Cygnus Re-Entry Captured on Video, On-Board Data Recorder Fails

This week’s destructive re-entry of the Cygnus cargo craft after a successful mission to the Space Station was to be heavily studied from within the spacecraft and via an airborne campaign from below. While the scientists aboard the chartered aircraft captured excellent data and video of re-entry, the data recorder aboard the disintegrating vehicle failed to transmit data.

Cygnus OA-6, named the S.S. Rick Husband, departed the Space Station on June 14 and, over a one-week free flight, completed the Saffire-1 combustion experiment and deployed a group of Lemur CubeSats for ship-tracking and meteorology. On Wednesday, the spacecraft set up for its fiery demise that was carefully set up for a rare scientific opportunity – making observations of re-entry from inside and outside the spacecraft.

Read more at: Spaceflight 101

House Aviation Subcommittee Shows Renewed Interest in Commercial Spaceflight

A hearing by the House aviation subcommittee on commercial space transportation issues, the first of its kind in seven years, showed both its renewed interest in the subject and a willingness to reexamine some key policy issues.

The June 22 hearing by the aviation subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee was largely an informational hearing about the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s regulation of commercial space transportation and some key current issues, such as the FAA’s desire to take on a larger role in space traffic management and to provide oversight of “non-traditional” commercial space activities, such as missions to the moon and asteroids.

However, some members were interested in revisiting older issues. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), the ranking member of the full committee, raised questions about the dual mandate of the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) to both regulate the industry and to promote it, which the rest of the FAA lacks.

Read more at: Space News

Space Launch System Booster Fired in Final Preflight Qualification Test

A solid-fueled rocket motor mounted horizontally on a Utah hillside ignited and powered up to more than 3 million pounds of thrust Tuesday in a final full-up test-firing before a similar booster helps propel NASA’s huge Space Launch System away from Earth on a demonstration flight in 2018.

The 154-foot-long (47-meter) rocket lit at 11:05 a.m. EDT (1505 GMT) Tuesday, an hour later than planned after test technicians ran into trouble with a ground computer controlling the booster’s countdown sequence.

Engineers resolved the problem after a short delay, and the rocket motor fired with a spectacular golden plume of nearly 6,000-degree Fahrenheit (3,300-degree Celsius) exhaust, launching a vast plume of smoke thousands of feet over the hillside at the booster’s test site in Promontory, Utah.

Read more at: Spaceflight Now

NASA Open to Using Silver-treated Water in Space, Despite FDA Opposition

One of the quirks of being in space is that, upon embarking on your trip, you’d need to carry all the water you will ever need during your expedition – until the next mission comes along. This has meant that scientists have had to figure out how to recycle and disinfect water to be reused. Curiously, the two principal spacefaring nations, the United States and Russia, have developed completely different approaches in solving the problem.

In the International Space Station (ISS), the Russian and American sides have remained separate until recently, and have had life-support systems unique to each country’s needs. For years, the U.S. side has used iodine to purify its water, while the Russians developed their own system using antibacterial silver. The U.S. side has always picked up whatever extra the Russian side had leftover, since the latter’s process was always more efficient.

Recently, however, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) made the decision to adopt the Russian method of purifying water, after arriving at the conclusion that ionized silver is not only easier, it was more efficient and much more effective.

Read more at: Space.news

‘Meteorite’ Crashes Through House Roof in Bangkok

A mysterious rock, believed to be a meteorite, crashed through the roof of a house in Phitsanulok’s Muang district on Tuesday. The suspected meteorite fell through the roof of a home in Plai Chumphon sub-district at 7.26am, hit a wall and then bounced to the floor, breaking into five pieces. “I was having breakfast when there was a loud bang, like a gunshot sound. I looked around and found a rock about the size of an egg and some fragments nearby. I picked up the largest chunk and let go quicklyas it was very hot”.

Mrs Bualom believes the rock is from outer space and will bring her good luck.    Mrs Bualom’s husband, Kittisak, 75, said he heard a sound of explosion in the sky at about 7am before the 300g rock fell through the roof. Media reports said residents in adjacent districts of Nakhon Thai and Chat Trakan also heard the “explosion”.

Read more at: Bangkok Post

NASA Plans to Refuel Satellite with its Robotic Spacecraft Restore-L

NASA has finally given its seal of approval to the robotic spacecraft which can refuel and do the maintenance work on the live satellites by 2020.

Being first of its kind in low- orbit Earth, Restore-L mission will dramatically change the way government and private space cooperation builds, maintains and operates satellite. The most striking feature of this robotic spacecraft is that it will increase the longevity the satellites already in orbit and prevent their untimely death.

According to NASA reports, Beyond refueling, the Restore-L mission also carries another, weighty objective: to test other crosscutting technologies that have applications for several critical upcoming NASA missions. This technology includes an autonomous relative navigation system with supporting avionics, and dexterous robotic arms and software.

Read more at: Zee News

Russia to Publish Catalog Disclosing US Military Satellites

Russia is planning to release to public its catalog of near-Earth objects, including US military satellites, a Russian official said. Russia will publicly release its own database of Earth orbiting satellites, Viktor Shilin, head of the Russian delegation at the 59th session of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, told the Russian newspaper Izvestia.

The Russian platform would become an analogue to the NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) catalog. It lists over 45,000 tracked objects. Every object has its five-digit number, NORAD ID. However, in addition to tracking non-military satellites and space debris, the Russian catalog will include data which the United States Space Command does not make public.

Read more at: Space Daily

Want to Send Your Own Experiments into Space? This Tiny Satellite Will Help You!

If you are a space enthusiast and planning to built a your own low cost space-bound satellite, then here is a great news for you!

Scientists at Arizona university have developed a tiny satellite- the size of a matchbox- that will drastically the cut cost of highly expensive space missions in near future. This concept is developed under SunCube platform and the name of the tiny yet affordable satellite is Femosat.

According to Wired reports, any typical satellite launch will cost between US$60-70,000 per kilo but the SunCube team says that Femosat launch to International Space Station would cost closer to $1,000 only. Weighing just 35 grams, the team is planning to use this satellite as a part of a ‘constellation of spacecraft’.

Read more at: Zee News

Underground Astronauts Preparing for Space

We usually send them 400 km up, but next week ESA will be sending six astronauts 800 m underground into the rocky caves of Sardinia, Italy. The caving course recreates aspects of a space expedition with an international crew and has become an essential part of ESA’s astronaut training. This year’s participants are ESA astronaut Pedro Duque, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Richard Arnold, Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide, Chinese astronaut Ye Guangfu and cosmonaut Sergei Korsakov.

Caves offer a dark and alien underground environment with many analogies to space. Deep underground, our senses are deprived of many sounds and natural light. The procedure for moving along a cave wall resembles spacewalking and cave explorers need to stay alert, take critical decisions both as an individual and as a team, just as in space.

The CAVES – Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising – course focuses on multicultural approaches to leadership, following orders, teamwork and decision-making.

Read more at: ESA

NASA Brings Space Internet Tech to the ISS

NASA says it has begun to implement a new type of communications protocol, called theDelay/Disruption Tolerant Network (DTN), on the International Space Station. The DTN, which Popular Mechanics covered in a feature in March, has finally seen its first upgrade to an operational ISS module, the Telescience Resource Kit. This new network is expected to increase data speeds throughout the solar system once it’s fully implemented.

The DTN is slowly being implemented in many of NASA’s rovers and satellites. NASA is also working with a variety of international agencies such as the Internet Research Task Force and the Internet Engineering Task Force to encourage wide adoption of the DTN.

Read more at: Popular Mechanics

Boeing Proposes Big Satellite Constellations in V- and C-bands

Boeing wants U.S. and international regulators to relax constraints on low-orbiting satellite broadband constellations using C- and V-band and has specifically asked for a license to launch and operate a network of 1,396-2,956 V-band satellites.

El Segundo, California-based Boeing, a major manufacturer of geostationary-orbiting telecommunications satellites for commercial and government customers, has placed itself squarely on the side of those arguing that low-orbiting constellations can be designed not to interfere with higher-orbit satellites and wireless terrestrial networks.

Boeing’s V-band network would operate at 1,200 kilometers in altitude, the same orbit that the 700-satellite OneWeb Ku- and Ka-band network will be using. In its June 22 petition to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Boeing says it will be able to coexist with OneWeb.

Read more at: Space News

Sierra Nevada Talks Dream Chaser with UN

Sierra Nevada Corp. is in discussions with the UN about a dedicated Dream Chaser research flight.

The company said Tuesday it signed a memorandum of understanding with the UN’s Office of Outer Space Affairs that it hopes will lead to a later agreement to fly a Dream Chaser mission on behalf of member nations without the ability to purchase their own flights. The mission would not fly to the ISS but could remain in low Earth orbit for an extended period to carry out scientific research and technology demonstrations.

Read more at: Space News

Crew Dragon Pressure Vessel Put to the Test

Pressure vessels built by SpaceX to test its Crew Dragon designs are going through structural testing, so engineers can analyze the spacecraft’s ability to withstand the harsh conditions of launch and spaceflight. A pressure vessel is the area of the spacecraft where astronauts will sit during their ride to the International Space Station. It makes up the majority of the Crew Dragon’s structure but does not include the outer shell, heat shield, thrusters or other systems.

Even without those systems in place, however, SpaceX and NASA can learn enormous amounts about the design’s strength by placing the pressure vessel in special fixtures that stress the structure. SpaceX completed two pressure vessels that will be used for ground tests and two more are in manufacturing right now to fly in space during demonstration missions for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

Read more at: NASA

NASA Awards Contract to Increase Water Recovery on Space Station

NASA has selected Paragon Space Development Corporation, a small business headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, to develop a system that will increase the rate of water recovery from the urine of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. The contract is valued at $5.1 million for the delivery of one Brine Processor Assembly (BPA), and is sponsored by NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems Division. Work on the contract will be performed at Paragon Space Development’s Tucson facilities.

The technology, currently scheduled for flight in 2018, will undergo a test demonstration on the space station to verify it further closes the “water loop,” with a goal of achieving at least 94 percent recovery of water from urine. The Water Recovery System, currently used on station, captures and processes astronaut urine, but additional unrecovered water remains in the resulting effluent (brine). The BPA assembly will be used to reclaim more water from the brine.

The reduction of costly resupply launches from Earth is essential to future human deep space missions, including NASA’s Journey to Mars. By reusing in situ critical resources to the greatest extent possible, technologies such as BPA will aid in accomplishing this reduction.

Read more at: Spaceref

China Lands Prototype Crew Spacecraft After Inaugural Long March 7 Launch

The inauguration of China’s Long March 7 rocket on Saturday was capped by the successful landing of the prototype re-entry vehicle carried aboard the launcher to demonstrate the landing profile and heat shield of the country’s next generation crew vehicle.

The scaled prototype of China’s future crew vehicle landed after 20 hours of flight, relying on the launcher’s upper stage to place it back onto a re-entry trajectory after making over a dozen orbits around the planet. Engineers retrieved the capsule in good condition after a successful parachute-assisted landing in the desert.

Read more at: Spaceflight 101

‘Space Tsunami’ Causes the Third Van Allen Belt

Earth’s magnetosphere, the region of space dominated by Earth’s magnetic field, protects our planet from the harsh battering of the solar wind. Like a protective shield, the magnetosphere absorbs and deflects plasma from the solar wind which originates from the Sun. When conditions are right, beautiful dancing auroral displays are generated. But when the solar wind is most violent, extreme space weather storms can create intense radiation in the Van Allen belts and drive electrical currents which can damage terrestrial electrical power grids. Earth could then be at risk for up to trillions of dollars of damage.

Announced today in Nature Physics, a new discovery led by researchers at the University of Alberta shows for the first time how the puzzling third Van Allen radiation belt is created by a “space tsunami.” Intense so-called ultra-low frequency (ULF) plasma waves, which are excited on the scale of the whole magnetosphere, transport the outer part of the belt radiation harmlessly into interplanetary space and create the previously unexplained feature of the third belt.

Read more at: Phys.org

Chinese Space Garbageman is Not a Weapon

The recent launch of China’s first Long March 7 rocket has put several notches in China’s progress in spaceflight. The first flight of a powerful new rocket. A stepping stone to the launch of China’s first cargo spacecraft.

Another test of components that will be used on the Long March 5 heavy-lift vehicle, also expected to make its debut later this year. A test of a scale model of a potential future astronaut capsule. Last but not least, we have the first launch from China’s new spaceport on Hainan island. Long March 7 carried a small fleet of satellites and experiments, including the Aolong-1 spacecraft, which carries the English name “Roaming Dragon”. This satellite sports a robot arm, designed to grapple other satellites for de-orbiting.

China has launched a robot space garbageman. It’s about time. Space debris is a growing problem, and more countermeasures must be taken to combat this threat. De-orbiting satellites with robots is a useful option in some cases.

Read more at: Space Daily

Prototype for New Chinese Human-rated Spacecraft Lands in Desert

A sub-scale landing craft for China’s next-generation crew capsule parachuted back to Earth on Sunday, one day after rocketing into orbit aboard the country’s new Long March 7 launcher.

The demonstrator craft spent nearly 20 hours in space before landing in northwest China’s Inner Mongolia region at 0741 GMT (3:41 a.m. EDT; 3:41 p.m. Beijing time) Sunday, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said in a statement. The capsule was one of several experimental payloads launched Saturday on the maiden flight of the new Long March 7 rocket, which deployed the spacecraft in an orbit as high as 235 miles (about 380 kilometers) above Earth.

It is about half the size of a future spacecraft still on China’s drawing board to replace the Shenzhou spaceship currently used to ferry Chinese crews to orbit and back.

Read more at: Spaceflight Now

Upgraded “Space Shuttle Bus” Aboard New Carrier Rocket

Long March-7, China’s new generation carrier rocket, has carried an upper stage aircraft into the space in its maiden flight Saturday, said a senior space program official.

The upgraded model of Yuanzheng-1 (Expedition-1) is an independent aircraft carried by the carrier rocket with the ability of sending multiple spacecrafts into different orbits in space, said Wang Xiaojun, chief commander of the Long March-7 program, at a press conference after the Long March-7’s successful launch.

The aircraft, dubbed the “space shuttle bus”, has been launched into the earth orbit by the Long March-7 and in the next 48 hours will deliver several “passengers” to different orbits using its own power system, Wang said. These “passengers” aboard Yuanzheng-1A are of different size and weight, he said. This will be the most complicated and longest launch mission that the country has ever operated, he said.

Read more at: Xinhuanet

NASA Astronaut Kate Rubins Prepares for First Trip to Space

NASA Astronaut Kate Rubins will be the next American to travel out of this world when she launches one week from today on her first mission to the International Space Station. On July 6th, Rubins and her two crew mates, cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin of Russia and astronaut Takuya Onishi of Japan, will blast off from Kazakhstan inside a Soyuz rocket to join the rest of their Expedition 48 colleagues at the space station.

“Funny enough, my scientific and personal goals are almost identical. I am looking forward to every second, hour and day of observing how life operates in free-fall and watching our planet below,” Rubins told ABC News in an email from Kazakhstan.

Rubins was selected in 2009 for the 20th NASA astronaut class after helping develop the firstsmallpox infection model for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseasesand the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The self-described “former virus hunter” holds a doctorate in cancer biology from Stanford University.

Read more at: ABC News

Russia’s Plan to Spin Off a New Space Station From the ISS

The potential breakup of an international alliance is now brewing, and no, we’re not talking about Brexit. This one is happening above our heads.

Russia’s main contractor in human space flight just detailed its plans to separate the newest modules from the International Space Station (ISS) once the long-lived project comes to an end in the 2020s. It plans to build a new habitable base in Earth orbit called the Russian Orbital Station, or ROS. The outpost will include three modules initially, possibly joined by two more in the future.

Russian plans to split the ISS have been circulating for years. Now, for a host of political, financial, and technical reasons, this isn’t just a wild idea on paper anymore.

Read more at: Popular Mechanics

Big Pharma Researchers Launch Fungi into Space in Hopes for New Patentable Drugs

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) are sending four strains of fungi to the International Space Station in an effort to develop new medicines for use on Earth and beyond. The experiment will be conducted in collaboration with scientists from the university and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“This is an ambitious project for NASA to see if we could have some breakthrough in space biology,” senior research scientist, Kasthuri “Venkat” Venkateswaran, said in a press release. “Until now, we have sent bacteria and yeast to the ISS. We have also exposed fungi to facilities outside ISS, but this is the first time we are growing fungi inside ISS to seek new drug discovery. NASA needs to develop self-sustaining measures to keep humans healthy in space because calling 911 is not an option,” he added.

Read more at: Space.news

Space Angels Network Opposes ICBM Amendment to the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act

On Sunday the Space Angels Network released a letter in opposition to Mike Lee’s amendment to the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act which would allow the commercial use of ICBM’s.

The primary arguments are that the amendment would benefit one company and hurt the burgeoning small satellite commercial launch market.

Read more at: Spaceref

Plants Grown in Simulated Mars Conditions Safe to Eat

In greenhouses at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, scientists have been growing a very special crop. Since 2013, an experimental group of plants have taken root in soil meant to simulate that on the moon and Mars. The research was funded through a crowdfunding campaign in partnership withMars One, the project that hopes to send volunteers on a one-way trip to Mars.

The moon and Mars-like soils were mined on Earth, from cinder cone volcanos and craters, and are sandy in texture. The moon soil is nutrient-poor and has a high pH, while the Mars soil has a good amount of carbon and traces of nitrates and ammonium.

The first step of this experiment was to determine whether these plants could actually grow. And they were able to prove that 10 different crops did indeed succeed. The next step was to figure out whether these crops were actually edible.

Read more at: Popsci

SLS Solid Rocket Booster to be Fired Up for Final Qualification Test

NASA and Orbital ATK are gearing up for the second and final qualification test of the Solid Rocket Booster for the upcoming Space Launch System. The booster – securely held in a horizontal position on the ground – will rock the Utah desert for a full two-minute burn on Tuesday with ignition planned at 14:05 UTC.

Tuesday’s firing marks the final critical test before the large five-segment Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) are cleared for flight on SLS, currently aiming for its debut launch in late 2018 to take an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a shakedown mission around the Moon.

Read more at: Spaceflight 101

Dutch Radio Antenna to Depart for the Moon on Chinese Mission

Researchers at Radboud University, ASTRON and the Delft company Innovative Solutions in Space (ISIS) are to develop a new instrument that will be onboard the Chinese Chang’e4 satellite that will be placed in an orbit behind the moon in 2018. With the instrument, astronomers want to measure radio waves from the stars and galaxies that were formed directly after the Big Bang.

In Beijing, The Netherlands Space Office (NSO) and the Chinese national space agency CNSA signed a partnership agreement on a mission to the moon, made possible by the organisations’ Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2015.

The radio antenna is the first Dutch-made scientific instrument to be sent on a Chinese space mission, and it will open up a new chapter in radio astronomy.

Read more at: Phys.org

Britain’s Quitting the EU, But Will it be Forced Out of EU Space Programs?

The British vote June 23 to leave the European Union is likely to occur gradually over two years, but it raises multiple immediate questions about the consequences for Europe’s space programs and Britain’s role in them.

Not all of these questions can be answered definitively. British and European Union officials have said it will take time to fix a precise schedule for the separation. During this time it may be possible for Britain the European Commission to negotiate trade and security treaties that would blunt the impact of the withdrawal.

Read more at: Space News

Opinion | Reviving the Aerospace Plane Program

Accessing space for security, scientific discovery, and economic interests is now commonplace. But success of Earth-oriented-and-beyond space missions and the inevitability of a human presence in space require assured, affordable, and safe access to low Earth orbit (LEO). Assured access means robust, responsive, and resilient transportation. Moreover, the affordability of space access for these purposes will determine the degree to which near-Earth space can be commercialized. And, as launch service providers appreciate, safety of humans and critical cargo is paramount for customers and stakeholders alike.

A fully reusable Earth-to-LEO transportation vehicle, using a revolutionary propulsion system and operated with commercial airline industry practices, could greatly reduce transportation costs to LEO for medium-weight (5–15 MT) payloads (humans and cargo). For this, the Aerospace Plane Program should be revived.

Read more at: Space News

Russia, China to Sign Intellectual Property Deal on Rocket Tech

Moscow and Beijing are set to sign a deal on the protection of intellectual property in the field of rocket technologies during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s upcoming visit to China, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Monday.

“First and foremost we are talking about deliveries of RD-180 engines [to China]. This is a very successful engine of ours that we deliver even to the United States,” Rogozin said at a preparatory meeting ahead of Putin’s visit.

“Secondly, the Russian side is interested in acquiring an electronic component base – radio microelectronics for space purposes, meaning highly durable microelectronics. Agreements on both will be reached after we sign a deal on the protection of intellectual property during President Vladimir Putin’s upcoming visit to China. This will open the gates to these two major contracts,” he added.

Read more at: Space Daily

UAE Mulls Life After Oil—and on Mars

As the United Arab Emirates prepares for life after oil, could a mission to Mars help transform its economy? Sarah Amiri is the deputy project manager and science lead at the Emirates Mars Mission. She is also the Chairwoman of the Emirates Scientists’ Council and is a World Economic Forum Young Scientist who will be speaking at the Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin, China, from June 26 to 28. She recently discussed climate change on Mars, her country’s shift to a knowledge-based economy, and why the space program is inspiring young people across the Middle East.

Read more at: Scientific American

Drones to Keep Tabs on Light Pollution

Astronomers at Nottingham Trent University have developed a light, low cost system, deployable on a drone, that could help everyone monitor and control light pollution. The team, led by undergraduate student Ashley Fuller, present their work at the National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Nottingham.

Excessive light is a pollutant in its own right, as is the energy, and carbon footprint, needed to generate it. The cultural and scientific impact is very visible, and recent studies confirm that light pollution prevents a third of the global population from seeing the Milky Way.

Dark skies are preserved in some designated areas, with parks, islands and other reserves offering places in the UK and around the world where the night sky is still relatively pristine. All these places though need continuous monitoring.

Read more at: Science Daily

Why did NASA Still Use Pure Oxygen After the Apollo 1 Fire?

On January 27, 1967, the crew of Apollo 1 was killed during a routine pre-launch test. A wire arced in the spacecraft, and that spark turned into a raging fire in the pressurized pure oxygen environment. Eighteen months later, the crew of Apollo 7 became the first to fly the revised Apollo spacecraft, but when they removed their helmets in orbit, they did so in a pure oxygen environment. Why, if a pure oxygen environment had claimed the lives of three astronauts already, did NASA not change the cabin environment following the Apollo 1 fire? Well, it did and it didn’t, and the resulting change had as much to do with the Cold War as astronaut safety.

Read more at: Popsci

This Animated Tribute to the NASA Voyager Space Program is Simply Stunning

Launched in 1977, the Voyager 1 and 2 are still exploring interstellar space today. Both probes have flown by Jupiter and Saturn while the Voyager 2 has made its way to Uranus and Neptune too. The Voyager space program has traveled further in space than anything ever has and serves as a wonderful reminder of how much farther we can go. Santiago Menghini made this short tribute to the program using animation and real archival footage to stitch together a poetic story of its ongoing journey.

The film actually uses real photographs and plasma frequencies received by the voyager crafts. It’s like we’re out in space, seeing and hearing everything the voyager crafts do.

Read more at: Gizmodo

Peaceful Uses for Death at the Speed of Light

t the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington this spring, U.S. President Barack Obama reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to nuclear disarmament, nuclear nonproliferation and strengthening nuclear security worldwide to prevent nuclear weapons and enriched materials from falling into the hands of terrorists and other non-state actors.

It’s been 71 years since the detonation of the first nuclear weapon. Humankind, far from becoming a less belligerent species, is crafting 21st Century weapons of increasing efficiency, precision and lethality. A new generation of smaller nuclear warheads are being developed with the goal of achieving an arsenal that’s easier and cheaper to maintain, while research continues into newer inventions such as expendable drones and other, much more sophisticated robotic fighting machines.

Read more at: Spacenews magazine

Exclusive: USAF Weighing Replacement F-35 Ejection Seat

The US Air Force is looking into the possibility of replacing the Martin-Baker ejection seat on the F-35 joint strike fighter with the United Technologies ACES 5 model, Defense News has learned.

While still in the earliest stages, such a move could have have massive repercussions for the F-35 supply chain, impacting the workshare strategy that forms the backbone for the international fleet of the Lockheed Martin-designed fighter.

Read more at: Defense News

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