SAN DIEGO – Officials of the U.S. Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) in San Diego will conduct virtual Information Warfare Research Project (IWRP) Consortium Virtual Quarterly Industry Day briefings on Wednesday 9 Dec. 2020.

Source: laser weapon research character recognition | Military & Aerospace Electronics

Lockheed Martin received $2B in contract awards.Month-over-month there was a slight decrease in contract values.Lockheed Martin is still heading for a very strong year.

Source: Lockheed Martin Wins Heavy Lift Contract (NYSE:LMT) | Seeking Alpha

Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC) is awarded a $4.8B contract to develop, modernize, retrofit and sustain variants of the U.S. Air Force’s Global Hawk drone fleet, the Department of Defense reports.The work will be performed in San Diego, Calif., and is expected to be completed by September 2030, the Pentagon says.

Source: Northrop Grumman grabs $4.8B DoD contract for Global Hawk drone (NYSE:NOC) | Seeking Alpha

Raytheon Technologies (NYSE:RTX) inks agreement to acquire privately held Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT), a provider of small satellites and spacecraft systems components.BCT will report into Raytheon Intelligence & Space, a business of Raytheon Technologies.Acquisition will allow BCT to quickly scale production and pursue larger, more complex space missions.BCT will continue to serve its customer base under the current business name and brand from their Boulder and Lafayette, Colorado facilities.Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Source: Raytheon Technologies to acquire Blue Canyon Technologies (NYSE:RTX) | Seeking Alpha

For chipmakers, this means special attention needs to be paid to the design, layout, manufacturing processes, and testing of these ICs. The demand for higher integration, smaller size, and better power efficiency also is contributing to new challenges in rad-hard IC development.The most recent space program to test these mission-critical components is the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. “Deep space is a challenging environment for spaceflight and Mars rover systems, particularly due to the intense radiation environment encountered in nearly all mission profiles,” said Josh Broline, director of marketing applications at Renesas Electronics Corp. “For product development, the biggest challenge is not necessarily the general performance of the IC but, rather, meeting that performance in a radiation environment.”

Source: Space Radiation Poses Challenge for Electronics – EE Times Asia