In Pictures: Top Aerospace & Defense Stories, Nov. 28 2022

Credit: U.S. Air Force concept. The eyes of the aviation world will focus on Northrop Grumman’s secretive Site 4 complex at Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, on Dec. 2 for the first glimpse of the next generation stealth bomber: the B-21 Raider. 

Credit: Royal NLR. A European project to validate the use of scaled flight testing to mature technologies for future aircraft has completed its second phase of tests in Italy.

Credit: NASA. A NASA-funded, university-led program to develop technologies for a zero-emission hydrogen-fueled airliner that can perform the mission of a Boeing 737-800 has been extended by two years.

Credit: DARPA. Multiple aircraft flown by artificial intelligence (AI) agents will simulate air-to-air battles against formations of enemy aircraft at beyond visual range under a newly launched DARPA program. 

Credit: Pavlo Palamarchuk/ZUMA Press Wire/Alamy Stock Photo. The UK Defense Ministry says Russia’s military is removing the warheads from previously nuclear-tipped, air-launched cruise missiles so they can be used as decoys in the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. 

Credit: Rolls-Royce. As part of wider plans to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, Rolls-Royce and program partner airline EasyJet have conducted test runs on an AE2100 turboprop powered by liquid hydrogen rather than conventional jet fuel.

Credit: NASA. SpaceX’s 26th NASA-contracted Dragon cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) autonomously docked with the seven-person orbital laboratory’s U.S. segment Harmony module at 7:39 a.m. EST on Nov. 27.