a counter-drone role during an exercise in Germany, in what the unit described as a first for the European theater. In a release published on March 19, 2026, the brigade said that soldiers from the 2-159th Attack Battalion had used the helicopter’s existing weapons to engage and destroy drones in air-to-air engagements during Operation Skyfall at the Grafenwoehr Training Area.”
Full Story (Aerotime)