Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, June 8, 2018

Orbital ATK is upgrading the Pegasus XL rocket to drive down costs and has acquired a second airworthy Lockheed L-1011 as a long-term spares source....More

Chris Boardman, managing director of BAE Systems' Air division saysthe UK should be aiming to take a lead role in an international program to ensure the country retains its engineering base to produce combat aircraft....More

Six years after the delivery of the UK’s first F-35, four of the fighters have touched down at RAF Marham, the airfield selected as the British main F-35 operating base....More

Forty-two years after NASA’s twin Viking landers looked for organics on Mars, the Curiosity rover has found them, setting the stage for a focused search for signs of life....More

Insitu has been competitively awarded a contract potentially worth $117 million over eight years to install and deploy contractor-owned and operated ScanEagle small UAS on U.S. Coast Guard cutters....More

LONDON—The FAA is calling on Bell to introduce additional protections into the fly-by-wire control system of its new Model 525 intermediate-heavy twin-engine helicopter. The regulator has issued a special conditions document urging the introduction of a Flight Envelope Protection (FEP) algorithms that would stop the pilot or the aircraft’s autopilot from forcing the aircraft to “exceed its structural, aerodynamic or operating limits.”...More

RAYTHEON has $49.4m U.S. Air Force contract for Qatar Air and Missile Defense Operation Center....More

Harris has delivered the fifth of 10 navigation payloads to Lockheed Martin under its contract for GPS III satellites....More

The FAA named 19 U.S. penitentiaries and 10 Coast Guard bases and facilities at which drone flights will be prohibited from the ground to 400 ft. above each site, effective June 20....More

The majority of the money—around €9.7 billion—will be spent on the Galileo navigation system and European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) constellation....More

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) adapted the platform, originally designed for land-based missions, for the sub-hunting role....More

The organization, apparently called UTAP, is headed by Executive Director for Advanced Projects Jason Chua, who was formerly with Airbus’ Silicon Valley outpost A3 (“A-Cubed”)....More

View the Aviation Week Forecasts: Western Maritime Helicopter Deliveries/Retirements: 2018 - 2027 chart in PDF format....More