Navy

Raytheon has taken steps to put "normal best practices" in place in its missile systems business unit, the company's chief executive said today.

Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee who helped guide past budget deals to significantly boost defense spending, said today he supports the latest two-year budget compromise reached by the White House and Congress, despite the fact it is $12 billion less for the Pentagon that he thinks is necessary.

With the Navy's final order for multimission MH-60R helicopters recently placed, Lockheed Martin now expects orders from foreign customers for the anti-surface and submarine-hunting aircraft to keep the production line going for at least another two years, according to a company official.

The new two-year budget agreement means the Defense Department will absorb about $580 billion in reductions between fiscal years 2012 and 2021, far less than the $1 trillion worst-case scenario that originally loomed as part of the 2011 Budget Control Act, but still substantial reductions compared to plans set by U.S. military leaders in 2011.

A new, two-year bipartisan budget deal reached by the White House and congressional Republicans and Democrats would set total defense spending for fiscal year 2020 at $738 billion, $12 billion short of the $750 billion sought by the White House and GOP, according to government sources.

The Navy intends to award a contract to refresh a system aimed at protecting aircraft carriers from incoming torpedoes.

At the prompting of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the presumptive next defense secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff both declined to endorse a controversial reorganization of the Strategic Capabilities Office under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, pledging to review the proposed change.

Army Secretary Mark Esper, nominated to be defense secretary, today defended his time as a senior Raytheon executive as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) argued that his failure to commit to several of her recusal proposals "smacks of corruption, plain and simple."

The U.S. military requires a new high-agility interceptor and a layer of space-based sensors to defend against hypersonic threats, the presumed next defense secretary told lawmakers today, shedding new light on Defense Department thinking about elements of a hypersonic defense system.