Airbus’ defense and space business has partnered with Iridium Communications’ subsidiary, Aireon, and introduced an airspace analytics platform at the Farnborough Airshow. Aireon said Thursday it will deliver space-based Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast data to Airbus’ recently launched analytics tool – AirSense – to facilitate real-time aircraft tracking, streamline airspace utilization and flight routes, and boost airport […] More

Airbus‘ defense, space and helicopter businesses have launched a new suite of data analytics services aimed at supporting aircraft operational safety, maintenance and mission availability. The company said Monday its SmartForce services use on-site private data cloud to help operators perform troubleshooting and predictive maintenance on aircraft. SmartForce works with data gathered from aircraft such […] More

Airbus’ defense and space business has launched at the Farnborough Airshow an unmanned aerial vehicle designed to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations. Airbus said Monday it also opened the first production facility for the Zephyr S High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite UAV and named it after Zephyr inventor Chris Kelleher. Sophie Thomas, head of the Zephyr […] More

The European Space Agency has tapped Airbus to design a rover and a spacecraft that will be launched in 2026 to retrieve samples of Martian soil and bring them back to Earth for study. The Toulouse, France-based company said Thursday that the Mars Sample Return mission will involve sending the Mars Sample Fetch Rover to the red planet’s […] More

France-based Airbus seeks to participate in U.S. military space technology development projects through the establishment of a Florida-based satellite assembly line scheduled to be operational this fall, SpaceNews reported Friday. Airbus’s joint venture with satellite broadband company OneWeb established the facility with the goal to produce at least 900 spacecraft designed to operate in low Earth orbit. The […] More

Airbus has connected 10,000 lasers in a satellite network made to facilitate large amounts of observation data. The SpaceDataHighway system collects data from low-orbit satellites and transmits at a speed of 1.8 gigabits per second with a total relay of 40 terabytes daily, the company said Friday. The system’s Munich-based mission operation center conducts satellite activities 24 […] More

Germany’s defense ministry secured proposals Tuesday from the U.S. government that represents Boeing and Lockheed Martin as well as from Airbus for a program to replace the European country’s fleet of 90 Tornado fighter aircraft by 2025, Reuters reported Tuesday. Airbus has teamed up with BAE Systems and Leonardo to offer the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft […] More

A Maxar Technologies subsidiary has received a potential $3.2 million contract to design a payload technology for an Airbus satellite developed to support space-based data transmission efforts. MDA will develop preliminary designs, evaluate applicable tools and identify enhancement methods for the optical data relay payload of Airbus’ third SpaceDataHighway satellite, also called the European Data Relay System, Maxar said Thursday. […] More

Airbus has demonstrated a capacity to launch laser guided rockets with the company-built H145M helicopter platform during a firing test held at Alvdalen test range in Sweden. The helicopter fired Thales-made FZ275 70mm air-ground rocket as part of the trials at the Swedish defense materiel administration’s test facility, Airbus said Wednesday. An MX-15D electro-optical system from L3 Technologies‘ Wescam subsidiary helped  guide rockets that […] More

The European Space Agency has selected Airbus to be the prime contractor on a project to build a new satellite-based augmentation system that can support “safety of life” and other services across the aviation sector. Airbus said Friday it will help the agency produce EGNOS V3 in efforts to boost the performance of European SoL services to […] More

A consortium of Airbus Group‘s helicopters business and French defense contractor Naval Group has received a contract from France’s defense procurement agency to help develop an unmanned helicopter demonstrator. Airbus said Thursday the team will conduct a study to determine potential technologies for the French military’s future Navy Airborne Drone System, called SDAM, as well as […] More

NASA has announced an instrument the agency designed to study the region between earth’s atmosphere and space will fly as hosted payload onboard a commercial satellite. The agency said Wednesday its Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk mission will launch with a geostationary communications satellite that Airbus Group built for Luxembourg-based operator SES. SES-14 is scheduled to lift […] More