Leonardo DRS lifts forecast as backlog hits record $5.6 billion
Leonardo DRS raised its full-year 2026 forecast on October 29 after reporting third-quarter revenue of $1.066 billion, up 11% from a year earlier, as demand for tactical radars, naval power and propulsion systems and space sensors drove the gain. Orders grew even faster than sales, with the Arlington, Virginia-based defense electronics maker booking $1.64 billion [β¦]
U.S. Army soldiers and U.S. Air Force airmen at Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany are training on the Rapidly Deployable Small-Unmanned Air Defense System, or RD-SUADS, a palletized counter-drone system built by Trust Automation of San Luis Obispo, California, as they test how training across services can sharpen the response to drone threats, U.S. Army [β¦]
Dallas-based rocket propulsion firm Firehawk has raised more than $150 million in a Series D round that values the company at more than $1.4 billion, money it will use to scale up U.S. production of rocket propellant, solid rocket motors and artillery motors, the company said on social media on Oct. 28. Private equity firm [β¦]
Teledyne FLIR Defense has won a $48 million U.S. Army contract to fit Bulgariaβs new Stryker fleet with the same upgraded chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear reconnaissance sensor suite now going to U.S. Army units, the company announced on Oct. 26. U.S. Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, awarded the contract under a [β¦]
The U.S. Air Force is looking for companies that can repair and sustain the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System-2, or ASARS-2, the imaging radar carried by the U-2 Dragon Lady spy plane, even as the service asks Congress to retire its last U-2s by the end of fiscal 2027. The Air Force Life Cycle Management [β¦]
Lockheed Martin will upgrade the operating systems running the F-35 Lightning II reprogramming laboratories, which build the threat data the fighter needs for combat missions, under a $43.7 million contract modification the U.S. Navy announced on Oct. 28. Eighty percent of the work will take place in Eglin, Florida, and the remaining 20% in Fort [β¦]
The U.S. Navy has awarded South Carolina-based Integer Technologies a $23.1 million contract to research how zero trust cybersecurity can protect the electrical power systems that run its warships, without slowing the split-second controls those systems depend on. The Office of Naval Research awarded the cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for a program called Threat Resilient Integrated Defense [β¦]
Norwayβs Kongsberg ended the third quarter of 2026 with a record order backlog of NOK 174.2 billion (about $18.8 billion), after taking in NOK 23.3 billion (about $2.5 billion) in new orders, more than double the NOK 9.5 billion it booked in the same quarter last year. The defense group reported on Oct. 29 that [β¦]
Tennessee has launched a bid to host the planned United States Space Academy, proposing a campus at the Coffee County Joint Industrial Park near Tullahoma, minutes from Arnold Air Force Base and about 60 miles (97 km) from Huntsville, Alabama. Gov. Bill Lee announced the bid on Oct. 28 alongside U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn and [β¦]
Japan will host a final assembly plant for the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile after Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth agreed on Oct. 28 to build the facility as part of joint U.S.-Japanese missile production, Nikkei reported. The two met for about 30 minutes in Cebu, the Philippines, on the [β¦]
Britain will lead development of three new sensor and effects packages for underwater drones under the AUKUS security partnership with the United States and Australia, with the systems due to be available across all three nationsβ uncrewed underwater fleets from 2027, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Oct. 27. The three payloads are a [β¦]
BAE Systems has completed the first live-fire test of its Adaptable Deck Launcher, a deck-mounted missile launcher that lets U.S. Navy and allied ships carry more Evolved SeaSparrow air defense missiles and reload them at sea with standard shipboard equipment. The company announced the test on Oct. 27 from China Lake, California, home of the [β¦]
Lockheed Martin has broken ground on a factory expansion in Troy, Alabama, that will triple the space it uses to build the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon, the U.S. Air Forceβs first hypersonic missile to enter production. The company held the groundbreaking for the expansion of its Building P-20 on Oct. 27, the day after [β¦]
Quantum-Systems has unveiled an armed version of its Reliant long-range drone, showing the aircraft fitted with a mixed load of 82 mm mortar rounds and 40 mm grenades. Dave Sharpin, chief executive of Quantum-Systems Inc., the U.S. arm of the German drone maker, shared images of the configuration on social media on Oct. 28, thanking [β¦]
U.S. Army aviators and National Guard aviation officers spent a week this summer flying a virtual MV-75 Cheyenne II, critiquing cockpits and rehearsing maintenance in virtual reality, as the service brings soldiers into the tiltrotorβs design before the first test aircraft has flown. The sixth MV-75 Special User Evaluation ran Aug. 24 to 28 at [β¦]
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has named artificial intelligence as one of his three strategic priorities, ranking it behind only securing a budget and ahead of ongoing military operations. Caine made the remarks on Oct. 26 during a fireside chat at the National Defense Transportation Association and U.S. Transportation Command [β¦]
The U.S. Army has added nearly $500 million to a Boeing contract for engineering services and technical support on the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, extending the work through February 2031. Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, awarded the $499.8 million modification to Boeingβs Mesa, Arizona, operation on Feb. 21, 2026, according to the Department [β¦]
The U.S. Navy has added $13.3 million and 50,000 labor hours to a Lockheed Martin order covering integration of the F-35βs upgraded F135 engine core and the move of a new power and cooling system for the fighter into preliminary design. Naval Air Systems Command announced the cost-plus-fixed-fee, level-of-effort modification on Oct. 27, definitizing an [β¦]