Northrop Grumman’s solar electric ion propulsion-powered Dawn spacecraft has reached the end of its 11-year mission to two planet-like bodies that drift between Mars and Jupiter. The company said Thursday the spacecraft used up its altitude-control fuel after completing its mission of collecting data about Vesta and Ceres, which are two of the largest objects […] More

The future USS Frank E. Petersen, slated to become the U.S. Navy’s 71st Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, will be christened on Saturday at Huntington Ingalls Industries’ shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. The nearly 9.5K-ton guided-missile destroyer will receive a Flight IIA configuration designed for power projection, forward presence and escort operations for open-ocean conflicts as well as […] More

Frank St. John, executive vice president of missiles and fire control business at Lockheed Martin, told Defense News in an interview published Monday that the company has begun work on the hypersonic conventional strike weapon and hypersonic glider. Lockheed won a potential $928 million contract from the U.S. Air Force in April to design and build an […] More

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere on Monday after it brought approximately 7,400 pounds of cargo and supplies to the International Space Station and performed secondary space missions. The re-entry of the space vehicle, dubbed S.S. J.R. Thompson, marked the conclusion of the company’s ninth cargo delivery mission to the orbiting laboratory under the Commercial Resupply […] More

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft left the International Space Station on Friday to deploy six CubeSats into orbit. The company said Sunday the spacecraft, also known as S.S. J.R. Thompson, will use the NanoRacks deployer to field AeroCube 12A and 12B satellites from Aerospace Corp. and four other CubeSats that will join Spire Global’s constellation of weather satellites to […] More

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft docked at the International Space Station tested on Tuesday its reboost capability through a 50-second engine firing activity, Spaceflight Now reported Wednesday. Ground controllers at Northrop’s Dulles, Va.-based mission operations facility transmitted commands to the spacecraft to fire its IHI Aerospace-supplied BT-4 main engine, which generated approximately 100 pounds of thrust […] More

Frank Kendall, former acquisition chief of the Defense Department, has said that DoD  needs to ensure that it has “a healthy industrial base to support it” while performing its mission, USNI News reported Monday. He added that the military’s focus on readiness and force structure preservation efforts resulted in cuts to research and development funds. […] More

An Orbital ATK-built spacecraft will begin to deploy cubesats in orbit and return to Earth’s atmosphere following the platform’s departure from the International Space Station. Orbital ATK said Thursday the Cygnus cargo delivery system dubbed as S.S. Gene Cernan supports the OA-8 mission which marks the fourth time the spacecraft dropped off NanoRacks cubesats in […] More

Frank Kendall, former undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics at the Defense Department, has been appointed to Leidos‘ board of directors. Leidos said Wednesday Kendall currently serves as executive in residence at Arlington, Virginia-based aerospace and defense advisory firm Renaissance Strategic Advisors. “Frank brings more than 40 years of experience in national security affairs, acquisition, engineering […] More

Orbital ATK plans to launch its Cygnus spacecraft aboard its upgraded Antares 230 rocket in September as part of the company’s eighth cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station under NASA‘s Commercial Resupply Services contract, Space News reported Monday. “The launch date on the manifest now is September the 12th,” Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK’s […] More

An Orbital ATK-built Cygnus spacecraft has departed from the International Space Station to conduct three secondary payload missions as part of its next mission phase. The company said Sunday that the S.S. John Glenn will perform NASA‘s Spacecraft Fire Experiment-III experiment which will monitor the behavior of fires in microgravity. “The experiment will intentionally ignite and record a large-scale […] More

An Orbital ATK-built Cygnus spacecraft has arrived at the International Space Station to deliver approximately 7,600 pounds of crew supplies, food, clothing, spare parts, scientific experiments and laboratory equipment. The S.S. John Glenn spacecraft reached ISS Saturday and completed berthing procedures days after its April 18 launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard a United Launch Alliance-built Atlas V rocket to mark Orbital ATK’s seventh […] More