The loss of a multi-billion-dollar satellite this past January is being attributed to engineering and testing errors made by aerospace and defense firm Northrop Grumman Corporation, according to a recently concluded investigation.
We still don’t know what happened to Zuma, a secretive spy satellite that failed to reach orbit after launching from Cape Canaveral earlier this month. SpaceX has consistently claimed that its Falcon 9 rocket worked perfectly—a claim with added credence, now that the U.S. Air Force has said it’s not going to dismiss…
Contradictory accounts are emerging in the wake of the apparent failure of the Zuma mission—a secretive multibillion-dollar spy satellite that was launched by SpaceX from Cape Canaveral, Florida this past weekend. Everything seemed fine on Sunday as the spy satellite was launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX…
It’s difficult to imagine what sort of response Marvel expected when it announced a partnership with Northrop Grumman, the fifth largest defense contractor in the world. But the publisher’s decision to axe the deal following a swift wave of backlash suggests that it didn’t anticipate people being turned off.
Less than half a year after being greenlit, the US Navy's newest broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) platform, the MQ-4C Triton, has just passed a major developmental milestone—as well as the whole of the contiguous United States.
In mid-July the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded contracts to Boeing, Masten Space Systems, and Northrop Grumman to develop an unmanned spaceplane to travel hypersonic speeds in the upper atmosphere—as easily as a commercial airliner.
After World War II, the future of commercial air travel was supposed to be fantastic. There were promises that planes like Northrop Grumman's flying wing would become the norm for civilian flying. These promises were often made to Baby Boomers — young, impressionable kids of the 1950s and 60s — like in this cutaway…
The 1980s ushered in more than a few aeronautical revolutions thanks to the emergence of both composite manufacturing techniques and rapidly advancing digital technology. This uniquely designed experimental aircraft integrated all of them into a single system.
When most people hear the word "drone," they probably picture a cockpit-free plane zipping over the Iraqi desert. But there's more to it than that. The Army is in the process of adopting a whole new generation of unmanned vehicles that will assist soldiers on the battlefield—and they're by far the scariest…
Defense industry specialists circled up in Washington this week for the three-day-long trade fair of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. In other words, a bunch of guys with a lot of money just got together for a giant drone show. It's actually the world's largest. And here are its wares.
As the role UAVs in the US military expands, the demands placed on these unmanned platforms grow as well. One of the most important new abilities these autonomous fliers must have is the ability to land atop a thin strip of tarmac rolling on the high seas. And that's just what the new Northrop Grumman X-47B will do.
The MQ-8 Fire Scout, an unmanned helicopter used for reconnaissance work by all branches of the US military, made news this week when the Navy grounded its Fire Scout aircraft after a pair of recent crashes. The current machines are unarmed, but by 2013, a planned weapons upgrade will make them first sea-based, armed…
X-47B, all ice, no man. The deadliest drone in the US arsenal, a stealth killer. I have seen dozens of photos. Videos too, of its first test and its cruise test. But I've never seen it from the top.
I keep forgetting about how damn huge some drones are. Most people think they are tiny, like toy planes. As this photo of a Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk shows, they are actually big. Big as in pretty damn huge.
Northrop Grumman thinks we all will be flying in oversized B-2 bombers by the year 2025. And who am I to say no to that? Bring them on!
An UFO was seen on top of a military truck four days ago travelling down US 77, said residents of Cowley County, Kansas. They thought the military were trying to haul an alien spaceship wrapped in plastic. In plain sight.
I love the shape of Northrop Grumman's high-speed bomber concept. It's beautiful, like the unholy destructive child of a B-2 Spirit bomber and the SR-71 Blackbird conceived by Industrial Light & Magic. Bonus: A clear picture of the next-generation F-X fighter.
Hauling tourists into space—that's for tomorrow. Today, the legendary aerospace designers at Scaled Composites unveiled a new spy plane that can snoop on the unsuspecting four different ways, and doesn't need a human in the cockpit to fly.
After completing its first flight on February 4 at Edwards AFB, here is a new video showing the US Navy's X-47B Unmanned Combat Airplane up close and personal, including shots of its air intake, weapons bays and a brief look of the ground-based control system.
