Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

A pair of European- and Japanese-built orbiters are headed to Mercury for a flagship science mission to learn more about the Solar System’s innermost and least-explored terrestrial planet.

ROYAL AIR FORCE completed first UK refuel of an F-35B using its Voyager tanker Oct. 16 over the North Sea at 19,000 ft.

Sciaky is to deliver an EBAM 110 large-scale additive manufacturing system to Burloak Technologies.

Blue Origin decided that to reach all the orbits needed for by the Pentagon and the intelligence community, “we needed something with more performance and capability,” a company official says.

Details of the potential sale suggest it is probably for the MH-47G, the special forces version of the Chinook operated by the U.S. Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

Kratos Defense and Security Solutions will deliver six unmanned air systems of an undisclosed type for an unnamed, “national security” customer, the company said.

Iridium Communications is targeting Dec. 30 for the eighth and final Iridium Next launch, which would complete the new constellation of satellites supporting space-based tracking of aircraft and flight deck broadband connectivity.

NASA’s four-year effort to settle on a scientifically rich but accessible landing site for its Mars 2020 rover moved toward a conclusion this week.

The Russian army accepted the 40N6 missile—a ground-launched, long-range weapon targeting command-and-control aircraft—in September.

Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) is assembling the first LAH attack helicopter, working toward a first flight in May 2019.

A French startup led by former Airbus chief technology officer Jean Botti has unveiled plans to develop a hybrid-electric general aviation aircraft.

Sprayt Robotics, of Sacramento, California, seeks to fly the Aerofex AG1 vertical takeoff and landing UAS for spraying crops over private farmland in the Salinas Valley, in the state’s central coast region.

ELECTRIC BOAT CORP. has $14.7m U.S. Navy contract for Next Generation Submarine Science and Technology Research.

The French Army completed an operational evaluation of the MMP 5th Generation Land Combat Missile System in Dijibouti.

Textron on Oct. 18 reported financial results that disappointed financial analysts, particularly on the conglomerate’s non-aviation side.

Boeing is opening an Office of UK Industrial Capability (OUKIC) in Seattle with a vision of promoting British industry globally.

Fear of lost arms sales to Saudi Arabia may have become another new headache for Western defense contractors to manage, but so far, business analysts think companies are relatively safe.

Portugal has selected the Leonardo AW119Kx Koala as its next training and utility helicopter.

Defense and intelligence computing specialist Mercury Systems has topped the list of recommended stock investments this year from several analysts, but now one short-seller has targeted the company with claims of potential losses to come.

Autonomous air taxi developer Volocopter is to conduct its next set of urban flight tests in Singapore in the second half of 2019.

The Israeli ministry of defense will soon release an official request for information for the replacement of the Israeli air force’s (IAF) CH-53 helicopters.

A Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)-led cognitive radio experiment using an external ISS testbed offers potential advances in intelligent wireless comms.

CAE will start delivering a magnetic anomaly detector—a technology commonly used for anti-submarine warfare—to an undisclosed customer by the end of next March.

Smallsat manufacturer Blue Canyon Technologies has been awarded the first contract under DARPA’s Blackjack program to demonstrate a low Earth orbit constellation.

The U.S. Air Force says the Oct. 16 crash of a Ukrainian Su-27UB fighter aircraft during a multinational military exercise involved a U.S. service member