General Dynamics’ National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) [GD] on Dec. 5 laid the keel for the future USNS Robert F. Kennedy (T-AO 208), the fourth John Lewis-class fleet replenishment oiler (T-AO 205). The keel laying marks the start of ship construction with the joining together of ...

The U.K. Royal Navy recently awarded MSubs a $19 million contract to buy a new 39-foot uncrewed submarine, called Project Cetus. The U.K. Ministry of Defense announced the award on Dec. 1. It said the vessel will be delivered in two years and used to protect national infrastructure and monitor ...

Bell [TXT] has won the Army’s Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) program, the service announced on Monday evening, receiving an initial award worth up to $1.3 billion to provide the new platform that’s set to serve as the eventual UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter replacement. Bell’s V-280 ...

SpaceX is venturing into Earth observation (EO) and hosted payloads for national security use, with a new business line called Starshield. The company added a section to its website for Starshield on Friday, describing it as “SpaceX’s Starlink technology and launch capability to support ...

Textron Systems [TXT] said Monday it has received a five-year, $162 million deal to develop an advanced anti-vehicle precision munition system for the Army.  Henry Finneral, Textron’s senior vice president for weapon systems, told Defense Daily the top attack system it develops for the Close ...

Lockheed Martin [LMT] said Monday it has teamed with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to work on “jointly developing, testing and manufacturing High Energy Laser Weapon Systems,” to include building on the Israeli firm’s new 100-kilowatt laser technology.  The two companies noted the teaming ...