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<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Raytheon Technologies Co and Northrop Grumman Corp have won U.S. contracts to continue developing missiles to intercept hypersonic weapons, the Pentagon said on Friday.</p><p>The decision means Lockheed Martin Co., the No. 1 U.S. defense contractor, which had also been competing for a contract, has been eliminated for now from the multibillion dollar progam, but could be pulled back in at a later date.</p>

The continued dominance of the U.S. defense industrial base isn’t guaranteed without improvements to funding and an easing of bureaucracy, according to the chief executive of one of America’s foremost defense corporations.“When you look at the breadth of challenges that the U.S. and our allies need to deal with, I can’t remember a time when it’s been as broad as it is today,” said Kathy Warden, CEO of Northrop Grumman.“I look 10 years into the future, and the pace at which other nations are building up their arsenals, including nuclear weapons, it worries me that we are on the verge...

A Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket launched the U.S. Space Force’s Tactically Responsive Launch-2 (TacRL-2) mission June 13 at 1:11 a.m. Pacific from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. The payload was successfully deployed its intended orbit, a Space Force spokesman confirmed on Sunday. Pegasus is an air-launched rocket deployed from a Stargazer L-1011 aircraft. Shortly after its release from Stargazer, at approximately 40,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, Pegasus ignited its first stage and flew TacRL-2 to a sun-synchronous low-Earth orbit. Launch vehicle assembly, integration and testing were completed within four months of contract award, said Lt. Col. Ryan Rose,...

Northrop Grumman and NASA are launching a "first-of-its-kind" refueling vessel, the Mission Extension Vehicle, aboard a Russian rocket on October 9th. The inaugural MEV-1 will dock with an Intelsat satellite in three months' time and provide life-extending services over five years. After that, it should be free to help other satellites -- it'll still have 10 years' worth of fuel. A second spacecraft, MEV-2, will help another Intelsat satellite in 2020 and should have the same amount of leftover fuel. Both MEVs are flexible, too. They can dock with 80 percent of current geostationary satellites, even if they weren't designed...

Early in September, international news was awash with the claim that 87 elephants had been “killed by poachers” in Botswana. The story originated from the NGO Elephants Without Borders, which received massive publicity – and presumably donations – as a result. Even the beleaguered UK Prime Minister tweeted the story, while a petition calling for wildlife guards to be re-armed surpassed 150,000 signatures. I know a little of Botswana. A few years ago, I was declared “public enemy number one”, threatened by a government spokesman on television, and banned from the country. This was because Survival International was instrumental in...

Authorities are responding to a plane crash in the prison yard of a facility in Riverside County, according to preliminary information from the Federal Aviation Administration. About 12:10 p.m., the Riverside County Sheriff's Department received reports of an "air emergency" along the 1900 block of 4th Street in Norco. Only the pilot was in the Northrop N9M when it crashed, the FAA said in an email to KTLA, citing local authorities. No injuries were reported on the ground, but the aircraft "sustained substantial damage," the FAA said. Aerial video from Sky5 showed charred ground where the plane appears to have...

In his address made on March 3rd, 2018 at the Antelope Valley Board of Trade and Business Outlook Conference, which was covered closely by the Antelope Valley Press, General Schaefer made the B-21's future basing crystal clear once and for all: "For the first time ever, I would like to publicly announce that the B-21 will be tested at Edwards Air Force Base... Edwards has been the home of bomber test and now we also can publicly release that the B-21 is coming to Edwards and we will be testing it here in the near future." Shaefer went on to...

A once-empty parking lot at Northrop Grumman Corp.’s top secret aircraft plant in Palmdale, Calif., is now jammed with cars that pour in during the predawn hours. More than a thousand new employees are working for the time being in rows of temporary trailers, a dozen tan tents and a huge assembly hangar at the desert site near the edge of urban Los Angeles County. It is here that Northrop is building the Air Force’s new B-21 bomber, a stealthy bat-winged jet that is being designed to slip behind any adversary’s air defense system and deliver devastating airstrikes for decades...

Falls Church-based Northrop said it would pay $7.8 billion in cash, while assuming $1.4 billion in debt. ... Northrop is one of the Pentagon’s leading suppliers, and is developing its B-21 stealth bomber. Orbital ATK, an aerospace manufacturer based in Dulles, holds a contract with NASA to resupply the International Space Station. It also builds the motors for several missile systems, as well as commercial and national security satellites. The acquisition would mark a bold move for Northrop that would establish the new venture as a fourth business sector. It comes as the company was seeking to bolster its space...

Northrop's F-20 Tigershark, an evolution of the company's highly successful F-5E Tiger II—which itself was an evolution of the F-5A/B Freedom Fighter and The T-38 Talon—never made it into production, but many thought it should have. The aircraft provided high performance and multi-role capability on the cheap, both in terms of procurement and operating costs. But the Reagan administration's loosening of export rules on military equipment, including fighters, allowed the already deep into production, larger and more advanced F-16 to edge out the F-20 on the world-wide fighter jet marketplace. There were still a few opportunities for Northrop to get...

It’s generally accepted that it was two U.S. Navy F-14 crews who scored the first aerial victories in the powerful, twin-engine fighter — when on Aug. 19, 1981, a pair of Tomcats from squadron VF-41 shot down two Libyan Sukhoi Su-22s that had opened fire at them over the Gulf of Sidra. That’s the conception. As is often the case in the history of aerial warfare, the truth is significantly different. An Iranian F-14 crew actually scored the Tomcat’s first kill.

<p>Air Force Unveils Name of Future Stealth Bomber as B-21 'Raider'.</p> <p>AFA 2016 B-21 Naming Ceremony Raider was selected as the name of the Long Range Strike-Bomber, or LRS-B, by leaders after the service launched a survey of service members.</p>

Northrop Grumman’s entry for the T-X competition was publicly revealed on 19 August in Mojave, California. Dubbed the Model 400, the Northrop bid is powered by a single GE Aviation F404-102D engine with 17,200lb-thrust, according to the US Federal Aviation Adminitration’s aircraft registration database. Scaled Composites, the Northrop subsidiary devoted to rapid prototyping and flight testing, registered the aircraft on 16 June 2015, but the design was kept under wraps for several more months. Images of the aircraft on Twitter show an aircraft with a prominent, single vertical fin and a nose section similar to the T-38. Northrop revealed a...

WASHINGTON – Though the Homeland Security Department has not terminated a high-ranking department official accused of resume fraud, sources say she's been denied the security clearance she needs to perform her job. Laura Callahan, the department's deputy chief information officer, was placed on paid leave in June while officials investigate her academic credentials. The advanced degrees she lists on her resume are from a diploma mill. Callahan's assistant, Jim Shepard, says she is still out on leave and has not been fired. However, sources say she was denied Top Secret clearance and is appealing the decision. Callahan's lawyer did not...

Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp said they will continue their protest against the Air Force's selection of Northrop Grumman Corp to build a new long-range strike bomber, calling that process "irreparably flawed".

Israel's Elbit Systems announced yesterday that it was awarded contracts from an Asian country in a total amount of approximately $85 million. A pilot of the Royal Thai Air Force preparing for a mission in an upgraded F-5T, wearing a DASH helmet. Note the Python IV missile on the wingtip. Israel’s Elbit Systems announced yesterday that it was awarded contracts from an Asian country in a total amount of approximately $85 million; the majority of the amount will be for an avionic upgrade of F-5 aircraft, to be performed over a three year period. The balance is for the supply...

Top Secret Tombs: The Classified Stealth Aircraft Burial Grounds of Area 51 Top secret aircraft, even those that have been publicly disclosed, remain mysterious long after emerging from the black world. When – and if – secret planes are declassified, they’re treated differently from other military aircraft, and the specifics of their hardware may remain under wraps for decades. While some ultimately go to museums, others are placed into storage well away from prying eyes, awaiting a fate that may take years to arrive. One such fate that has befallen crashed, retired or failed projects over the decades is burial....

Aerospace giant Northrop Grumman Corp. has quietly developed a new spy plane that can listen in on phone conversations, use high-powered radar and shoot live video footage as it flies at 30,000 feet above the Earth. And the spy plane, expected to be unveiled Monday, would operate with or without a pilot sitting in the cockpit. Until now, U.S. military aircraft have been designed to either have a pilot on board or be an unmanned drone. But Northrop's new plane, dubbed the Firebird, can switch from being a traditional aircraft to a drone with just a few modifications. The Century...

Northrop Grumman has formally entered the race to win a US Army contract to deliver a new fleet of signals intelligence aircraft. The announcement adds the company to a growing list of declared rivals - including Boeing and L-3 Communications - bidding for the enhanced medium-altitude reconnaissance and surveillance system (EMARSS). The army wants a prime contractor to integrate a small but sophisticated suite of multiple SIGINT collectors on to Beechcraft King Air 350ERs. Payloads include an electro-optical camera and low-band communications interceptors. Northrop has not revealed details about the proposal submitted to the army before the 25 June deadline....

Northrop Grumman, in partnership with EADS, will not offer a bid for the $35 billion KC-X tanker contract, citing a US Air Force request for proposal (RFP) it believes is weighted in favour of its competitor. "We reached this conclusion based on the structure of the source selection methodology defined in the RFP, which clearly favours Boeing's smaller refuelling tanker and does not provide adequate value recognition of the added capability of a larger tanker, precluding us from any competitive opportunity," says Wes Bush, CEO of Northrop Grumman. Additionally, Bush says that Northrop has decided not to protest the selection...