Industry News

Executives at Harris‘ space and intelligence systems unit have said the company aims to focus on the development of small satellites in a push to test electronics and other technology aboard larger spacecraft, Space News reported Wednesday. Sid Stewart, manager of the satellite solutions group, told Space News the company’s transition to small satellites from hosted […] More

Hughes Network Systems has selected Space Systems Loral to develop the former’s next-generation ultra high density satellite designed to expand the Hughes Ka-band capacity across the Americas region. The new Jupiter-powered EchoStar XXIV UHDS will help aid the business expansion of Hughes in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil and other countries in South America, the […] More

Huntington Ingalls Industries has signed an agreement to sell its Avondale shipyard near New Orleans to an undisclosed buyer, The Maritime Executive reported Wednesday. HII Chief Financial Officer Chris Kastner said Wednesday during a conference call the company expects to wrap up the sale after the buyer completes a due diligence process. Northrop Grumman had operated Avondale until […] More

Raytheon‘s missile systems business has received a $32.3 million contract modification from the U.S. Navy to obtain long-lead materials needed to build Standard Missile-6 units. The Defense Department said Wednesday the modification will support requirements and  spares for fiscal 2017 SM-6 full-rate production. SM-6 is designed to perform anti-air warfare, anti-surface warfare and sea-based terminal ballistic […] More

Spectro Scientific has received a $9.6 million contract from the U.S. Navy to deliver fluid analysis equipment and provide support services for the military. The company said Wednesday that it will manufacture, test and deliver approximately 69 M-N/W SpectrOil RDE spectrometers to update current U.S. Marine Corps and Navy oil analysis systems. Spectro’s M-N/W SpectrOil […] More

Lockheed Martin has received a $45.5 million contract modification from the U.S. Air Force to provide military-code early use software for current and future global positioning system satellites. The Defense Department said Wednesday the company’s space systems business will develop the software for the service branch to task, monitor and signal M-code programs in space. DoD noted the […] More

Boeing and a General Dynamics subsidiary have introduced a short-range air defense platform mounted on a reconfigured Stryker armored vehicle at the Space & Missile Defense Symposium in Alabama, Defense News reported Wednesday. General Dynamics Land Systems and Boeing also intend to demonstrate the Manuever SHORAD Launcher Stryker system at a U.S. Army-hosted shoot-off in […] More

Rolls-Royce has received a $27.3 million contract modification from the U.S. Navy to deliver provisioned item orders, engineering services and associated support for the Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyers’ turbine-generator sets. The Defense Department said Wednesday the main and auxiliary turbine-generator sets will serve as the primary power source of Zumwalt-class ships. Turbine-generator sets are comprised […] More

Orbital ATK and NASA have conducted a preliminary design review of a land surface mapping satellite the company is building for the space agency and the U.S. Geological Survey. The review occurred at Orbital ATK’s Gilbert, Arizona, facility in July and showed that the Landsat 9 satellite meets system and schedule requirements, the company said Tuesday. NASA awarded […] More

Harris has shipped the third of 10 navigation payloads designed to help boost the accuracy, signal power and jamming resistance capacity of Global Positioning System III satellites Lockheed Martin is building for the U.S. Air Force. Lockheed is scheduled to integrate the new payload into the GPS III Space Vehicle 3 this summer, Harris said Wednesday. “We are now in […] More

Michael Johnson, chief technologist for the applied engineering and technology directorate of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, has said reliability issues associated with Cubesats would hamper NASA from advancing the use of such small satellites in some space missions, Space News reported Tuesday. “Because we cannot quantify the mission confidence of cubesat subsystems, we can’t use […] More