Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is starting to boost defense contractors’ revenues, as customers such as the U.S. government restock supplies shipped to Ukraine and countries around Europe arm themselves with an eye on Moscow’s aggressions. U.S. defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin (LMT.N), General Dynamics (GD.N) and others expect that existing orders for hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, hundreds of Patriot missile interceptors and a surge in orders for armored vehicles expected in the months ahead will underpin their results in coming quarters. New contracts to supply Ukraine directly – or backfill U.S....

Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket is scheduled to lift off at 5:56 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, Aug. 10, as part of the company’s 16th mission to deliver supplies, equipment and NASA science investigations to the International Space Station, NASA announced. As long as skies are clear, the launch may be visible to people across the Mid-Atlantic region and possibly other parts of the eastern United States... Live coverage of the mission countdown is scheduled to begin at about 1 p.m. Tuesday on the Wallops IBM video site. Launch coverage on NASA TV is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The vast majority of Covid-19 anti-vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories originated from just 12 people, a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) cited by the White House this week found.CCDH, a UK/US non-profit and non-governmental organization, found in March that these 12 online personalities they dubbed the “disinformation dozen” have a combined following of 59 million people across multiple social media platforms, with Facebook having the largest impact. CCDH analyzed 812,000 Facebook posts and tweets and found 65% came from the disinformation dozen. Vivek Murthy, US surgeon general, and Joe Biden focused on misinformation around vaccines this...

The Department of Justice on Wednesday announced the arrest of a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) official for allegedly leaking classified information to journalists, including one that he was apparently in a relationship with. Law enforcement officials arrested 30-year-old Henry Kyle Freese of Virginia and charged him with two counts of willful transmission of national defense information. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Early in September, international news was awash with the claim that 87 elephants had been “killed by poachers” in Botswana. The story originated from the NGO Elephants Without Borders, which received massive publicity – and presumably donations – as a result. Even the beleaguered UK Prime Minister tweeted the story, while a petition calling for wildlife guards to be re-armed surpassed 150,000 signatures. I know a little of Botswana. A few years ago, I was declared “public enemy number one”, threatened by a government spokesman on television, and banned from the country. This was because Survival International was instrumental in...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday announced it has cleared Northrop Grumman's $7.8 billion purchase of defense and space contractor Orbital ATK. Orbital ATK will become Northrop Grumman's fourth business sector, named Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems. The other three are Aerospace Systems, Mission Systems and Technology Services. With the addition, Northrop Grumman's sales for 2018 should reach $30 billion. Blake Larson will serve as corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems. As a condition for the approval of the merger, the company will have to supply solid rocket motors "on a non-discriminatory basis under specified circumstances,"...

Two independent investigations, made up of federal and industry officials, pointed to Northrop's payload adapter as the cause of the satellite's loss, the report said, citing people familiar with the probes. The payload adapter is a key part of deploying a satellite in orbit, connecting the satellite to the upper stage of a rocket. Zuma is believed to have cost around $3.5 billion to develop, according to the report. The satellite was funded through a process that received a lesser degree of oversight from Congress compared with similar national security-related satellites, industry officials said. ... The investigations tentatively concluded that...

Jurisdictions carry no weight in My courts for as Creator I Reign Supreme ! Do you see my children I AM The First and The Last Word as Mediator over All Creation and it is My hand that is the Gavel of Authority and My answer was given on The Cross " IT IS FINISHED " You are Worthy and My blood has dressed you in My Righteousness and My Answer to the enemy for you shall forever be " NOT GUILTY " and surely goodness and mercy shall follow you ALL the days of your life and you SHALL...

Even on military flights, regular manned aircraft need to stop regularly so the crew can rest, bathe and unwind. But an unmanned drone can keep flying until it runs low on fuel, so the U.S. military drew up plans for nuclear powered drones that could stay airborne for months at a time. The catch 22 is that while a manned aircraft can stay airborne for extended periods using mid-air refueling, this requires a skilled team on the plane making true long tern endurance impossible. Working in collaboration with Sandia National Labs, Northrup Grumman drew up plans for a drone powered...

Jim Northrup, a key part of the Detroit Tigers' 1968 World Series champion team, died Wednesday, the Detroit Free Press reported. He was 71. Northrup hit a two-run triple off St. Louis Cardinals ace Bob Gibson in the seventh inning of Game 7 of that series, which the Tigers came back to win after trailing three games to one. It was the only triple Gibson gave up all season. "He was big, tall and thin with a beautiful flowing swing, and he had real major power," former teammate Dick Tracewski told the Free Press. "He was a hell of a...

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.(Hebrews 11:6)Where I come from, the state of Iowa in the heartland of America, wrestling is a big deal. We have a long tradition in the Sport and are known throughout the world for our wrestling. For a High school athlete, to qualify for the state wrestling meet is an incredible honor. One of the young men in our church has worked hard enough and been dedicated enough to...

Northrop Grumman dropped out of the US Air Force tanker race nearly four months ago, but a new contract award revealed 1 July shows they remain in the aerial refueling market. In fact, Northrop plans to go one better than manned aerial refueling - the aerospace giant is now working with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on autonomous high-altitude refueling. Under a $33 million deal dubbed KQ-X, Northrop will demonstrate refueling with a pair of Block 10 RQ-4 Global Hawks the company is currently sharing with NASA The ability to refuel mid-air without the aid of a...

Some changes to the contract pricing structure of the KC-X program will be announced later today by the Defense Dept., according to slides of a tanker presentation obtained by Aviation Week. Both Boeing and Northrop Grumman/EADS North America, the two would-be competitors, complained that the fixed-price demand by the Pentagon for the production lots placed too much risk in the contractor’s lap. Based on the draft request for proposals (RFP) from September 2009, the first five lots would have been locked in at a fixed price. Now, however, the pricing structure allows for fixed price for only Lots 1-2....

The solid-state laser system from Northrop Grumman, that produced the most powerful beam ever from a continuous wave electric laser last year, is joining other pioneering speed-of-light weapons demonstrators for field tests at the Army's High Energy Laser System Test Facility (HELSTF), N.M. In cooperation with the U.S. Army's Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command, which operates the test range at White Sands Missile Range in southeastern New Mexico, BAE Systems has contracted with Northrop Grumman to relocate the Joint High Power Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) Phase 3 system from the company's laser factory in Redondo Beach, Calif.,...

The $2-billion question in development of a new bomber is whether a major black-world demonstration program is already underway, with Northrop Grumman as the contractor. This hypothesis makes sense of a series of clues that have appeared since 2005. In that year, Scott Winship, program manager for Northrop Grumman’s X-47 unmanned combat aircraft system (UCAS), mentioned that the company—responding to a U.S. Air Force interest in a bigger version of the then-ongoing Joint UCAS project—had proposed an X-47C with very long endurance, a 10,000-lb.-plus weapon load and a 172-ft. wingspan, the same as a B-2. The idea was to match...

Northrop Grumman Corp. plans to move its headquarters to the Washington, D.C., area from Los Angeles, a historic departure from the aerospace and defense industry's birthplace in Southern California. The move will put Northrop's top executives near its biggest military and intelligence customers in the federal government, as well as Congress. "We are a global security company and when you look at where our largest customer base is located, it's in the Washington, D.C region," said Wesley Bush, Northrop's chief executive officer and president. Mr. Bush took over as chief executive from Ron Sugar on Jan. 1. The decision follows...

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, signaled Tuesday that he is giving serious consideration to a proposal that would split the lucrative contract to build the Air Force's next fleet of aerial refueling tankers between the two rivals vying for the work. Inouye, who also chairs the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, told reporters that he plans to hold subcommittee hearings on the proposal, which has been publicly pushed by key House Democrats but soundly rejected by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Northrop Grumman Corp. and EADS, the European consortium behind Airbus, won the $35 billion deal last year to build 179...

PALMDALE - Employment at Air Force Plant 42 picked up during the last six months of 2008, thanks primarily to hiring at Northrop Grumman Corp. That hiring trend is expected to continue as the company ramps up development of the Navy's unmanned demonstrator aircraft, the X-47B, and production of the F-35 joint strike fighter. "We did hit our staffing target last year; however, we're still looking to add another 500 people by the end of the year," Northrop spokesman Jim Hart said. The Air Force production flight test facility reported employment of 7,039 at the various contractor sites, up from...

September 17, 2008 The tenth and final nuclear-powered Nimitz-class supercarrier, George H. W. Bush, enters service in 2009, but the next-generation is on its way. The Gerald R. Ford CVN 78 is the first ship in the first new carrier class in over 40 years. Northrop Grumman has received a $5.1 billion, seven-year contract for construction of the CVN 78, which is scheduled to be delivered to the Navy in 2015. Northrop Grumman began advance construction of the Gerald R Ford in 2005, under a separate $2.7 billion contract. Roughly one third of the ship’s 1,200 structural units are currently...

The U.S. Department of Defense announced this morning that it is terminating the U.S. Air Force refueling tanker competition, and has notified Congress and the competing industry teams of the move. Halting the current competition can be viewed as a win for Boeing, which complained that the quick pace of the recompete didn't give it enough time to substantively change its proposal. The deferment would allow the company to rebuild its proposal strategy around a larger aircraft like the 777.