Aerospace & Defence

The world’s top 25 most valuable aerospace and defence brands could lose over $22.8 billion worth of brand value as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the latest Brand Finance Aerospace and Defence 25 2020 report. Brand Finance’s analysis shows that the aerospace and defence sector is a heavily impacted industry globally and could face a potential 20% loss in brand value.

Digital Concepts Engineering (DCE) has won a contract in the UK government’s Defence and Security Accelerator’s (DASA) Map the Gap competition to develop a semi-autonomous reconnaissance and survey system that will help troops safely and stealthily advance into enemy territory over water.

Electric ships have some of the largest individual batteries of any electric vehicle sector; below is a list of the largest projects IDTechEx have been tracking. Before reading the list, below are typical battery capacities from on-road electric vehicles (in 2019) to provide perspective:

IZT has installed and successfully commissioned the first two of four radio direction finders for Eurocontrol.

Renesas Electronics has announced that more than 20 of its radiation-hardened (rad-hard) integrated circuits (ICs) were onboard the 30th July lift off of NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket, with the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity Mars Helicopter onboard, launched from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

On Thursday, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent the Rover Perseverance on a journey to Mars, with the landing on the Red Planet targeted for February 2021. IR HiRel, an Infineon company, supplied thousands of mission-critical radiation-hardened (rad hard) components for the rover.

Galvion has signed a new contract to supply the Danish Ministry of Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organisation (DALO), with a suite of helmet systems. Awarded following a full and open competition, the 7-year contract is worth approximately $23.5m.

Last February, the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter started a two-year journey to provide the first detailed pictures of the sun’s poles and insights about the never-before-observed magnetic environment that regulates the sun’s 11-year solar cycle. But how can a satellite move around the sun without burning?

Wind River has announced that Wind River Linux has achieved conformance to the latest Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Technical Standard, a standard of The Open Group. According to the company, Wind River Linux is the first and only General Purpose Profile (GPP) Operating System Segment (OSS) of any kind to conform to the FACE Technical Standard, Edition 3.0.

GKN Aerospace has taken ownership of its new Global Technology Centre (GTC) in Bristol after the keys were officially handed over by developers St Francis Group. The new GTC - funded by a £17m commitment from GKN Aerospace and £15m commitment from the UK Government, through the Aerospace Technology Institute - will be fully kitted out over the next year and will open in HY2 2021.