NASA’s new Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) places a fresh, top-level agency focus on the detection and tracking of asteroids and comets that could threaten Earth, as well as the coordination of interagency and intergovernmental response efforts.
Raytheon completed a successful captive flight test of a seeker designed for the Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile, the company says. The seeker will enable Tomahawk to engage moving targets on land and at sea.
Sierra Nevada Corp. will join incumbents Orbital ATK and SpaceX in NASA’s $14 billion second-round contract to deliver cargo to the International Space Station.
The European Space Agency is expected to ask member states next December for a three-year portion of financing valued at several hundred million euros to fund the agency’s continued participation in the NASA-led International Space Station.
Work on a deep-space cargo vehicle and a robotic lunar lander is included in a $1.3 billion budget request from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for fiscal 2016.
Members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace will vote by Feb. 10 on whether to accept the terms of a new six-year contract extension tentatively agreed to with Boeing during secret negotiations.
The German government says it has begun negotiations with Israel to purchase the Israel Aerospace Industries Heron TP medium altitude, long-endurance unmanned air vehicle.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian says his country likely doubled its arms exports in 2015 to €16 billion, thanks in part to sales of Dassault Aviation’s Rafale combat jet to Egypt and Qatar last year.
Japanese engineers are preparing to build a combat-engine core, following progress in materials research for the low-bypass turbofan, intended for the country’s next fighter, the F-3.
NASA’s Juno mission spacecraft, on course to maneuver into orbit around Jupiter on July 4, has become the most distant solar-powered spacecraft ever, according to an update from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency claims the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) report into the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines MH17 contains “unsubstantiated and inaccurate” conclusions.
The chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee says he is “disturbed at rumors” that the Obama administration might reduce the level of defense spending that Congress and the White House agreed to in a two-year budget deal late last year.
NATO’s long-running program to field a ground surveillance capability is a step closer as Northrop Grumman begins integrating the radar sensor on to the first of five RQ-4B Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft for the alliance.
In their quest to make the U.S. Navy surface force more lethal and dispersed, the service brass wants to get better use of its existing missile inventory, beefing up the weapons with new sensors and payloads.
Pratt & Whitney will deliver the 1,313th and final production F117-100 engine to the U.S. Air Force for its Boeing C-17 airlifter fleet later this month.
The French defense ministry has launched a program to modernize its SAMP/T air defense system, notably with the development of the new Aster B1NT missile.
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) railgun projectiles were fired from the company’s Blizter prototype railgun weapon during recent tests at the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.
