Aviation Week & Space Technology

Autonomous systems, terahertz communications, cognitive computing, digitized fabrication—these are the technologies identified as potentially disruptive for aerospace by a panel of experts at AIAA’s SciTech conference.

Creation of the world’s third-largest Tier 1 aerospace supplier behind UTC and GE has both positive and negative effects for Boeing, Airbus and other aircraft manufacturers that do business with Safran and Zodiac.

Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.

Leonardo’s UK enterprise claims the second largest aerospace and defense company behind BAE Systems.

NASA vows to become a “smart buyer” to offset budget threat to X-plane plans as it plans larger, piloted flight demonstrators.

Replacement for Mangusta to use dynamics and avionics from AW149.

In this week’s roundup: U.S. Marines with F-35Bs arrive in Japan, Israeli air force receives Arrow-3 missile defense, Airbus delivers H225M Caracal helicopters to Thailand, British navy awards radar contract and CAE scores training services contracts

ATR is converting 1980s design drawings to more contemporary digital mockups.

U.S. major airlines benefited greatly from depressed fuel prices and offshoots of consolidation, but the boon times appear to be near an end.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX returned the Falcon 9 to flight status after a successful Jan. 14 launch.

Taking advantage of New START Treaty reductions, the service is overhauling CBM silos for the first time since they were built more than 40 years ago.

Cernan flew in space on Gemini IX and to the Moon twice, on Apollo 10 and 17.

Breakthrough’s Starshot plan is looking for exoplanets in the “Goldlocks Zone” of the Alpha Centauri binary system that might support life.

MIT’s unconventional D8 configuration gets more conventional as Aurora Flight Sciences works to turn the fuel-saving concept into a practical product.

Construction of a third hangar will increase Gameco’s MRO capacity and allow more third-party work.

China featured four large low-frequency radars—at least one of which specifies a detection range against the F-22—along with a new, passive radar. Almaz-Antey was also on site promoting Russia’s counterstealth systems.

A modernized U.S. nuclear arsenal could force adversaries to work toward a stable, peaceful international system.

After years restricted by Western sanctions, Iran Air is looking to finally expand its fleet, and Airbus is the first beneficiary.

Embraer CEO aims to grow MRO to a quarter of the company’s business as it targets Asia with the E2.

Turkey is developing the Hurkus into an advanced trainer and a battlefield warrior.

Predix drone swarms; Islamic State group UAVs; laser attack-logging app; Alphabet X ends Titan stratospheric internet project.

The manufacturer believes it can get through the order downturn because its backlog is so large and it has increased production only slowly in the past.

South Korea’s missile-defense system, Chunggung PIP, will go into production in 2017, a year early. Deployment of the predecessor Chunggung anti-aircraft system near the North Korean border is complete

In this week’s Washington Outlook, Mattis pledges to defend NATO, the continued scrutiny of F-35 costs and the FAA proposes a new way to navigate the East Coast.

U.S. companies will draw on their experience building scientific and commercial communications spacecraft to develop probes that will explore remnants of the early Solar System.