MBDA’s Italian subsidiary will supply Qatar’s naval units with four corvette ships, two patrol vessels and a landing platform dock under a contract with the country’s naval force. MBDA said Thursday the contract is part of an agreement that Italian defense minister Roberta Pinotti and Qatar’s defense chief Khalid Bin Muhammad Al-Attiyah signed in Rome Thursday. […] More

BAE Systems will lead a team comprising General Dynamics‘ U.K. land systems and international mission systems subsidiaries, Leonardo-Finmeccanica, Moog, QinetiQ and Safran Electronics to bid under the U.K. defense ministry’s project to update the Challenger 2 main battle tank fleet. The team will pursue a contract to update the tanks to the Challenger 2 Mark 2 design to feature thermal […] More

An Esterline subsdiairy has been chosen to supply a suite of avionics systems for the C-27J Spartan platform a General Dynamics-led team aims to offer to Canada’s Fixed-Wing Search and Rescue program. Team Spartan comprises General Dynamics’ mission systems business, DRS Technologies and Leonardo-Finmeccanica‘s aircraft division, Esterline said Wednesday. The consortium seeks to integrate Esterline CMC Electronics‘ CMA-9000 Flight Management System, TacView Portable […] More

  Babcock‘s proposed system for the British defense science and technology laboratory’s Laser Directed Energy Weapon Capability Demonstrator program will incorporate the Raytheon-built Phalanx air defense technology, Flightglobal reported Thursday. Beth Stevenson writes the LDEW-CD competition seeks a 20-millimeter laser-equipped Gatling machine gun designed to counter potential airborne threats, including unmanned aircraft systems, to naval ships. The report said the Babcock offering […] More

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded a contract to DRS Technologies to update the company’s ultra-small pixel infrared focal plane arrays under DARPA’s Lambda Scale program. The FPAs work to support the functions of cooled infrared sensors to address pilot situational awareness and visibility concerns, DRS said Monday. The company uses thin-film deposition technology and a high-density capacitance […] More

Finmeccanica has added the Osprey airborne surveillance radar to its portfolio of electronically scanning radars in effort to offer a 360-degree field of view for different types of aircraft such as unmanned aerial vehicles. The company said Thursday Osprey radars are built with a flat-panel design to support installation into small platforms as well as the e-scan technology that works to deliver simultaneous coverage in […] More