France- and Italy-based businesses of Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales and Leonardo, have landed spots on a potential $6 billion NASA contract vehicle covering spacecraft systems and support services through an on-ramp solicitation process. The agency issued the first RAPID IV on-ramp award nearly eight months after its original selection of five aerospace companies to participate in the program.

Leonardo has teamed up with General Atomics' aeronautical systems business to test and offer an expendable active decoy system as an off-the-shelf protection option for the MQ-9 remotely piloted aircraft.

Jamie McMullin, former senior director of naval power systems at Leonardo DRS, has been appointed as vice president of business development and strategy at Fairbanks Morse's aftermarket business.

Northrop Grumman intends to equip the U.S. Navy's fleet of E-2D Advanced Hawkeye early warning aircraft with a new Leonardo-made high-frequency radio designed for protected voice and data communications and stable information transfer.

Leonardo DRS secured an initial award under a potential five-year, $600 million contract from General Dynamics' land systems business to manufacture 28 mission equipment packages for the U.S. Army's Initial Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense platforms being developed by the latter.

Leonardo and General Atomics' aeronautical systems business have teamed up to incorporate the former's active electronically scanned array maritime radar into the latter's MQ-9B SeaGuardian remotely piloted aircraft.

Leonardo DRS and Israeli defense technology company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems have delivered the last batch of active protection systems built for installation into the U.S. Army's Abrams battle tank fleet for enhanced ground vehicle survivability.

Leonardo is set to conduct final tests for the latest configuration of a multimission airlifter that is designed to perform military transport operations and is scheduled for delivery to an undisclosed client in 2021.

Leonardo DRS' facility in Cypress, California, will operate as a center of excellence to develop artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies for the U.S. government. The facility, which has functioned as Advanced Engineering CoE under Leonardo DRS' electro-optical and infrared systems business, offers expertise in technologies applicable to multiple domains such as land and space, the company said Monday.

James McFadyen, formerly a vice president at Leonardo DRS' naval power systems group, has been named VP and general manager of the aftermarket business at Fairbanks Morse.

Leonardo has begun designing a robotic technology for the European Space Agency's platform to collect samples gathered by NASA's Perseverance rover from the surface of Mars.

A General Atomics remotely piloted aircraft has been equipped with a Leonardo-built technology that works to scan wide areas for radar emissions. The MQ-9B SeaGuardian RPA now includes SAGE 750, an electronic support measure system designed to collect intelligence data on surrounding land- and sea-based radars, General Atomics said Thursday.

BAE Systems and Leonardo have been awarded a potential $420M contract to develop the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA), the European Common Radar System Mark 2 (ECRS Mk2) for the Royal Air Force's (RAF) Eurofighter Typhoons, BAE said Thursday. Under the contract, the two companies will work to develop a standard radar to be integrated on to RAF Typhoons.

A Spyris Solutions subsidiary has secured a contract from Leonardo DRS to produce shipboard electronic assemblies in support of a U.S. Navy program.

Leonardo DRS has booked a $62M contract to supply 118 motor control panels for ship-based canisters designed to help the U.S. Navy and international defense customers fire missiles at hostile threats.