WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio, 3 Feb. 2012. Aircraft manufacturers at the Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA) Defense, Space & Security segment in Long Beach, Calif., will build 10 C-17 Globemaster III military cargo jets for the Indian Air Force in New Delhi, India, under terms of a $1.8 billion contract modification announced Thursday from the U.S. Air Force Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The aircraft sale is part of the Foreign Military Sales program.

HANSCOM AFB, Mass., 1 Feb. 2012. Radar experts at the U.S. Air Force Electronic Systems Center (ESC) at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., are reaching out to industry in the beginning of what may become a long-term project to modernize and upgrade three ageing ground-based ballistic missile warning radar systems -- PAVE PAWS, which is short for Phased Array Warning System; the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS); and the Perimeter Acquisition Radar Attack Characterization System (PARCS).

LOS ANGELES, 31 Jan. 2012. I hear a lot about upcoming hard times in the defense and commercial aviation sectors, so imagine my surprise this past week when saw reports that the Pentagon bought 25 sophisticated combat aircraft, and commercial airlines bought 275 commercial passenger jets. That's orders for 300 advanced-technology aircraft. In one week. Worth tens of billions of dollars.

PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md., 29 Jan. 2012. U.S. Navy anti-submarine warfare experts are buying 50,430 AN/SSQ-53F advanced passive sonobuoys from ERAPSCO Inc. in Columbia City, Ind. under terms of a $38.4 million contract modification announced Friday. In this order, 49,990 sonobuoys are for the Navy and 440 are for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington, which is the diplomatic representative of Taiwan to the U.S.

SAN DIEGO, 27 Jan. 2012. Military electronics industry experts are optimistic for the continued health in military electronics spending for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR); command, control, computers, and intelligence (C4I), unmanned vehicles, and electronic warfare (EW) in the upcoming fiscal year 2013 budget request for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), which is scheduled for public release and submission to Congress on 13 Feb.

PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md., 25 Jan. 2012. U.S. Navy leaders are buying five models of the Navy's most advanced carrier-based maritime patrol aircraft, the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye from the Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE:NOC) Aerospace Systems segment in Bethpage, N.Y., under terms of a $781.5 million contract modification announced Tuesday. Officials of the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., are ordering the advanced radar surveillance aircraft as part of Lot 4 of the E-2D low-rate initial production program.

THE MIL & AERO VIDEO BLOG, 24 Jan. 2012. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has a few new anti-submarine warfare (ASW) tricks up its sleeve in the continuing struggle to counter the growing threat to U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups from quiet diesel-electric enemy attack submarines, as John Keller reports this week in the Mil & Aero Video Blog.

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio, 24 Jan. 2012. Aircraft manufacturers at the Boeing Co. Commercial Airplanes segment in Long Beach, Calif., will build five C-17 Globemaster III military cargo jets for the U.S. Air Force under terms of a $693.4 million contract modification announced Monday from the Air Force Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio, 22 Jan. 2012. Systems designers at Lockheed Martin Corp. in Eagan, Minn., are moving ahead with a U.S. Air Force-sponsored project to develop and demonstrate a green hybrid small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that runs on renewable energy as part of the second phase of the Air Force Small Unmanned Renewable enerGy long Endurance Vehicle (SURGE-V) program. Lockheed Martin won a $1.1 million contract Friday for development and ground demonstration of the integrated power system and payload into a SURGE-V aircraft.

ARLINGTON, Va., 15 Jan. 2012. Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) experts in the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., have awarded their third industry contract for a program that seeks to develop technologies to help detect enemy submarines in shallow coastal waters and harbors without using traditional acoustic submarine-hunting technologies like sonar.

ARLINGTON, Va., 15 Jan. 2012. Information security experts at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Arlington, Va., are asking for industry's help in developing ways to blend biometrics into U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) cyber security systems without installing new hardware. The intent is no only to save time and money, but also to help bolster existing DOD computer security that relies primarily on requiring uses to type in long and complex passwords.

SAN DIEGO, 13 Jan. 2012. Undersea warfare experts at Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) in McLean, Va., are developing deep-sea anti-submarine warfare (ASW) surveillance technology to protect Navy aircraft carriers and their escort ships from quiet enemy attack submarines while the carriers are operating in the open ocean. The new sonar equipment will operate at extreme ocean depths in the so-called "deep sound channel" to detect quiet enemy submarines lurking overhead. SAIC is doing the work under terms of a 15-month $10.6 million contract modification announced Thursday from The Space and Naval Warfare Systems (SPAWAR) Center Pacific in San Diego.

Albuquerque, N.M., 12 Jan. 2011. U.S. Air Force researchers are working with high-energy laser weapons experts at TAU Technologies LLC in Albuquerque, N.M., to develop technologies that eventually may lead to 100-kilowatt laser weapons mounted to the skin of jet bombers and other combat aircraft to defend against missiles, unmanned combat aircraft (UCAV), enemy jet fighters, and other threats.

LOS ANGELES AFB, Calif., 12 Jan. 2012. Navigation satellite designers at the Lockheed Martin Corp. Space Systems Co. in Newtown, Pa., outside Trenton will build the third and fourth Global Positioning System (GPS) III navigation and guidance satellites under terms of a $238.5 million contract awarded Wednesday by the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif.

PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md., 10 Jan. 2012. U.S. Navy electronic warfare experts are shifting into high gear in a program to develop the Next-Generation Jammer (NGJ), which will replace the AN/ALQ-199 as the Navy's primary airborne electronic warfare system. Navy officials will release a full solicitation later this year for the technology development phase of the NGJ program, and is scheduling industry day briefings in January and February to release program details to potential industry bidders.

ARLINGTON, Va., 10 Jan. 2012. U.S. Navy electro-optics scientists are asking industry for help in developing small and relatively inexpensive optical focal plane arrays (FPAs) for small systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by optimizing the imagery from these systems to meet today's detection, tracking and identification requirements. The U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) in Arlington, Va., issued a broad agency announcement (ONRBAA12-005) last week for the Image Optimization for Small Focal Plane Arrays program, which seeks to develop small and affordable optical focal plane arrays.

NASHUA, N.H., Jan. 9, 2012. This week on the Military and Aerospace Electronics Report, Skyler Frink reports on the U.S. Army's new cyber brigade and the seriousness of network vulnerabilities.

EGLIN AFB, Fla., 9 Jan. 2012. Munitions guidance experts at the Raytheon Co. Space and Airborne Systems segment in El Segundo, Calif., will design and demonstrate navigation and guidance technologies that can keep new generations of deep-penetrating bombs and missiles on target in conditions where signals from Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite satellites are degraded or unavailable. Raytheon is doing the work under terms of an $11 million contract awarded Friday by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.

MAC DILL AFB, Fla., 6 Jan. 2012. Electro-optics engineers at the DRS Technologies Inc. Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition (RSTA) segment in Melbourne, Fla., will design and build a handheld laser sensor for U.S. Special Operations forces to verify that the 1064-nanometer infrared laser beam from the Handheld Laser Marker (HLM) is on target. The HLM is a lightweight system that marks targets for laser-guided munitions. DRS RSTA engineers won a potential $40.2 million five-year contract Wednesday for the Spot on Target (SPOTR) system to verify the effectiveness of the Handheld Laser Marker in difficult conditions such as dark nights or urban terrain.