February 1, 2022 | International, Naval
Shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls taps Kastner as next chief executive
They will take their new roles March 1, and Petters will stay at Huntington Ingalls through 2022.
May 7, 2020 | International, Aerospace
German government asks Lockheed, MBDA to rebid on missile defense system
By: Sebastian Sprenger
COLOGNE, Germany — The German government has given Lockheed Martin and MBDA the go-ahead to bid anew on the TLVS air defense program.
The latest request for a proposal, transmitted Wednesday, is the third iteration after previous attempts to draft a contract failed. If the vendor team decides to pursue the business, a new offer is expected by the summer.
A Lockheed spokesman confirmed receipt of the solicitation but said the company could not comment further.
The program, short for Taktisches Luftverteidigungssystem, is meant to wean Germany off the venerable Patriot air defense weapon. Formerly developed in concert with the United States and Italy, TLVS boasts a 360-degree sensing and shooting capability meant to lower its footprint in the field and allow for intercepts against threats from all directions.
The Germans want a system that grants its military operators maximum national autonomy, meaning the government wants to own the rights to relevant software and hardware without having to consult with Washington to employ or modify the weapon.
That requirement previously turned out to be a major headache in the negotiations with industry, especially relating to the Lockheed-made interceptor known as the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement. It also remains to be seen how firmly Berlin sticks to its guns on the issue in the upcoming round of talks.
News of movement in the prospective multibillion-dollar program comes as the German Defence Ministry announced another major acquisition decision last month that continues to make headlines. The government has proposed a split buy of Eurofighter and F-18 fighter jets to replace its Tornado fleet by 2030, prompting spirited debates among German lawmakers, industry advocates and analysts.
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November 7, 2024 | International, C4ISR, Security
North Korean Hackers Target Crypto Firms with Hidden Risk Malware on macOS
North Korean hackers launch Hidden Risk malware targeting macOS devices in crypto firms via fake PDFs.
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January 3, 2019 | International, Aerospace
China’s Moon Landing: ‘New Chapter in Humanity’s Exploration of the Moon’
By Steven Lee Myers and Zoe Mou BEIJING — China reached a milestone in space exploration on Thursday, landing a vehicle on the far side of the moon for the first time in history, the country's space agency announced. The landing of the probe, called Chang'e-4 after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology, is one in a coming series of missions that underscore the country's ambitions to join — and even lead — the space race. China landed another rover on the moon in 2013, joining the United States and the Soviet Union as the only nations to have carried out a “soft landing” there, but the Chang'e-4 is the first to touch down on the side of the moon that perpetually faces away from the Earth. The mission “has opened a new chapter in humanity's exploration of the moon,” the China National Space Administration said in an announcement on its website. The agency said the spacecraft landed at 10:26 a.m. Beijing time at its target on the far side of the moon. The probe sent back to the earth the first close-up image of the moon's far side using a relay satellite China calls “Queqiao,” or “Magpie Bridge,” the space agency said in a notice that included images it said were taken by the probe. Although a latecomer by decades to space exploration, China is quickly catching up, experts say, and could challenge the United States for supremacy in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other fields. “This space mission shows that China has reached the advanced world-class level in deep space exploration,” said Zhu Menghua, a professor at the Macau University of Science and Technology who has worked closely with the Chinese space agency. “We Chinese people have done something that the Americans have not dared try.” China now plans to begin fully operating its third space station by 2022, to put astronauts in a lunar base by later in that decade, and to send probes to Mars, including ones that could return samples of the Martian surface back to Earth. Though the moon is hardly untrodden ground after decades of exploration, a new landing is far more than just a propaganda coup, experts say. Full article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/world/asia/china-change-4-moon.html