Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

Systems installation is underway on Virgin Galactic’s second commercial SpaceShipTwo sub-orbital vehicle at Mojave, California, following the

ELBIT SYSTEMS LTD. has $31m initial Israeli Ministry of Defense contract for Iron Fist Active Protection Systems for the Eitan Armored Fighting Vehicles.

Eric Chewning, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s chief of staff, will leave his job at the end of January.

Iran on Jan. 7 launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at U.S. forces and their allies in Iraq.

Launch service operator Arianespace is planning up to 20 launches with its Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega rockets in 2020.

Major aerospace supplier Heico through a subsidiary has acquired the human-machine interface product line of Spectralux for an unidentified amount of cash.

The U.S. Navy has kicked off a pilot program focusing on better sustainment of the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye airborne surveillance aircraft.

British aerospace and defense supplier Meggitt has invested in HiETA Technologies, another UK company that focuses on metal additive manufacturing.

Deliveries of Dassault’s Falcon business jets have hit a new bottom, at 40 in 2019.

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has claimed its first discovery of an Earth-like world in the habitable zone of a neighboring star.

The Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics (Asteria) sat effort to miniaturize a spacecraft for extrasolar planet detection, has gone quiet.

SpaceX’s 19th NASA-contracted Dragon resupply mission spacecraft returned to Earth Jan. 7.

Turkish Aerospace has rolled out the third prototype of its T625 Gokbey twin-engine medium helo as it begins to accelerate the aircraft’s flight-test program.

Carmaker Hyundai has announced a UAM partnership with Uber and unveiled a full-scale mockup of its S-A1 eVTOL aircraft.

SpaceX has opened what it hopes will be a bustling 2020 launch manifest of 35-38 missions with the Jan. 6 liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a third batch of Starlink broadband comm sats.

Ukraine has begun taking delivery of H125 single-engine light helicopters from Airbus.

Petaluma, California-based Jump Aero is developing a small, fast, short-range vehicle for transporting first responders.

RAYTHEON has $11.7m U.S. Air Force study contract for Global Positioning System Next Generation Operational Control System.

BAE Systems Ship Repair, Norfolk, Virginia, has been awarded a $175,047,658 firm-fixed-price contract for the execution of USS Vicksburg (CG 69) fiscal 2020 modernization period (MODPRD).

Back from its year-end recess, the U.S. House this week is expected to introduce a War Powers Resolution to limit President Trump’s military options concerning Iran.

Boeing on Jan. 6 provided more details on how the 737 MAX production pause will progress, while major program supplier Spirit AeroSystems said it will begin accepting “voluntary” layoffs.

Weeks into a rash of reported drone sightings in eastern Colorado and part of Nebraska, the FAA on Jan. 6 lacked an explanation for the reports or whether drones were actually involved.

As new details about a next-generation engine for Russia’s premier Su-57 fighter emerge, new concerns are apparent as well.

Aerospace and defense Tier 1 giant Safran has sold off software and systems engineering unit Base2 Solutions.

The F-35 Joint Program Office awarded Lockheed Martin a $1.9 billion contract on Jan. 6 to maintain the global Lightning II fleet, support training and expand capacity for producing spares and repairing components.