Ultra Electronics wins $56m in contracts

Ultra Electronics has won contracts worth over $56 million for "battlespace" IT equipment as part of a new equipment replacement programme for the US Marines, Yahoo Finance reports.

The aerospace contractor`s CEO Douglas Caster said, "Ultra continues to enhance the capabilities of the battlespace IT products it supplies to the US and other armed forces around the world."

He added, "For this MRC-142 renewal programme, both TCS and DNE will supply advanced, reliable tactical communications equipment that will enhance the war fighting capabilities of the US Marine Corps."

Ultra, which employs 3 000 people in the UK and North America, makes IT equipment used on aircraft, ships, submarines, armoured vehicles, surveillance systems, airports and transport systems around the world.

An US Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate science and engineering team has made a significant breakthrough in its hypersonic computational research, which could lead to new warhead technology, the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research says.

Funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the team is studying the aerodynamic characteristics of projectiles that deform at hypersonic speeds at sea-level conditions, which is a high-speed flight regime not commonly studied.

Recently, the team determined the level of chemistry modelling needed to model hypersonic flows at sea-level conditions. Because hypersonic vehicles normally fly at very high altitudes, the research team had to answer some fundamentally new questions about hypersonic flight at sea-level conditions.

Harris announced its successful uplink to a Milstar satellite using an advanced extremely high frequency (AEHF) Navy multiband terminal prototype system.

This milestone follows the company`s announcement last month that it was the first to acquire and track low- and medium-data-rate waveforms on Milstar 6 using the same prototype terminal.

An SCA 2.2.1-compliant software programmable modem developed by Harris was instrumental in both successful demonstrations. Once fielded, the terminal will serve as the common element of naval information networks, providing interconnection of individual naval assets with other services and, eventually, with the global information grid.