Raw Intel

Americas The Thor unmanned aerial system is part of the US Department of Defense’s Medium Range Reconnaissance effort, which seeks Group 2 drones weighing between 9.5 to 24.9 kilograms for the army. Thor is designed with targeting, dropping, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities for multi-domain operations. It is capable of lifting 22 pounds (10 kilograms) of cargo, can be folded, transported via backpack storage, and deployed in under two minutes. Thor can fly autonomously for up to 70 minutes with its integrated electro-optical infrared sensor enabled. Mitsubishi Electric has signed a pilot contract with Raytheon to repair transmitters used in …

Americas BAE Systems won a $72 million deal for the manufacture and delivery of five Columbia-class submarine components. Work will be performed in Louisville, Kentucky (100%), and is expected to be completed by May 2030. Fiscal 2023 National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund funds in the full amount will be obligated at time of award, of which […]View the full article

Americas Lockheed Martin has delivered the combat systems software for the future FFG 62 Constellation-class lead warship. Lockheed has customized the Aegis Weapon System Baseline 10 (BL 10) variant software to the guided-missile frigate’s unique requirements, delivering it through the common source library (CSL). The US State Department has cleared the Canadian government to purchase […]View the full article

Americas The Boeing won a $19.4 million modification, which exercises an option to procure two P-8A Increment 3 retrofit A-Kits in support of anti-submarine warfare capabilities upgrades for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Work will be performed in Jacksonville, Florida; St. Louis, Missouri; and Mesa, Arizona, and is expected to be completed in June […]View the full article

Americas Lockheed Martin’s F-35A Joint Strike Fighter aircraft has received authorization to carry nuclear bombs. Russ Goemaere, a spokesman for the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO), recently told Breaking Defense that the much-awaited certification was actually awarded several months ago but only announced now. The milestone will allow some F-35As to carry two B61-12 nuclear gravity […]View the full article

Americas Lockheed Martin won an $98 million deal to provide for the development of production engineering change proposals, retrofit engineering release reports, investigations and subcontractor support for investigations and qualifications in support of increasing the life of F-35 aircraft parts for the Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, and non-Department of Defense participants. Work will be […]View the full article

Americas On October 28, NASA’s C-130 Hercules successfully touched down at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, completing a crucial leg of its journey to deliver the Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO). This observatory is part of NASA’s Astrophysics Explorers Program and will be launched on a scientific balloon mission in December 2023. The mission’s journey […]View the full article

Americas Austal won an $8 million deal to provide advance planning, material procurement, and accomplishment of work for emergent availabilities in support of the littoral combat ship USS Kingsville (LCS 36). This effort is to develop and provide planning, engineering support, planning and logistics technical documentation, funds and man-hour expenditure data, projected costs, cost estimates, […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has awarded FN America, LLC a $2 million Prototype Project Opportunity Notice (PPON) contract to further develop its Precision Grenadier System — a next-generation soldier weapon designed to deliver greater precision and lethality than current grenade launchers. According to the company, the FN Multi-purpose Tactical Launcher 30mm (MTL-30) will be designed in […] The post U.S. Army taps FN America for next-gen grenade launcher first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

I almost passed on this story because it is all derived from digging into someone's twitter history. This has a spotty track record, as most of it is when people intentionally take things out of context, have no sense of humor, or just plain assign motives and meanings to things that only had the malfunction of being less than 240 characters. However, after reading it a few times and letting the draft post sit for a few days I decided that, no, this is pretty straight forward. If at least two members of Congress are willing to call it out, the least thing we can do it bring it out here ... because it is about made to order on the type of people we've been discussing here …

Americas The US Air Force has announced a milestone for its MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The drone completed its first landing on a dirt landing strip, proving its enhanced operational capabilities and potential for future combat scenarios. The trial, conducted at a remote air strip in West Texas, was held by the 26th […]View the full article

Americas Pacific Propeller International won a $22.8 million modification by the US Air Force for the overhaul support for the C-130 54H60 series propeller. This contract provides for the overhaul and repair of the C-130 54H60 series propeller for the Air Force and multiple countries. All work will be performed in Kent, Washington, and individual […]View the full article

Americas The US Air Force has tapped Merlin Labs to test autonomous flight technology for the KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft. The stepwise approach will begin with reducing crew workload and then proceeds to reduced crew operations, the Boston-based aviation technology firm explained. A reduced workload could help the crew avoid costly mistakes. Autonomous uncrewed operations at […]View the full article

Americas Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems won a $34,142,015 cost-plus-fixed-fee and cost-plus-incentive-fee type modification to exercise options for AEGIS development and test sites operation and maintenance at the Combat Systems Engineering Development Site, SPY-1A Test Facility and Naval Systems Computing Center. This contract involves Foreign Military Sales to several countries. Work will be performed […]View the full article

Anduril Industries says it has completed the first successful test of its prototype surface-launched Barracuda-500 missile. “To be blunt, existing solutions are too expensive, too exquisite, and too hard to produce,” the company stated in its announcement. “To deter our adversaries, the U.S. and our allies need an affordable, mass-producible way to project power over […] The post Anduril successfully tests surface-launched Barracuda-500 missile first appeared on Defence Blog.View the full article

Americas General Electric Aviation won a $683.7 deal for the production and delivery of 169 T408-GE-400 (T408) turboshaft engines, to include 65 full rate production Lot 8 (54: Navy, 11: government of Israel); 51 full rate production Lot 7 (39: Navy, 12: government of Israel); and 53 low rate initial production Lot 6 (36: Navy, […]View the full article

In the second half of the first decade of this century, I had the chance to work with two Estonian Officers, one a Major and the other a Colonel. The Major was a talkative and entertaining man who had some great stories about being a conscript at the end of the Soviet Union. The Colonel started his career as a Soviet Junior Officer - and a very serious man. His Russian was better than his English, and though he was a nice man and great professional, he was not a chatty person about anything prior to 1991. In Afghanistan, I kept an eye on the exceptional work the Estonians did in RC(S), and before I moved back to the USA at the end of the decade I had a chance to visit Ta…

Americas Raytheon won a $77 million modification, which adds scope to procure five APY-10 Radar System production kits, as well as provide non-recurring engineering to address obsolescence issues within the Receiver Exciter Processors and Radar Data Centers in support of the P-8A Poseidon aircraft for the government of Germany. Work will be performed in McKinney, […]View the full article

AIM-120C from F-22A (click for test missile zoom) Raytheon’s AIM-120 Advanced, Medium-Range Air to Air Missile (AMRAAM) has become the world market leader for medium range air-to-air missiles, and is also beginning to make inroads within land-based defense systems. It was designed with the lessons of Vietnam in mind, and of local air combat exercises […]View the full article

Americas Canada will boost its military and diplomatic presence in the Arctic to counter what it calls threats from Russia and others seeking a foothold in the far north, as part of a new doctrine unveiled Friday. The government envisions the deployment of new patrol ships and navy destroyers, ice breakers and submarines capable of operating beneath ice sheets, as well as more aircraft and drones. The US Navy has awarded Raytheon a $590-million contract for continued work on the Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) system. This is part of a follow-on production effort to enhance the electronic warfare capabilities of the EA-18G Growler aircraft used by the US Navy and…