Northrop Grumman was pushed aside today by Lockheed Martin as it picked Raytheon to build perhaps the F-35’s most important sensor, the Distributed Aperture System. “It’s a major upset,” Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group said when I asked him to discuss the decision.

“It’s very encouraging,” McCarthy said. “It gives you high confidence in some of these investments we’re going to make….We’ve got these decisions coming up here by the middle of the summer for the POM 20” — the five-year budget plan (Program Objective Memorandum) for 2020-25.

Will Trump rip a page from the Obama playbook in sending troops to the border with Mexico?

COLORADO SPRINGS: The head of Space and Missile Systems Center hinted at what he calls a re-architecting of what many believe to be one of the military’s most stovepiped organizations, calling for faster acquisition and major changes to how the Pentagon decides what weapons it’s going to buy. “Some of you may have heard the US has… Keep reading →

Run silent, run deep — and now, run in packs? Submarines are traditionally lone wolves, but the rise of robotics is starting to change that. Just yesterday, defense contractor BAE announced a $4.6 million award from DARPA to build an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) to accompany manned submarines, helping them spot targets by sending out… Keep reading →

CORRECTED: NPOI Remains In Use For SSA GEOINT: Think about technology to identify suicide bombers and high value targets who’ve been blown to bits without using DNA. The Intelligence Community’s version of DARPA, IARPA, is doing just that with a program designed to use proteins from hair and keratin (which makes up much of the… Keep reading →

Just weeks after winning $1.6 billion to build more Q-53 artillery-tracking radars, Lockheed Martin is pushing the Q-53 hard as a triple-threat solution to drones and manned aircraft as well. AN/TPQ-53s, to use their full name, have already been tested successfully against drones, helping Lockheed win a $28 million contract to upgrade their software to do… Keep reading →

ORLANDO: After much rescheduling and years of skepticism, Northrop Grumman took a step toward finally replacing the revered but aging U-2 spy plane with its Global Hawk drone on Feb. 8, when it flew with and tested UTC’s MS-177 multispectral sensor, which is intended to enable the drone to surpass the legendary U-2. The day before the… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: The Russians aren’t just deploying new treaty-breaking, nuclear-capable cruise missiles. They’re also fielding sophisticated cyber and electronic warfare systems that can hack or jam our defenses against such missiles. In fact, no military mission is more dependent on high-speed data networks than air and missile defense — but no military system is more vulnerable than those… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Is the Littoral Combat Ship a real warship? That question has bedeviled the small, sleek, lightly armed ships for years. Now it’s taken on new urgency as the Defense Department and the Navy both refocus on high-intensity, high-tech warfighting against “great powers” — i.e. China and Russia. Defense Secretary Ash Carter wants to cut… Keep reading →