UK company Astrium has been selected by the European Space Agency as the prime contractor for the Solar Orbiter mission that will perform close-up observations of the Sun.

Royal Air Force Typhoon jets have arrived at an airbase in London for a large-scale Olympic security exercise.

Engineering consultancy Frazer-Nash has been approved as an Associate Member of Niteworks, the partnership between the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) and industry that provides decision support to the UK MoD.

UK exported £8 billion of defence and security goods and services in 2011. This compared with £8 billion in 2010. Defence exports were down by £400M at £5.4 billion but security sector exports increased by £600m to £2.6 billion.

LOCAL MP Damian Green visited Ashford based packaging firm Peli-Hardigg on Friday 27th April to see the company’s protective casing used by British troops on Operations abroad.

ADS has signed a cooperative Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Norwegian Defence and Security Industries Association (FSi) in Oslo on 24th April 2012.