BETHESDA, Md. Lockheed Martin has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire aerospace and defense engine maker Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings for $56 per share in cash, expected to be reduced to $51 per share after the payment of a preclosing special dividend; the deal will operate on a postdividend equity value of $4.6 billion and a total transaction value of $4.4 billion, including the assumption of net cash.

WASHINGTON. The Center for Public Policy Innovation (CPPI) and the Homeland Security and Defense Forum (HSDF) -- which held a virtual symposium in October 2020 it called "Artificial Intelligence: Transforming the Government Mission" -- released its report on the symposium, in which the participants conclude that the most critical aspect of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by the U.S. federal government is creating a secure supply chain and ensuring that security is built in from the beginning into the government’s IT infrastructure, including in agencies' hardware, software, and cloud services.

LONDON. The best way for countries to secure their military and civilian cyber capabilities is through cooperation with other states: This is one of the findings of a recent market study from GlobalData, "Cybersecurity in Defense -- Thematic Research."

WASHINGTON. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) -- a department within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) -- has notified the U.S. Congress that it has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the government of Italy regarding two Gulfstream G550 aircraft with airborne intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare (AISREW) mission systems and related equipment for an estimated cost of $500 million. 

FARNBOROUGH, U.K. The BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration facility (Greenlawn, New York) has won an $18 milion indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract from the U.S. Navy Naval Air Systems Command for the production, test, and delivery of identification-friend-or-foe (IFF) transponders for military aircraft.

HERNDON, Va. HawkEye 360 Inc., company specializing in formation flying satellites to create a new class of radio frequency (RF) data and data analytics, announced it has shipped its second cluster of satellites to the launch site at Cape Canaveral, Fla.

WASHINGTON. The U.S. Air Force announced that it has conducted test flight with artificial intelligence (AI) as a working aircrew member onboard a military aircraft for the first time. The AI algorithm, known as ARTUµ, flew with the pilot on a U-2 Dragon Lady assigned to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base.

WHITE SALMON, Wa. Sagetech Avionics, technology company providing safety solutions for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), and Hover, Inc., an embedded computing company, announced that they are partnering to provide OEMs with the key components of an onboard detect and avoid (DAA) solution for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

HAIFA, Israel. Elbit Systems has won a follow-on contract worth approximately $50 million ffrom the Dutch Ministry of Defense (MOD) to supply the Royal Netherlands Army (RNLA) with additional digital soldier and vehicular systems, as the RNLA expands its soldier-modernization program.

WASHINGTON. The joint force announced it has taken another step toward achieving a military Internet of Things (IoT) after fifth-generation aircraft overcame long standing connectivity limitations to share actionable operational data in their native secure digital “languages” with and through multiple sources for the first time.

COLUMBUS, Ohio. Real-time location system (RTLS) provider Ubihere reports that it won a $150,000 contract from the U.S. Air Force (USAF) to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-powered autonomous navigation for unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) and electric vertical takeoff and landing (EVTOL) vehicles.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. Aerojet Rocketdyne and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) claim to have achieved record levels of thrust by a scramjet engine. The AFRL-Aerojet Rocketdyne team completed a series of hot-fire tests of an advanced air-breathing hypersonic engine under the U.S. Air Force’s Medium Scale Critical Components (MSCC) program.

BETHESDA, Md. Lockheed Martin announced that it has conducted a flight test mission featuring distributed processing onboard the U-2 Dragon Lady via Kubernetes containerization technology.

MELBOURNE, Fla. L3Harris Technologies has received a $57 million competitive award for its Falcon IV AN/PRC-163 two-channel handheld radios, along with related equipment and services, as part of the U.S. Army’s two-channel Leader radio IDIQ contract. Delivery is expected to begin in early 2021.

U.S. ARMY YUMA PROVING GROUND, Ariz. U.S. military forces "took another step toward achieving a military Internet of Things" -- according to a news release from the U.S. Air Force -- when tests run with fifth-generation aircraft overcame longstanding connectivity issues to share actionable operational data in their native secure digital “languages” with and through multiple sources for the first time. This early-December 2020 test was the latest demonstration run with the open architecture underpinning the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS).