Lockheed Martin

Spaceport America has launched two unmanned commercial rockets and touts plans for space tourism, but some secret rocket research also is being done.

At a muddy test track in Grand Prairie, Texas, 13 miles west of Dallas, the robot is winning. It has climbed on top of a sedan, its 2.5-ton bulk propped on the crumpled roof. The car never stood a chance. The MULE (Multifunction Utility/Logistics and Equipment) is roughly the size of a Humvee, but it has a trick worthy of monster truck rallies. Each of its six wheels is mounted on an articulated leg, allowing the robot to clamber up obstacles that other cars would simply bump against.

US military vehicle equipped with the Active Denial System (Photo: US Department of Defense) Crowd control always presents a problem for the military and police. How do you keep people away from a site without direct physical confrontation, when someone is almost sure to get hurt? Tear gas has variable effects and depends on wind; rubber bullets have killed. But what about a system that inflicts pain at a distance, without contact?

They're being thrown out of Iraq, they carry a reputation of being brutal and undisciplined killers, but the DoD may have something sweet lined up for Blackwater.

The Pentagon is paying Lockheed Martin to try to predict insurgencies and civil unrest like the weather. It's part of a larger military effort to blend forecasting software with social science that has some counterinsurgency experts cringing.

The U.S. arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street's favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier favourite, Barack Obama.

A test of a missile defense system successfully intercepted a ballistic target, the U.S. military said on Saturday, constituting a boost to the development of an anti-missile shield program.

As video communications is integrated into robots, soldiers, and UAVs, and network-centric warfare becomes the organizing principle of American warfighting, front-line demands for bandwidth are rising sharply. The Transformation Communications Satellite (TSAT) System is part of a larger effort by the US military to address this need.

The U.S. Defense Department has invited five contractors to bid on elements of a new multibillion-dollar effort to combat the global flow of illegal drugs allegedly used to finance terrorism.

Airborne Laser (ABL), a U.S. Air Force program aimed at destroying enemy ballistic missiles as they rise off their launch pads, could be deployed against conventional aircraft and even ground targets, according to prime contractor Boeing. During a Sep. 4 teleconference, Greg Hyslop, Boeing Airborne Laser vice president and program manager, said the Air Force is developing operational concepts for the beam weapon that could include “other missions and targets.”