Industry News

The U.S. Air Force is due to release a solicitation notice this week for the second phase of an industry competition to produce the service branch’s 11th and succeeding GPS III  satellites, Inside Defense reported Thursday. Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin submitted separate proposals in 2016 for the production of up to 22 space vehicles under the GPS III program. […] More

Deloitte has announced it will launch a new center for technology, media and telecommunications to assist the company’s clients in selecting appropriate technology-based business models. The company said Monday the center will use a business impact-focused approach to help firms further understand complex business matters, as well as to identify the right questions to address. The […] More

The Air Force Research Laboratory has collaborated with a public-private manufacturing consortium to create operational prototypes of a circuit board system in efforts to accelerate the development of smart technologies. AFRL said Thursday it worked with NextFlex: America’s Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Institute to develop Arduino integrated circuit systems that are designed to be programmed through open-source software. […] More

The European Space Agency has selected five companies to study the feasibility of using a commercial microlauncher to deploy small satellites into orbit. ArianeGroup, MT-Aerospace, ELV, Deimos and PLD Space will conduct research on their proposed concepts, ESA said Thursday. France-based ArianeGroup, a joint venture of Airbus and Safran, proposed to develop the three-stage Quick Access to Space vehicle […] More

KPMG has won a $57.6 million contract from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service to audit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ financial statement related to civil works. The company will also provide financial examination services for agencies owning the funds that have been obligated to USACE military programs for fiscal 2018 through 2022, the Defense Department said Friday. […] More

Addison, Texas-based Spartan Air Academy Iraq will establish an air academy training program for Iraq’s air force under a one-year, $45 million contract from the U.S. Air Force. The Defense Department said Friday the company will perform contract work at Balad Air Base, Iraq through Feb. 8, 2019. USAF’s 338th Specialized Contracting Squadron will obligate $9,999,999 […] More

The U.S. Air Force plans to put an end to the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft recapitalization program in its budget request for fiscal 2019, Defense News reported Saturday. Sources told the publication the service will instead advance a “system-of-systems approach” that seeks to combine existing platforms to carry out command-and-control functions and […] More

A Northrop Grumman subsidiary has received a contract from a state-owned air navigation service provider in Denmark to provide new ground-to-air communications equipment and associated support to the country’s airports. Naviair will use T6 air traffic control radios from Northrop’s Park Air Systems business to replace radio systems that currently support Danish airports and en-route operations as part of a national system upgrade […] More

Rick Edwards, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin‘s international business, has said that Singapore is eyeing a potential future procurement of F-35 fighter aircraft,  Reuters reported Thursday. Edwards told Reuters at the Singapore Airshow that the company held preliminary talks with Singapore’s government about the F-35B short takeoff and vertical landing variant. An F-35B jet was on display […] More

Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of human exploration and operations at NASA, has said the agency is considering crew rotation missions as one option to address a schedule gap that may arise if Commercial Crew Program contractors experience spacecraft certification delays, SpaceNews reported Friday. He told SpaceNews in an interview that NASA will discuss with Boeing and […] More

Mike Lawrie, chairman, president and CEO of DXC Technology, has said the company saw a 13 percent growth in its cloud business during the third quarter of fiscal 2018 that ended Dec. 31, CRN reported Friday. Lawrie told analysts Thursday that DXC has introduced five centers worldwide to advance digital transformation efforts and experienced progress […] More

BAE Systems, Harris and MBDA‘s U.K. business have collaborated on ground-based tests that sought to demonstrate the release of a full-sized payload from an aircraft cargo bay. A team of engineers used BAE’s test facility in Warton, England, to conduct full-scale ground trials in an effort to better understand the aircraft bay environment, the British defense company said […] More