WASHINGTON. Final rules for Unmanned Aircraft (UA), commonly known as drones, have been announced by the The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). According to the FAA, the new rules will require Remote Identification (Remote ID) of drones and allow operators of small drones to fly over people and at night under certain conditions.

KAZAKHSTAN. The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Kazakhstan of King Air B300ER Scorpion Aircraft with Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR) Mission Systems and related equipment for an estimated cost of $128.1 million. 

MELBOURNE, Fla. The U.S. Navy has awarded L3Harris Technologies a five-year, $496 million contract to deliver prototype tactical jamming pods designed to extend U.S. Air superiority.

FORTH WORTH, Texas. Elbit Systems Ltd. announced that its U.S. subsidiary, Elbit Systems of America, LLC, has signed a definitive agreement with an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. for the acquisition of Sparton Corporation for a purchase price of $380 million.  

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. Northrop Grumman Corporation announced it has completed the first flight for the Global Hawk Ground Station Modernization Program (GSMP) at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. earlier this month. Leveraging agile development and an open architecture design, the GSMP team redesigned both the human-machine interface and the underlying software.

FRANCE. Saab announced it has signed a contract with the French Armament General Directorate (DGA) for an upgrade and life extension of the French Air and Space Force’s mobile command and control systems, which feature Saab’s Giraffe AMB radar and command and control shelter.

ARMONK, N.Y. IBM has entered into a Phase 1 Other Transactions Agreement with Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Crane Division within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to support advancing U.S. microelectronics technology.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. Our five most popular McHale Report podcasts for 2020 hosted by editors John McHale and Emma Helfrich featured guests from National Instruments, Liteye Systems, Pentek, and two guests from Mercury Systems on topics such as artificial intelligence for electronic warfare, the end of Moore's Law, the defense industry's response to COVID-19, counter-UAV advancements, and the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium. Check them out below.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. The most popular stories on MilitaryEmbedded.com throughout 2020 covered subjects such as NASA's Artemis mission, radar for tracking hypersonics, certifying COTS software, big data challenges, and more. Check them out below.

MARLBOROUGH, Mass. Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems has received a $48.77 million modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract to produce, test, and deliver fully integrated Navy multiband terminals (NMT), which are multiband capable satellite communications terminals that enable protected and wideband communications.  

SPAIN. Indra and Thales, two defense technology companies, have signed an agreement to work in partnership to offer a next-generation tactical communications system to Spain’s Armed Forces. The new communications system will aim to enhance interoperability during international missions, and ensure Spain’s full sovereignty and technical autonomy over strategic military communications.

SWITZERLAND. Elbit Systems Ltd. announced that it has won an approximately $338 million contract by the Swiss Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sport, to provide the Swiss Armed Forces with an army-wide tactical mobile Software Defined Radio (SDR) network solution under the Telecommunications Armed Forces (TK A) digitization program, Ersa mob Komm. The contract will be performed over a period of six years.

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA. Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) report completion of the first high-speed taxi test of its Loyal Wingman unmanned aerial system (UAS) in preparation for its first flight; Boeing says that the company's test personnel monitored the uncrewed aircraft’s performance and instrumentation from a ground-control station to verify the functionality while the vehicle reached accelerated speeds.

ANDOVER, Mass. Mercury Systems has received a $14 million order from a leading defense prime contractor for digital-signal-processing modules that are intended for deployment in a multimode tactical radar application. 

ARLINGTON, Va. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently finished field testing of a network-technology program that demonstrated successful use of new software that can bridge multiple disparate radio networks to enable communication between incompatible tactical radio data links, even if an adversary is trying to jam them.