Northrop Grumman’s LITENING Advanced Targeting has maintained an operational availability rate of 95 percent over more than two years, according to a company release. US and coalition military forces have flown LITENING AT for more than 370,000 combat hours out of a total of nearly 800,000 operational hours. The US Air Force flies the system on A-10, B-52, F-15E, and F-16 aircraft.
Facing competition from fast-growing startups, Lockheed Martin is speeding up production of an “affordable, scalable” hypersonic glide body, dubbed the Next Generation Glide Body, the firm said in a June 24 release.