Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

By Carole Rickard Hedden
A bill that will provide $12.5 million in grant funds to support advanced air mobility in fiscal 2022 gained House passage on June 14.
Advanced Air Mobility

By Victoria Moores, Tony Osborne
A Spanish government initiative to boost the country’s aerospace industry will help support the development of small satellite launchers and create a joint constellation of ocean reconnaissance satellites with Portugal.
Space

Aviation Week Staff
The robotic Luna-25 lander is approaching the end of its ground trials for Russia’s first Moon exploration mission since the 1970s.
Space

By Graham Warwick
Airline information technology provider SITA is to supply its Smart Path biometric identity management technology as a component of the passenger journey through vertiports to be developed by the UK’s Skyports.
Advanced Air Mobility

By Jen DiMascio
Northrop Grumman has demonstrated a secure networked laser communications system for the Space Development Agency’s proliferated low Earth orbit constellation.
Space

By Brian Everstine
The House Appropriations Committee is looking to fund the Pentagon at the same level as the fiscal 2023 budget request, but has tweaked some of the proposed aircraft buys by decreasing the number of F-15EXs for the U.S. Air Force while increasing some helicopter programs.
Budget, Policy & Operations

By Graham Warwick
South Korean conglomerate Hanwha has invested an additional $115 million in U.S. urban air mobility startup Overair, which is developing the Butterfly tiltrotor electric vertical takeoff and landing air taxi.
Advanced Air Mobility

By Mark Carreau
SpaceX needs to replace a faulty Draco thruster valve inlet joint before the the 25th NASA-contracted Dragon resupply mission.
Space

By Steve Trimble
A new version of the Switchblade 600 will be demonstrated with artificial intelligence (AI) software that allows the loitering munition to automatically identify targets observed by a sensor.
Sensors & Electronic Warfare

By Steve Trimble
AeroVironment expects a significant increase in demand for loitering munitions after a U.S. government decision to transfer Switchblade loitering munitions to Ukraine led to a wider export authorization for the armed flying systems.
Budget, Policy & Operations

By Steve Trimble
DARPA has launched a new project that sees a fresh role for the U.S. Air Force fleet of aerial tankers as airborne recharging points for networks of electric-powered UAS by adding a wing-mounted laser pod.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Garrett Reim
The Space Flight Laboratory deorbited its CanX-7 demonstration nanosatellite using four drag sails in April, five years after the sails were deployed and significantly sooner than it would have deorbited naturally.
Commercial Space

By Tony Osborne
NHIndustries claims that French and German NH90 fleets will benefit from improved availability rates through a new support contract for the rotorcraft agreed to by the OEM and NATO agency NAHEMA.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Irene Klotz
SpaceX has some more work to do before it will receive U.S. clearance to launch Starship on an orbital flight test from Boca Chica Beach, Texas, the FAA has determined in its long-awaited study assessing the program’s environmental impacts.
Commercial Space

By Irene Klotz
NASA’s gamble on a startup launch company to deliver a pair of novel hurricane-probing cubesats into orbit got off to a rough start on June 12 after the upper stage of an Astra 3.3 rocket shut down early, dooming the first two members of the agency’s Tropics constellation.
Commercial Space

By Garrett Reim
The U.S. Space Force is working to launch its Foreign Military Sales office, opening the door to what it says will be the first sale of a U.S. military satellite to a foreign country.
Space

By Brian Everstine
The U.S. Air Force wants to hear from industry on how to sustain the Sentinel nuclear missile system, including its new re-entry vehicle.
Missile Defense & Weapons

By Brian Everstine
Most U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviation units were grounded for a safety pause on June 13 after a series of fatal incidents within about one week.
Budget, Policy & Operations

By Tony Osborne
Poland plans to purchase a fleet of Leonardo AW149 medium helicopters to meet a long-standing requirement for a multimission helicopter.
ILA Berlin

By Graham Warwick
Hybrid-electric propulsion startup Ampaire has partnered with sustainable infrastructure developer Black & Veatch to electrify airports to support the deployment of advanced air mobility.
Advanced Air Mobility

By Steve Trimble
For most of the past 70 years, the Lockheed Martin C-130 has defined the role of tactical airlift in the U.S. Air Force inventory.
Aircraft & Propulsion

By Steve Trimble
A heat-seeking missile concept proposed by Diehl could feature a datalink to support beyond visual range, air-to-air missile intercepts.
Missile Defense & Weapons

By Chen Chuanren
Lockheed Martin has added Australian small satellite-maker Inovor Technologies under the so-called Hosted Missions Program for the JP9102 military satellite project.
Space

By Steve Trimble
Medium-range and surface-to-air versions of the AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) are being developed internally.
Missile Defense & Weapons

By Chen Chuanren
To help Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) position itself to better compete for future jet trainer contracts in North America, the South Korean manufacturer has signed a teaming agreement with Lockheed Martin to market the T-50 worldwide.
Aircraft & Propulsion