Chinese Hackers Deploy SpiceRAT and SugarGh0st in Global Espionage Campaign

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  November 6, 2020 | International, C4ISR

  BAE building new campus for recently acquired GPS business

  Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — BAE Systems announced Thursday it is investing more than $100 million in new infrastructure to support its navigation and sensor systems business, which was acquired from Collins Aerospace over the summer. The new campus, located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will condense the company's military GPS capabilities from around the country into one location. Included in the project is a 278,000-square-foot factory and research and development center, located on a 32-acre site just minutes from Eastern Iowa Airport. The building will include a large factory, several hundred offices, workstations, and both classified and unclassified labs, according to a company release, with the ability to add 50,000 square feet of space if needed. BAE spent $1.9 billion to land the business unit, which primarily focuses on military GPS technologies, in a deal that was completed July 31. The acquisition followed the merger of defense contracting giants United Technologies Corp. and Raytheon into Raytheon Technologies Corporation in June 2019. The U.S. Department of Justice approved that merger in March 2020, but only on the condition the companies divest UTC's military GPS and large space-based optical systems businesses, as well as Raytheon's military airborne radios business. In March, BAE's chief executive Jerry DeMuro told Defense News that the purchase, along with $275 million spent to purchase the airborne radio business, positioned the company well under the National Defense Strategy. The military GPS business includes a workforce of 700 employees that design and build advanced, hardened, secure GPS products, including devices that can utilize M-Code, a more secure U.S. military GPS signal. The business boasts more than 1.5 million GPS devices installed on more than 280 weapons systems. “Our world-class military GPS business is built on the rich talent pool in Greater Cedar Rapids,” John Watkins, vice president and general manager of precision strike and sensing solutions at BAE Systems, said in a statement. “This investment will provide our high-tech engineering and manufacturing experts with a world-class workspace and the tools to enhance operational excellence.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/industry/2020/11/05/bae-building-new-campus-for-recently-acquired-gps-business

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  January 31, 2019 | International, Naval

  General Dynamics To Invest $1 Billion In Production Facilities Upgrades With Focus on Subs

  By: Ben Werner General Dynamics Corp. plans to invest $1 billion in 2019 in upgrading and retooling its manufacturing operations company-wide, with a focus on its growing submarine construction business. A plurality of this year's capital expenditures – the reinvestment in manufacturing operations, commonly referred to as CapEx – will focus on making improvements to General Dynamics Electric Boat, the maker of the Virginia-class attack submarines and the new Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarines. “We are poised to support our Navy customers and increase the size of the fleet,” Phebe Novakovic, the chief executive of General Dynamics, said during a conference call with analysts today to discuss the company's 2018 financial results and detail financial expectations for 2019. Submarine builder Electric Boat is on pace to build two Virginia-class Block IV submarines a year while preparing to start building the first Block V submarines. At the same time, Electric Boat is preparing for construction of the first Columbia-class submarine to begin in early 2020. “CapEx will be 3 percent of sales in 2019 mostly because of the Columbia-class construction,” Jason Aiken, the chief financial officer of General Dynamics, said during the call. In 2018, General Dynamics reported sales of $36.2 billion, and the company predicts sales to increase in 2019. General Dynamics capital investments will remain at a similar level for the next two to three years, Aiken said. After 2022, once Columbia-production is ramped up, the level of capital spending is expected to taper off, he added. Overall, the company's Marine Systems division, which includes the Electric Boat, Bath Iron Works and NASSCO shipyards, recorded robust sales growth during the year, and Novakovic said the sales growth is expected to continue in 2019. The Pentagon and Capitol Hill are sending signals that Novakovic said she takes to mean, “we'll see nice defense spending for our programs.” General Dynamics predicts the Marine Systems division will post 2019 sales of $9 billion, a 6-percent increase over sales in 2018. The Marine Systems group has a backlog of 11 Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers; started construction on the future USNS John Lewis (T-AO-205), a first-in-class oiler for the Navy; and continued building Expeditionary Sea Base ships. “They have done nicely with slow, steady growth, but the real growth driver is Electric Boat,” Novakovic said. https://news.usni.org/2019/01/30/40759

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  June 10, 2024 | International, Aerospace

  South Korea, US work on joint strategy over North nuclear threat