Aerospace & Defence

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.

NEC and their partner, Infrared Cameras, were selected by the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) to provide thermal temperature screening and facial recognition technology at Hawaii's public airports to help protect the community and identify passengers with a potentially elevated body temperature. The companies’ combined resources to submit a unified proposal for the project.

The British Army has invested in SAS Viya to enable better and faster decision making as part of its digital transformation programme known as Project THEIA, as it looks to improve operational efficiency, use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automate certain tasks and analyse complex data to unlock new insights.

Jankel has refreshed their brand and at the same time, launched a new website. The company was founded in 1955 by Robert Jankel and remains family owned. Today, Jankel is a global group of companies comprising of the UK Head Office company, Jankel Tactical Systems in US and a partnership, Jordan Light Vehicle Manufacturing (JLVM), based in Jordan.

BAE Systems and Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE) have joined forces to explore how battery management and cooling technologies from the motorsport industry could be exploited to deliver efficiency and performance gains in the design of future combat aircraft.

DSEI will be hosting a webinar to discuss how defence can be made fit for the future, and the role of science and technology to enable this - especially given the current global circumstances.