Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

SpaceX completed a picture-perfect nighttime recovery of the first Falcon 9 booster stage on the U.S. West Coast after launching the SAOCOM 1A radar-imaging satellite for CONEA, Argentina’s national space agency, from Vandenberg AB, California on Oct. 7.

BOEING has $45m U.S. Air Force contract for Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) technical support and integration.

Extant Aerospace has completed the acquisition of substantially all of the assets and technical data rights from the Corona, California, operations of NavCom Defense Electronics.

View the Fleet Snapshot: European Tanker-Transports chart in PDF format.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program will begin operational test and evaluation in November, which means the jets may be cleared for full-rate production in summer 2019.

Defying a potential threat of punitive measures by the U.S., India has signed a $5.43 billion contract with Russia to buy five advanced S-400 air defense systems.

SpaceX and Boeing have officially delayed their unmanned and crewed test fights to the International Space Station (ISS).

Japan has decided to develop a new fighter, preferably with a foreign partner, rejecting the alternative of buying aircraft of existing but improved designs from British or U.S. companies, the Mainichi newspaper said.

The U.S. has OK'd the sale of three intelligence-gathering King Air 350ER aircraft to the Canadian military.

Chinese testing of a rocket engine burning methane with liquid oxygen has exceeded 2,000 sec., with reusability regarded as a key objective.

Following a successful 17-hr. mission of the Mascot rover on the surface of asteroid Ryugu, France and Germany have agreed to send a follow-on spacecraft to Phobos, a Martian moon.

NASA is investigating the crash of a subscale unmanned prototype-technology evaluation and research aircraft (PTERA).

A South Korean rocket demonstrating the Woorae 1 space-launch engine is likely to reach about 120 mi. on its suborbital flight.

The Pentagon will make “selective” investments and promises a new era of close cooperation with defense contractors as part of an emerging response to President Donald Trump’s executive order to study ways to bolster the defense industrial base.

RAYTHEON has $183.5m U.S. Navy contract for Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) engineering and manufacturing development.

State-owned Rostec’s Techmash Concern is creating a 152mm artillery projectile that can correct its trajectory mid-flight.

The State Department has green lighted the possible sale of up to five armed Bell 407GX helicopters to Iraq for an estimated $82.5 million.

A Raytheon/Saab team will demonstrate in 2020 a new guided munition now in development for the Carl-Gustaf shoulder-launched missile launcher.

The Bell 412EPI is back in contention for a Philippine requirement for 16 helicopters, despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s politically driven cancellation of an order for the type in February.

Shape-memory alloys that can operate at higher temperatures have been developed by researchers at Texas A&M University.

Russia’s Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft descended safely under parachute to a landing on the plains of Kazakhstan early Oct. 4.

A no-deal Brexit would “significantly disrupt trade” and negatively affect smaller, less diversified companies, analysis of the aerospace and defense industry by credit ratings agency Moody’s has suggested.

Raytheon and a team of Northrop Grumman and Ball Aerospace will compete to make a mission payload for the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation missile warning satellite constellation.

Lebanon and Kenya have helped to bolster the order book of MD Helicopters with purchases of armed versions of the company’s MD530 single-engine light helicopter.

Arlington Capital Partners and Smiths Group have reached a definitive agreement for the latter to buy United Flexible, an Illinois-based parts provider for PW1000G and F135 engines and the Airbus A320neo, for $345 million.