Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

The Lockheed Martin Skunk Works U-2S fleet appears to have fully transitioned to the RQ-4 Global Hawk’s primary communications and electronic intelligence collector, the Northrop Grumman ASQ-230 Airborne Signals Intelligence Payload (ASIP).
Defense

By Tony Osborne
Airbus Helicopters has begun airframe studies on the Tiger attack helicopter to assess whether the aircraft will need structural modifications to see out a 40-year operational life.
Defense

By Tony Osborne
Britain’s Empire Test Pilots School (ETPS) is to receive a new fleet of turboprop trainers and single-engine light helicopters as it prepares to align its training regime with European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) regulations.
Defense

By Mark Carreau
One of the most tightly choreographed joint human and robotic activities ever undertaken aboard the International Space Station, unfolding since New Year’s Eve, reaches a milestone on Jan. 6.
Defense

By Thierry Dubois
French aerospace industry lobbying group Gifas is worried that cuts in public research funding may jeopardize the leading position of French companies at a time when other European countries are maintaining their support to aerospace research.
Defense

One of eight medium-thrust engines fell off a U.S. Air Force B-52 heavy bomber from Minot AFB, North Dakota, in a Jan. 4 incident, the service confirmed to Aviation Week.
Defense

RAYTHEON has $303.7m U.S. Navy contract for 214 Tomahawk Block IV All-Up-Round vertical launch system missiles and spares for the U.S. Navy and UK.

British-born NASA climate researcher and astronaut Piers Sellers died in Houston Dec. 23 of pancreatic cancer.

Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc., Monroeville, Pennsylvania, is being awarded a $303,080,064 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for Naval nuclear propulsion components.

NASA is funding probes that will visit Trojan asteroids in Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun, and a unique main-belt asteroid that may be the surviving metallic core of a long-destroyed planet.
Defense

Boeing and SpaceX are now under contract for six crew flights each to the International Space Station, once NASA certifies their commercial crew vehicles for human spaceflight.
Defense

The days of launching intercontinental ballistic missiles from flying command posts in testing and nuclear war are here to stay, with the U.S. Air Force making provisions to link current and future “Doomsday Planes” with its next-generation missile, the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent.
Defense

By Tony Osborne
Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) will market its indigenous clean-sheet twin-engine utility helicopter under the designation T-625, company officials have confirmed.
Business Aviation

It was 2010, and Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter was on the brink of collapse. But since then, Defense Secretary Ash Carter says the program has been revived.
Defense

By Thierry Dubois
Arianespace is planning on 12 launches this year with its Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega rockets.
Defense

By Mark Carreau
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has selected Gilbert, Arizona-based Atlas Space Operations, Inc. for the installation of remote global satellite tracking stations for the Cosmic-2 network in support of future hurricane analysis and prediction.
Defense

By Thierry Dubois
The Airbus-built Sentinel-2B satellite, to be shipped this week to Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana for a March launch, will contribute to unprecedented optical imaging performance, the European Space Agency (ESA) says.
Defense

By Tony Osborne
The French and Jordanian air forces and Britain’s Empire Test Pilots School have ordered 21 Pilatus PC-21 turboprop trainers.
Defense

By Jay Menon
India has conducted the last developmental test-firing of its homegrown Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile.
Defense

By Mark Carreau
Baltimore’s Space Telescope Science Institute is host to the world’s largest digital sky survey.
Defense

SpaceX hopes to return its Falcon 9 to flight this month but must await final FAA action before scheduling a launch.

By Mark Carreau
NASA’s Mars Odyssey is expected to resume science observations this week, following a Dec. 26 safe mode incident.
Defense

The U.S. Air Force’s six-year development of a guidance kit for the 1968-vintage B61 thermonuclear bomb has entered the final stretch, with qualification flight testing due to begin in March followed by a developmental test and an evaluation series in August.
Defense

LOCKHEED MARTIN has $1.45b U.S. foreign military sales contract for Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC) production, to include 205 Missile Segment Enhancement U.S. and Qatar missiles; 58 cost reduction initiative U.S. and South Korea missiles; spare parts for the U.S., Qatar, South Korea, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia; associated ground support equipment.

Frontier Services Group, which provides airborne logistics and ambulance services, among others, said Dec. 19 it is focusing its corporate strategy along China’s One Belt, One Road initiative. Frontier will open a forward operating base in China’s Yunnan province to help serve clients in Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. It also “is partnering with leading firms in China to bring customers customized insurance and aviation solutions,” according to a statement.