Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

LONDON — The U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) has disbanded one of its two AgustaWestland EH101 Merlin helicopter squadrons, as it hands over the fleet to the Royal Navy. In a ceremony at RAF Benson, Oxfordshire, on Sept. 30, the RAF closed down 78 Sqdn., while the Royal Navy stood up 846 Naval Air Squadron (NAS), which will fly the Merlin Mk. 3 helicopters as part of the Commando Helicopter Force, the U.K.’s main amphibious transport helicopter organization.

If there’s one message the U.S. Navy would like to get across about the future Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile (NSM) aboard the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) or any other ship in the fleet: don’t count your missiles before they are bought. While the Navy and the Norwegian company recently touted a successful NSM test off the LCS 4 USS Coronado, the service brass is now emphasizing that putting the NSM on an LCS – or aboard any other ship in the fleet for that matter – is not a foregone conclusion.

TORONTO — The heads of NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) signed agreements here Tuesday setting up a working group to explore

HOUSTON — Preparations for the early December launch of Exploration Flight Test-1, the first unpiloted test flight of the NASA/Lockheed Martin Orion

NEW DELHI — The indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft (LCA) is now ready for acceptance testing after the first aircraft built to series production

LONDON — German investigators probing the crash of a military-chartered Learjet 35A have found that the aircraft banked into one of two German air

SEARCH CONTINUES: One crewman was missing Oct. 1 after bailing out of an MV-22 Osprey that lost power on takeoff from the USS Makin Island (LHD 8)

BEIJING — Australia has contracted with BAE Systems to upgrade the Nulka naval defense system’s launcher, with the aim of ensuring the hovering-rocket

NEW DELHI — An Indian army Cheetah helicopter crashed in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh on Oct. 1, killing the two pilots and an engineer

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ESTERLINE CORPORATION agreed to acquire the aerospace/defense display business of BARCO, Belgium for €150m. MARSHALL AEROSPACE AND DEFENCE GROUP CANADA was selected by Cascade Aerospace as engineering subcontractor for Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) CC130 Avionics Optimized Weapons System Management (AVS OWSM) program.

LOS ANGELES — As part of ongoing moves to streamline its defense and space business, Boeing is relocating the majority of its service and support

NASA’s RapidScat scatterometer, delivered to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s fourth Dragon resupply mission last week, was removed

RIDLEY PARK, Pennsylvania — U.S. Army Special Operations Aviation Command is seeking greater commonality with the regular Army as it receives its

Sierra Nevada is taking advantage of the 65th International Astronautical Congress to push its Dream Chaser lifting-body spaceplane to offshore customers, now that NASA has rejected its bid to fly crews to the International Space Station.

LONDON — Thales has been awarded a technology study contract by the French defense procurement agency (DGA) that could result in the development of

With a design goal of staying aloft for five days, the U.S. Air Force’s Orion medium-altitude, ultra-long-endurance unmanned aircraft demonstrator has

It remains a rather simple equation: if the U.S. wants its aircraft carriers and nuclear-missile-armed submarines, then the nation is going to have to

NEW DELHI — Honeywell Aerospace will allow Tata Power’s Strategic Engineering Division (SED) to produce the Tactical Advanced Land Inertial Navigator

U.S. Army Life Cycle Management Command failed to provide the Defense Logistics Agency with reliable forecasts of spare parts needed to support

HOUSTON — Japan’s Hayabusa 2 mission, a second effort by the Asian space power to gather samples from a near-Earth asteroid, is scheduled for a Nov

NASA and LOCKHEED MARTIN finished fueling ORION spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility and moved capsule to Launch

TORONTO — United Launch Alliance (ULA) likely will continue to use the Russian-built RD-180 kerosene-fueled main-stage rocket engine for its U.S. Air Force missions at least into 2017, and it remains unclear what propulsion system it will use for its next-generation Atlas V after that, according to two top Lockheed Martin executives attending the 65th International Astronautical Congress here.

Recently elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is meeting with President Barack Obama for the first time at the White House this week