Free Republic

Germany plans to buy up to 35 US-made F-35 fighter jets and 15 Eurofighter jets, a parliamentary source said Monday, as part of a major push to modernise the armed forces in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The F-35 jets made by Lockheed Martin would replace Germany's decades-old Tornado fleet, according to media reports confirmed by the source. Tornados are the only Luftwaffe planes capable of carrying US nuclear bombs stationed in Germany that are a key part of NATO deterrence.

TOKYO -- Despite fielding a smaller army, Ukrainian forces have put up a tougher response than anticipated to Russia's invasion thanks in no small part to the multitude of Javelin missiles provided by Western nations. Measuring 1.2 meters in length, the Javelin can be transported and fired by a single soldier. Yet the weapon, made by American contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, has enough firepower to pierce tank armor from 2.5 km away. The traits have made the Javelin the weapon of choice for repelling tank invasions in urban settings. A Javelin operator can covertly approach and engage a target...

A quiet supersonic plane designed and built by NASA to usher in a new era of superfast air travel made a pitstop in Texas to perform crucial structural testing ahead of a debut flight later this year. NASA's X-59 made the switch between Lockheed Martin facilities in late December, moving the plane between Palmdale, California and Fort Worth, Texas to take advantage of specialized equipment available in the Lone Star State to make sure the speedy vehicle won't face too much stress in mid-air. "In Fort Worth, they've got the perfect facility with a full control room and all the...

The agency said Feb. 7 it awarded a contract valued at up to $194 million to Lockheed to develop the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), an essential element of the overall Mars Sample Return campaign being developed by NASA and the European Space Agency. The MAV will be transported to Mars on a NASA-led Sample Retrieval Lander, which will also carry an ESA-developed rover. That rover will pick up samples of Martian rock and regolith cached by Perseverance and return them to the lander. Perseverance may also return some samples to the lander on its own. Those samples will be loaded...

With a range of 11,830 km and the capacity to carry 207,000 pounds of fuel, the KC-46 can refuel over 64 different types of aircraft and allow dozens of jets to remain airborne for up to 12 hours Israel’s Defense Ministry has signed an agreement with the US government to acquire 12 Lockheed Martin CH-53K helicopters and two additional Boeing KC-46 refueling aircraft. The US Defense Department’s Procurement Delegation signed the letters of acceptance (LOAs) with Israel on Thursday evening to replace the Israel Air Force’s CH-53 Yasur heavy-lift helicopters and Ra’am (Boeing 707) tanker aircraft that are required for...

HELSINKI/WASHINGTON — Finland has chosen U.S. defense giant Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighters to replace aging F/A-18 combat jets and plans to order 64 planes with weapons systems in a $9.4 billion deal, the government said on Friday. Lockheed Martin competed in a tender for the deal with Sweden’s Saab, U.S. rival Boeing, France’s Dassault and Britain’s BAE Systems. The procurement from Lockheed, including weapons as well as service and maintenance until 2030, is estimated to cost 8.378 billion euros ($9.44 billion), the government said. The construction of hangars and other equipment will add a further 777 million euros, and 824...

Brig. Gen. Terryl Schwalier was stunned when he read the account of the June 25, 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that appeared in my recent book, Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran. I was writing many years after the fact, drawing on sources from inside Iranian intelligence but also on published U.S. government reports. It was those U.S. reports that prompted General Schwalier to contact me a few months ago. “You paint a picture of significant government awareness that “Iran was up to something” in the months prior to the Khobar Towers attack,” he wrote...

The companies will "complete an accelerated concept design" of a glide phase interceptor capable of tracking and targeting hypersonic missiles as they travel toward their target. The interceptors will be designed to integrate with the Pentagon’s existing Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system. Further details on the contract were not made public, but Reuters reported the companies received separate contracts with a total value of $60 million. "Multiple awards allow us to execute a risk reduction phase to explore industry concepts and maximize the benefits of a competitive environment to demonstrate the most effective and reliable Glide Phase Interceptor for regional...

MYSTERY surrounds a UFO-like aircraft that was seen being towed into a top-secret US military base. According to reports, it was spotted at Lockheed Martin’s secretive Helendale radar-cross section (RCS) measurement facility in the Mojave Desert, California. The mystery craft was spotted being towed into a top-secret base in a California base The mystery craft was spotted being towed into a top-secret base in a California base A short video of the unidentified aircraft first emerged on TikTok and then the location was tracked down by internet sleuth Ruben Hofs. The footage shows what looks like an inverted stealth aircraft...

A Lockheed Martin honcho refuses to explain a video splashed on social media showing a UFO saucer-like aircraft being wheeled into a top-secret US military base. "I can't [speak about it]," said a grinning Jeff Babione, Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works Vice President and General Manager when asked about the extraterrestrial tech... ..Babione was asked about security protocols at Skunk Works' facility. "We're good," Babione said, according to The Drive. Another chat between Defense One's Tara Copp and Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles Q. Brown tried to get answers about the object. But Brown only said that he was...

SpaceX emerged as the federal government's preferred aerospace contractor during the Trump years, and the aforementioned leaked emails outline a concerted effort by United Launch Alliance, a chief SpaceX competitor jointly owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, to sour SpaceX's relationship with the Biden administration. The document itself included photos of Musk with President Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, claimed that Musk "has had some controversial opinions about the coronavirus pandemic," and contained a lengthy section detailing Musk's staunchly anti-union past. "This is very helpfull!!!!" Solomon wrote in response. "I...

After getting drafted in the mid-1960s as the Vietnam War intensified, I saw all my fellow Soldiers as “olive drab green.” Despite my childhood immigration from Nicaragua, going back there didn’t cross my mind. Nor did fleeing to Canada like about 125,000 draft dodgers. Ironically, my father who came to California from Nicaragua in the 1940s was also conscripted and saw combat in Europe for two years. Following the war, he returned to Central America for me and my mother so we could move to San Francisco and pursue the American dream. I worked hard in the corporate and government...

SBIRS is part of the Defense Department’s missile warning network that detects ballistic missile launches. It includes a combination of two infrared sensors in highly elliptical orbit and five satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit. Lockheed Martin has been the SBIRS primary contractor since the mid-1990s. The fifth satellite launched May 18. The sixth and final SBIRS is in production and projected to launch in 2022. The five-year sole-source contract is for operations and maintenance of the SBIRS mission control center at Buckley Space Force Base, Colorado, and other operations centers at Peterson Air Force Base and Greeley Air National Guard...

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin tossed its executives to the woke wolves recently for training to help them check their white, male, and heterosexual privilege according to internal documents posted to Twitter Wednesday afternoon. Writer and Manhattan Institute fellow Christopher Rufo posted screenshots of the documents that he says were part of a "three-day white male reeducation camp" that Lockheed Martin executives attended via Zoom. The training program was hosted by White Men As Full Diversity Partners, one of many woke consulting firms that have popped up in a new and insufferable cottage industry as companies bend to the will of...

Lockheed Martin, the nation's top defense contractor, forced 13 executives including a three-star general to complete a three-day Zoom course so they would 'unlearn their male privilege'. The course was led by Portland-based firm White Men as Full Diversity Partners. It was carried out last June, at the height of the BLM movement, and involved 13 Lockheed employees dialing in for 16 hours. Details of the three-day course last June were obtained by City Journal. The 13 employees were Director of Aeronautics Mark Ward, Air Force lieutenant colonel David Starr, Senior Design Engineer Jeff Schweiss, Risk Management and Sustainability Executive...

Lockheed is the largest defense contractor the United States has. It’s the chief contractor on the F-35 Lightning fighter program. It builds and maintains much of the arsenal of our republic, and even builds advanced scientific systems such as the Hubble Space Telescope.It is now another woke capture in corporate America, according to documents leaked to investigative reporter Christopher Rufo.Last year, Lockheed Martin Corporation, the nation’s largest defense contractor, sent white male executives to a three-day diversity-training program aimed at deconstructing their “white male culture” and encouraging them to atone for their “white male privilege,” according to documents I have...

The entire corporate culture is directed at telling White men that they are evil, an ideology that has profoundly dangerous consequences. Christopher Rufo’s fame as the person who exposes government agencies and corporations that have bought into critical race theory (“CRT”) is growing and that’s a good thing – knowing he’s there means that employees forced to participate in CRT “training” are beginning to see him as a way to expose their employers’ grotesquely un-American (and quite illegal) racist programs. The latest example of this pernicious program comes from Lockheed-Martin, which is the largest defense contractor in America -- thanks...

Report: Nation’s Largest Defense Contractor Sent Executives to a White Male Reeducation Camp to Deconstruct Their ‘White Male Culture’ . . . Developing Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is teasing a report that Lockheed Martin, America’s largest defense contractor sent key executives to a three-day “white male reeducation camp” in order to deconstruct their so-called “white male culture” and apparently to atone for their “white male privilege”‘. Rufo reports that he’s obtained shocking internal documents that will be forthcoming.Rufo reports that the brainwashing was led by the woke consulting firm, “White Men as Full Diversity Partners”:SCOOP:...

The House Armed Services Committee chairman railed at the expensive F-35 Joint Strike Fighter on Friday, saying he wants to “stop throwing money down that particular rathole,” ― just days after the Air Force said it too is looking at other options. “What does the F-35 give us? And is there a way to cut our losses? Is there a way to not keep spending that much money for such a low capability because, as you know, the sustainment costs are brutal,” Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said a Brookings event. Air Force officials recently said they are conducting a study...

Engineers are racing to fix a failed piece of equipment on NASA’s future deep-space crew capsule Orion ahead of its first flight to space. It may require months of work to replace and fix. Right now, engineers at NASA and Orion’s primary contractor, Lockheed Martin, are trying to figure out the best way to fix the component and how much time the repairs are going to take. In early November, engineers at Lockheed Martin working on Orion noticed that a power component inside the vehicle had failed, according to an internal email and an internal PowerPoint presentation seen by The...