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Almost exactly seven months after Unites Technologies Corporation (UTC) completed its acquisition of Rockwell Collins (now Collins Aerospace), the aerospace conglomerate announced its merger with the Raytheon Company.

While the pandemic continues, aerospace companies are rising to embrace new and emerging challenges at a time when there’s so much innovation. This innovation can be seen in the emergence of urban air mobility (UAM), the rebirth of supersonic flight, the drive towards a “zero emission” aircraft, and the continued use of autonomous drones for delivery, freight, search & rescue, and defense. There are exciting new developments in space as companies are developing products for commercial exploration and space tourism, and new ways to launch satellites. A new generation of engineering is also emerging in the defense sector and its development of not only aircraft, but also ships, tankers, and even flight trainers.

Engineers at Boeing and NASA are collaborating on a lightweight, ultra-thin Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) concept, designed to be more aerodynamic and fuel efficient than current designs, as part of the Subsonic Ultra Green Aircraft Research (SUGAR) program focusing on innovative aerospace concepts that reduce noise and emissions while enhancing performance.

Thermal imaging data obtained from a FLIR high-performance camera shows that the expected turbine output temperature is approximately 285°C when the helicopter is in forward flight. However, during hover operations a steady state temperature of about 343°C will be reached.

Aerospace systems, subsystems, and components must continue to operate as intended when exposed to fire, rather than going up in flames and ceasing to work altogether. Fire and flammability testing is an all-important prerequisite to airworthiness, and the focus of a new technical standards committee that SAE International in Warrendale, Pennsylvania, is forming in response to a request from Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials in Washington.

Officials at an as-yet-unnamed airline in the U.S. is assessing a new hydrophobic coating developed by GKN Aerospace materials science and engineering specialists in Garden Grove, Calif., for cockpit windows on its commercial passenger aircraft. GKN Aerospace debuted the new materials science technology, which Airbus engineers are also flight-trialing on the airframe manufacturer’s flight-test aircraft, during Farnborough International Airshow in Farnborough, England, in July 2018.

NASA officials and engineers are prepping to fly the agency’s F/A-18 research aircraft over Galveston, Texas, using a “quiet thump” technique designed to reduce loud sonic booms typically associated with supersonic flight. This week’s test flight sets off a series of quiet supersonic research flights off the coast of Texas to test ways to measure supersonic aircraft sound levels and the community’s response to the supersonic acoustic experience.

Through OFFSET, DARPA envisions swarms of 250 collaborative autonomous systems – including unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) – providing critical capabilities to ground units in urban areas where challenges such as tall buildings, tight spaces, and limited sight lines constrain essential communications, sensing, maneuverability, and autonomous operations.

The researchers at the COE for Assured Autonomy in Contested Environments – all of which histories of innovation for Department of Defense problems of interest – will focus on the availability, integrity, and effective use of information by leveraging its diverse expertise in dynamics, mathematics, control theory, information theory, communications, and computer science.

TuSimple, which specializes in autonomous trucks, will perform five round trips between USPS distribution centers in Phoenix and Dallas over the course of a two-week pilot program. USPS will use the program to assess factors like fuel cost reduction, operational safety, and fleet utilization rates.

To better inform and equip mobility engineers dealing with these challenges, SAE International has released a new book series from Juan R. Pimentel that explores automated vehicle safety concepts and technologies.

Although Northrop Grumman officials acknowledged during a post-test press conference that the incident needs to be “looked into,” they stated that the thrust profile could be “very normal, nominal.” A following statement labeled the test a success and announced that OmegA is on track for its first test launch in 2021 and operational service in 2022.

Lockheed Martin Corporation has released the latest version of RELY3D, its advanced visualization and training tool for sensor system maintainers working on the Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopter.

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operated in a safe and controlled environment, successfully took off, hovered, transitioned to forward flight, and then landed safely.

Designing for safety in automated vehicles has complex requirements – many of which are surrounded with misconceptions. As the leader for training mobility engineers, SAE is providing a two-day classroom seminar: Introduction to Automated Vehicle Safety: Multi-Agent, Functional Safety, and SOTIF.

When a four-alarm fire started burning at a Santa Clara, California construction site down the street from Impossible Aerospace Corporation, the startup sent one of its US-1 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or drone equipped with thermal and optical sensors to help ground crews battle the blaze.

The Rapid Aerial Extraction System (RAES) pod is a self-contained device that can attach to an ordnance pylon on any fixed-wing aircraft and enable it to provide vertical lift recovery capability like that of a helicopter.

To better engage with developers of autonomous vehicles (AVs), the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is looking to remove unnecessary regulation that could slow the testing and deployment of automated driving system (ADS) technology.

The SORA-P60 uses Cepton’s Micro-Motion Technology (MMT) to achieve an industry leading 1,200 scan lines per second, to provide accurate 3D scans and to enable automated classification of objects and volumetric scanning. The sensor is currently installed at an undisclosed highway tolling facility in the United States.

Lockheed Martin successfully flight tested the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) on a U.S. Air Force Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. The captive carry flight – announced during the 2019 International Paris Air Show – marks Lockheed Martin’s most recent demonstration of hypersonic technology development.