Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

BOEING has $8.7m U.S. Army contract for initial long-lead effort for MH-47G block II aircraft. Work complete August 2020.

On June 8 International Launch Services is scheduled to launch the 6,900-kg (15,100-lb.) EchoStar XXI communications satellite aboard a Proton Breeze M launch vehicle.

Bombardier has followed Boeing in lodging a protest over the U.S. Air Force’s decision to allow L3 Technologies to choose the next EC-130H Compass Call aircraft.
Defense

By Tony Osborne
The flight is the first in a series of 17 test flights that will prove the Advanced Hawk's new aerodynamic configuration.
Defense

The 20-year policy statement rolled out on June 7 by Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan would increase military spending by 73% over the next decade to $32.7 billion by 2026-27.
Defense

By Mark Carreau
Vice President Mike Pence, NASA and key members of Congress on June 7 announced the selection of seven men and five women to join the agency’s astronaut corps.
Defense

President Donald Trump’s bulldozer-style diplomacy regarding Qatar’s alleged financing of terror groups has left the fate of a military base, security ties and billions of dollars in weapons sales in doubt.
Defense

By Bradley Perrett
Chinese space engineers see navigation and landing stability among their main challenges in preparing for an historic unmanned mission to the far side of the Moon that they plan for 2018.
Defense

By Maxim Pyadushkin
The order is the first step toward restarting operations on the oceangoing launch platform.
Defense

By Marhalim Abas
The Philippines is likely to order up to 12 more Korean Aerospace FA-50 light attack aircraft, taking the Philippine Air Force closer to its required numbers.
Defense

Northrop Grumman is getting to work on its fourth and potentially most important contract for the APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR), after securing a $244 million award from the U.S. Air Force to retrofit 72 Lockheed Martin F-16s.
Defense

By Tony Osborne
The European Union has created a defense research and development fund.
Defense

The U.S. Air Force’s X-37B experimental spaceplane will return to space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for the first time, the service reports.
Space

EUROCONSULT estimates global space budgets totaled $62.2b in 2016, down 2% from previous year. Governments launched 75 satellites.

The finance ministries of Russia and Turkey are discussing the possibility of providing Ankara a loan for the purchase of S-400 missile systems.

TRAX International, White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, was awarded an $111,489,021 modification (P00235) to contract W9124Q-07-C-0504.

By Tony Osborne
Leonardo says it has entered exploratory discussions with the U.S. Army to investigate potential missions for its AW609 commercial tiltrotor.
Paris Air Show

Among experiments reaching the International Space Station on the first SpaceX Dragon capsule to revisit the orbiting outpost is a 3.5-kg experiment provided by the Beijing Institute of Technology that will study the effects of the in-space environment on genes.
Defense

By Tony Osborne
Bell Helicopter has nudged expected certification of its Model 525 back to the end of 2018 as it awaits NTSB’s report into the fatal loss of one of the prototypes in 2016.
Defense

By Guy Norris
Lockheed Martin says hypersonic technologies are now sufficiently mature to enable progress towards a demonstrator for its Mach 6-capable follow-on to the SR-71.
Aerospace

Four U.S. government agencies have received $71.5 million from the Office of Management and Budget to study whether they can auction a minimum of 30 MHz of L-band spectrum used for air traffic control radar and other cross-agency purposes.
Defense

By Thierry Dubois
Olivier Zarrouati will leave his position at Zodiac Aerospace after serving as its CEO for the past 10 years.
Defense

By Bradley Perrett
China’s plan for deep-space exploration up to 2030 is close to receiving budgetary approval, a senior program official says.
Defense

By Guy Norris
Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works has revealed a radically revised version of its concept for the Next-Generation Air Dominance penetrating counter air combat aircraft.
Defense

By Bradley Perrett
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has rolled out the first of 38 Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightnings that the company is scheduled to assemble.
Defense