Stephen Kuper

The funding will “enable Air Force to undertake expeditionary air operations to project force, sustain protracted combat operations and maintain situational awareness in our primary air of military interest”, the Government says.

After a journey of more than a week, the Orion spacecraft splashed down safely off the coast of California on Saturday, carrying its four-person crew back from a historic lunar flyby. It was the first time astronauts have travelled beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo era.

The spacecraft, known as ViaSat-3 Flight 3 (VS-3 F3), was built using Boeing’s high-power 702MP+ platform at the company’s facility in El Segundo, California. It is designed to deliver flexible, high-performance bandwidth to support a range of users, including commercial aviation.

Under the agreement, Rheinmetall will act as the system integrator for the platform in Germany. The company will oversee its integration into current and future Bundeswehr command and weapons systems, while also adapting the aircraft to meet national requirements and supporting ongoing maintenance and logistics.

Rocket Lab announced the agreement for a series of missions using its HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron) vehicle, marking the largest single launch contract in the company’s history. HASTE was earlier this month used to launch a successful test flight of the Hypersonix DART AE aircraft.

The experiment, known as the Dawn Aerospace Radar Tracking Experiment (DARTE), saw Dawn Aerospace operate its suborbital spaceplane Aurora from the Tāwhaki National Aerospace Centre, south of Christchurch. At sea, the Royal New Zealand Navy frigate HMNZS Te Kaha tracked the vehicle using its onboard surveillance radar systems.