Defense Infrastructure & Manufacturing

The U.S. Air Force is preparing to break ground on hundreds of new silos for its LGM-35A Sentinel program while pressing toward the next major test event for the B-21 Raider. Senior leaders point to time and cost gains from building fresh launch facilities instead of refitting 60-year-old Minuteman III sites. They also acknowledge a hard truth. Not every new location will fit neatly on federal land, so limited private land purchases may follow.

More than 3,200 machinists at Boeing’s defense plants in the St. Louis area went on strike just after midnight, early Monday, August 4. The union-IAM District 837-had voted down a new four-year contract the day before.

On July 24, Italy moved forward with a major defense project as L3Harris Technologies and ELT Group signed an agreement to build Europe’s first multi-sensor calibration and flight-test center. The signing took place inside a Ministry of Defense hangar in Rome. The new installation will let Italian and allied aircraft check radar, electronic warfare, and navigation systems without needing to travel to the U.S. The facility draws on L3Harris’ experience with its Greenville, Texas range and ELT’s long history in electromagnetic support.

Royal International Air Tattoo, Fairford – Michael Williamson, who heads Lockheed Martin International, says that several NATO members not flying the F-35 have come to the company with questions about what it would take to set up repair options for the jet at their own bases. This logic is straightforward: when an F-35 has to divert because of weather or combat damage, the crew shouldn’t have to wait for a transport plane or move the jet over a border just for repairs.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has set a six-month deadline for reaching a home-grown share of one-half in Ukraine’s overall weapons supply. The target, announced on 17 July after parliament approved a reshuffled cabinet, would lift the current forty-percent domestic share to fifty before mid-January 2026. Zelenskyy told lawmakers the country must move the fight onto Russian territory and cannot wait for each foreign shipment.

A new alliance between Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc. (BPMI) and Pittsburgh-based Gecko Robotics was unveiled on July 15. Announced during a White House technology round-table in Pittsburgh, the arrangement places Gecko’s autonomous inspection robots and data-analytics software inside BPMI’s nuclear-propulsion supply chain. Senior Navy officials describe the move as a direct response to slipping submarine-delivery schedules and mounting maintenance backlogs.

Sierra Space has placed its new “Power Station” technology center into full production. The site, located in Broomfield, Colorado, brings automated solar-array manufacturing under one roof. According to industry sources, the company finished factory acceptance tests early yesterday and shifted directly into contract work for defense satellites. The company invested $45 million to fit the 70,000-square-foot building with clean rooms, thermal-vacuum chambers, and vibration rigs.