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In the “What’s Next for Aerospace and Defense: A Vision for 2050” study, AIA, New York City-based McKinsey & Company, and other industry partners reveal a comprehensive 30-year, Industry 4.0 forecast of air travel and spaceflight based on improvements in automation and digitization, next-generation materials, alternative energy sources and storage, and increased data throughput.

The partnership will accelerate the development of inertial measurement units, attitude heading reference solutions, and other technologies established under Europe's Clean Sky 2 and Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR) 2020 industry and government collaboration programs.

Cedar Park, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace, Inc. has reached an agreement with Space Florida – the state’s aerospace economic development agency – to establish a facility at Cape Canaveral Spaceport. Through the agreement, Firefly, a spacecraft and launch vehicle developer and provider of launch and in-space services, will conduct launch operations at Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 20 (SLC-20) and create manufacturing facilities at Exploration Park, Florida.

Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane, SpaceShipTwo or “VSS Unity,” made its fifth powered test flight and second space flight late last week with three individuals on board. In addition to pilots Dave Mackay and Mike Masucci, Virgin Galactic’s first non-pilot passenger and the world’s first female commercial spacefarer – Beth Moses – also qualified for commercial astronaut wings from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Lexington, Kentucky-based Space Tango is aiming to launch an autonomous robotic orbital platform by the mid-2020s. The platform, called ST-42, is designed for scalable manufacturing in space and will leverage the unique environment of microgravity to produce high-value products across multiple industries.

With the harrowing approach and landing complete, InSight will commence on a two-year mission to study the deep interior of Mars to learn how all celestial bodies with rocky surfaces, including Earth and the Moon, formed.

In a major production milestone called “final body join,” Boeing teams connected the major fuselage sections of the first 777X long-range, wide-body airliner in the company’s factory in Everett, Washington.

The electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) revolution is gaining momentum, as evidenced by the unveiling of the Bell Nexus hybrid-electric VTOL air taxi concept at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), affirms Mike Hirschberg, executive director at the Vertical Flight Society (VFS), a non-profit organization working to advance vertical flight, in Fairfax, Virginia.

On Sept. 12, NASA will conduct the first test flight of its latest heatshield, the Adaptable Deployable Entry Placement Technology (ADEPT) mechanically deployable semi-rigid aeroshell entry system.

Together, the companies will develop customized lightweight material systems and advanced manufacturing processes, such as metal additive manufacturing – also known as 3D printing – to advance current and next-generation aerospace and defense solutions, including new structures and systems not currently in existence.

Months after founder Paul G. Allen’s death, Seattle-based Stratolaunch Systems Corporation will abandon several launch vehicle projects. The news comes days after a brief social media update on the massive Stratolaunch composite aircraft’s latest high-speed taxi test at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California.

Two new installments in the burgeoning SAE International Podcast Series cast a spotlight on additive manufacturing, which is fueling innovation, greater efficiencies, and the future of mobility engineering. Additive manufacturing continues to advance and transform mobility engineering, as aerospace and automotive firms increasingly adopt and invest in 3D printing technologies, which are becoming more capable and cost-effective.

Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE:NOC), NASA, and Lockheed Martin engineers brought the Orion spacecraft one step closer to its first flight atop NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), and enabling humans to explore the moon, Mars, and other deep space destinations beyond low-Earth orbit (LEO). The team achieved a milestone in the program with a ground firing test of the abort motor for NASA’s Orion spacecraft launch abort system (LAS), designed to enhance spaceflight safety for astronauts, at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Promontory, Utah.

Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin successfully completed the tenth launch of its suborbital launch vehicle New Shepard. The New Shepard is designed to be a crewed, space tourism vehicle, and although the launch was unmanned, statements made during Blue Origin’s launch broadcast suggest that the company has its first crewed launch test flight targeted for the end of this year.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Ultima Thule in the early hours of New Year's Day, ushering in the era of exploration from the enigmatic Kuiper Belt, a region of primordial objects that holds keys to understanding the origins of the solar system.

Honeywell Aerospace, a division of Honeywell International, has rolled out a new business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform for buying and selling aerospace components. The new platform, GoDirect Trade, improves access to new and used aircraft parts for airlines, air transport, and business aviation customers by offering clear pricing and direct inventory access.

Mobility engineers and executives at Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT) company, in Fort Worth, Texas, are developing new concepts of mobility to make moving people and products more efficient and effective – and launching urban air mobility (UAM) innovations, including the Bell Nexus air taxi design, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week. They envision and are helping to enable a fleet of on-demand, quiet vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) aircraft capable of safely whisking passengers over traffic and across urban landscapes by the mid-2020s.

BEV streamliner tops 350 mph for U.S. speed record

The aerospace industry is facing immense challenges due to increased design complexity and higher levels of integration, particularly in the electrification of aircraft. These challenges can easily impact program cost and product time to market. System electrification and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) have become critical issues today. In the context of 3D electromagnetics, EMC electromagnetic compatibility ensures the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) that radiated emissions from various electronic devices, such as avionics or the entire aircraft for that matter, do not interfere with other electronic products onboard the aircraft.

Michigan-based battery upstart Our Next Energy is tackling energy density, cost and safety with a new approach to cell chemistries.