Industry News

The Defense Department and Lockheed Martin have unveiled a pair of initiatives that aim to reduce the costs of producing and sustaining the F-35 Lightning II aircraft and weapon system. Lockheed, the primary F–35 contractor, and its principal industry partners BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman will invest an additional $170 million over the next two years in an effort to generate further […] More

Raytheon will collaborate with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory to develop modular building blocks for the service branch’s Next Generation Radar program under a two-year, $1.1 million cooperative research agreement. The partnership aims to explore approaches to design and fabricate modular components for integration into the NGR’s open architecture and address flexibility, agility and efficiency requirements across radar bands, Raytheon said Monday. Colin Whelan, Raytheon […] More

The General Services Administration‘s 18F organization has issued a request for proposals via GitHub that seeks implementation support for a consumer-facing interagency authentication platform for citizen services, FedScoop reported Friday. Billy Mitchell writes 18F wants a vendor team that could provide technical features to the login.gov identity management platform, which is scheduled to be launched in November 2016. The chosen contractor would help 18F integrate […] More

Boeing and Mahindra Defense Systems have launched a new facility at the Flight Simulation Technique Center in Gurgaon, India, to support C-17 pilot and loadmaster training for the Indian air force. The full-service center is designed to train  C-17 aircrews for military airlift operations, humanitarian missions, aerial refueling and emergency procedures through simulation, courseware and computer-based training, Boeing said Friday. The company added that the facility will […] More

The U.S. Army has completed the last of four developmental tests for the Post Deployment Build 8 configuration of Raytheon‘s Patriot Integrated Air and Missile Defense system. Raytheon said Friday the PDB-8 Patriot system worked to detect, track and engage a cruise missile target and a fighter aircraft with the Guidance Enhanced Missile TBM and the Lockheed Martin-built PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement interceptors, respectively, during the test. “Using an […] More

The U.S. Air Force has awarded Raytheon a potential $34.8 million contract to demonstrate an updated electronic warfare technology for the Miniature Air Launched Decoy-Jammer. Raytheon said Sunday it is scheduled to complete development of MALD-X, successor of the current MALD-J model, within a 24-month period and will conduct two flight demonstrations to showcase the aerial decoy’s EW upgrades. MALD-X will feature an EW payload, a low-altitude flight mode and […] More

The U.K. military has selected MBDA to demonstrate a capacity to field laser-directed weapons that can potentially urge the country’s navy and other services to utilize similar systems, Defense News reported Sunday. Andrew Chuter writes MBDA leads a bid team called UK Dragonfire that includes BAE Systems, Leonardo-Finmeccanica, Marshall Defense and Aerospace and Qinetiq to develop a solid state high power demonstrator weapon […] More

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has demonstrated a new mathematical framework that works to help researchers discover patterns in complex scientific and engineering systems. DARPA said Thursday researchers at Stanford University created algorithms designed to explore patterns in data in order to gain insights into network structure and function under the Simplifying Complexity in Scientific Discovery […] More

Textron has changed the name of its aviation training business in an effort to focus on live tactical airborne training services for U.S. and allied military forces. Textron Advanced Aviation Training rebranded as Textron Airborne Solutions following the parent company’s acquisition of Airborne Tactical Advantage Co., Textron said Friday. Textron Airborne Solutions will integrate ATAC, […] More