Saab-Brazil. Brazil awards Saab a $5.3 billion contract for the development and production of 36 Gripen NG fighter jets, according to a company statement. Saab and Brazil also sign a 10-year industrial cooperation contract to transfer technology from Saab to Brazilian industry. Brazil in December 2013 selected Saab over Boeing’s F/A-18 and Dassault’s Rafale, according to media reports at the time, in what was known as the F-X2 competition. The 36 Gripens include 28 single-seat and eight two-seat jets and deliveries are slated to begin in November 2019 and last through 2024. The $5.3 billion is more than the $4.5 billion the Brazilian government announced in 2013. Brazil also said last year that the first aircraft is expected to arrive approximately 48 months after a financing agreement is reached.
F-22 Award.
The Air Force on Oct. 27 awards Lockheed Martin a $487 million contract modification to exercise an option year for F-22 sustainment activities, according to a Defense Department statement. Fiscal year 2014 research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) funds of $1 million were obligated at the time of award. Lockheed Martin is prime contractor for F-22. 
Orion. NASA and Lockheed Martin complete final assembly and testing of the Orion spacecraft, according to a Lockheed Martin statement. Orion is scheduled to roll to launch pad 37 at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., in November. Over the next few weeks, Orion and a Delta IV Heavy rocket provided by United Launch Alliance (ULA) will be integrated, powered and interfaces between the two will be verified in preparation for Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) on Dec. 4. During EFT-1, an uncrewed Orion spacecraft will launch on a Delta IV Heavy, travel 15 times farther into space than the International Space Station (ISS) and return to earth in the same day, culminating with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Orion is NASA’s next generation crewed space transportation vehicle. ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
DARPA Terhertz Electronics. Guinness World Records recognizes DARPA’s Terahertz Electronics program for creating the fastest solid-state amplifier integrated circuit ever measured, according to a DARPA statement. The 10-stage common-source amplifier operates at a speed of one terahertz (1,012 GHz), or one trillion cycles per second–150 billion cycles faster than the existing world record of 850 GHz set in 2012. Developed by Northrop Grumman, the Terahertz Monolithic Integrated Circuit (TMIC) exhibits power gains several orders of magnitude beyond the current state of the art. Gain, which is measured logarithmically in decibels, similar to how earthquake intensity is measured on the Richter scale, describes the ability of an amplifier to increase the power of a signal form the input to the output. The Northrop Grumman TMIC showed a measured gain of nine decibels at 1.0 terahertz and eight decibels at 1.03 terahertz. By contract, current smartphone technology operates at one to two GHz and wireless networks at 5.7 GHz.
DTRA Award. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) awards Thermopylae Sciences & Technology (TST) a $3.5 million contract to set up and integrate Google Search Appliance on DTRA’s networks, enabling the agency’s data to be searchable and discoverable, according to a company statement. In addition to a setup and integration period, Thermopylae will offer ongoing support for the effort for up to two years. Thermopylae will also install software to make searches more powerful as additional software tools will perform semantic analysis on searches in progress and make additional “smart” recommendations. A search for intelligence about a particular individual could, for example, yield additional information about cities where that person has lived, or recent places of employment, according to Thermopylae.
Boeing 300th CH-47F. Boeing says it delivers in October its 300th CH-47F Chinook helicopter to the Army, 75 days ahead of schedule. The CH-47F has a modernized airframe, Common Avionics Architecture System (CAAS) cockpit that improves crew situational awareness and the Digital Automatic Flight Control System (DAFCS), which offers enhanced flight-control capabilities for the multitude of conditions in which the helicopter is used. Since the completion of the first CH-47F Chinook in 2006, Boeing says 18 Army and National Guard units have been trained and equipped with the aircraft.
STRATCOM Exercise. U.S. Strategic Command conducts a key command and control (C2) exercise called Exercise Global Thunder 15, according to a command statement. Global Thunder 15 was an exercise designed to train Defense Department forces and assess joint operational readiness across all of STRATCOM’s mission areas with a specific focus on nuclear readiness. Global Thunder 15 was conducted in coordination with North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command’s (NORTHCOM) Exercise Vigilant Shield 15 and Canadian Joint Operations Command’s Exercise Determined Dragon 14, which aims to train participants in homeland defense processes.
Financial Dip at Exelis. Exelis on Friday reported its third quarter financials, saying net income fell 34 percent to $52 million, 27 cents earning per share (EPS), from $80 million (41 cents EPS) a year ago. Excluding costs associated with the recent spin-off if its former service business into Vectrus, adjusted earnings were $62 million (32 cents EPS), missing consensus estimates by four cents. Sales slipped 6 percent to just under $1.1 billion. The company recorded $1.5 billion in orders.
…A Mix at Rockwell Collins. Aerospace and defense electronics developer and manufacturer Rockwell Collins on Friday said its net income fell in the fourth quarter, although sales increased. Earnings fell 5 percent to $167 million ($1.23 EPS) from $175 million ($1.28 EPS), although all but $2 million of the decline was due to a loss from discontinued operations. Higher taxes, consolidation, pension and interest drove the profit decline while a drop in operating profit at the Government Systems segment was more than offset by increases at the Commercial Systems and Information Management Services segments. Sales increased 15 percent to $1.5 billion on the strength of the Commercial and Information Management businesses.