ELKTON, Md. Northrop Grumman Corporation announced the emergence of a Hypersonics Center of Excellence to support the U.S. military and its allies in the fight against evolving threats.

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. AeroVironment, Inc. has announced it won a competitive task order valued at approximately $22 million from the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) for intelligence, surveillance, and reconaissance (ISR) services using JUMP 20 medium unmanned aircraft systems (MEUAS) at an undisclosed customer location.

WASHINGTON. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) deployed two tiny satellites to space June 30 that officials claim has begun communicating with ground stations. This is intended to be the first step on the way to an experiment that will eventually see them communicate with each other.

SUGAR LAND, Texas. Systel, Inc., company specializing in rugged computer hardware solutions, demonstrated Aided Target Recognition (AiTR) artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities with multiple rugged embedded computer solutions, including Raven-Strike and Kite-Strike, to the U.S. Army at a recent Project Convergence 21 (PC21) event.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. announced that it has partnered with North American Wave Engine Corporation to develop the Versatile Air-Launched Platform (VALP), an air-launched vehicle designed to leverage and demonstrate low-cost, high-impact technologies for future aerial systems.

WASHINGTON. DARPA has deployed two satellites as part of the SpaceX Transporter 2 launch. According to DARPA, both Mandrake 2 spacecraft, Able and Baker, are functioning and progressing through checkout and commissioning.

POWAY, Calif. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) announced the completion of the first MQ-9A Block 5 Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) and Ground Control Station (GCS) for the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF).

VANCOUVER, Washington. CRU Data Security Group (CDSG) released the DIGISTOR Citadel family of secure self-encrypting SSDs aimed at military and government applications requiring NSA Data at Rest security protection up to the U.S. government’s secret classification level.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. Raytheon Intelligence & Space, a Raytheon Technologies business, has won a $171.6 million contract for Low-Rate Initial Production Lot I, or LRIP I, of the U.S. Navy's Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band. The award advances the program from the development stage into production and deployment.

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. AeroVironment, Inc. introduced Crysalis, the company’s next-generation ground control solution. Crysalis is an integrated hardware and software-based ground control system (GCS) that is designed to provide command and control of compatible AeroVironment unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and their payloads, through an intuitive user experience (UX).

UNITED KINGDOM. HENSOLDT U.K. announced it will be supplying Kelvin Hughes Mk11 SharpEye surface search radars with combined HENSOLDT MSSR 2000 IFF systems to the French Navy Patrouilleur d’Outre-Mer or POM program being built by Socarenam Shipyard in France. The POM program provides six offshore patrol vessels for the French overseas territories.

WICHITA, Kan. Spirit AeroSystems, Inc. and Fiber Materials, Inc., subsidiaries of Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc., and Albany Engineered Composites, a subsidiary of Albany International Corp., have formally entered a technical collaboration agreement to deliver a suite of differentiated technical and industrialized solutions to support hypersonic program developments.

UNITED KINGDOM. Officials from the Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced that soldiers from the 20th Armored Infantry Brigade used an artificial intelligence (AI) engine designed to provide information on the surrounding environment and terrain during a recent exercise.

WASHINGTON. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that three teams of researchers led by Raytheon, BAE Systems, and Northrop Grumman have been selected to develop event-based infrared (IR) camera technologies under the Fast Event-based Neuromorphic Camera and Electronics (FENCE) program.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. Raytheon Intelligence & Space has won a $171.6 million contract to begin Low- Rate Initial Production for its Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) program, an advanced electronic attack system that is intended to give military pilots the ability to deny, disrupt, and degrade hostile technology, including communications tools and air-defense systems.