Rolls-Royce has announced it will sell its shareholding and interest in the RTM322 helicopter engine program to Turbomeca.

The FREMM frigate built for the Royal Moroccan Navy has been put to sea for the first time. This key milestone marks the launch of sea trials, which will be conducted over the next few weeks off the Brittany coast.

Eurocopter's first production Tiger helicopter in the HAD attack configuration was delivered to France's DGA armament procurement agency for operation by French Army Aviation units, providing a highly capable combat weapon system that is tailored to the world's evolving battlefield conditions.

The US Navy has awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat a $20 million contract modification for nuclear-maintenance work for submarines homeported at the Naval Submarine Base in Groton.

Defence's supplementary estimates for 2012-13 notes that C-RAM, the counter rocket, artillery and mortar capability in the form of a truck mounted Giraffe Agile Multi Beam radar, has been operating effectively in Afghanistan since December 2010 and that full operational capability in Afghanistan was achieved in September last year with FOC in Australia scheduled for earlier this year.

It turns out that the USMC and the Office of Naval Research are working to develop a laser weapon system that would fit on a tactical vehicle and provide ground-based air defence for troops and convoys against threats ranging from small unmanned aerial vehicles to missiles and manned aircraft.

In a recent article in Defence Week we pondered, in somewhat lightweight fashion, whether as a capability, a smaller number of P-8As could match the enhanced capabilities of the much upgraded AP-3C Orions, with their extensive sea and land-based surveillance capabilities.

ATK and Nioa Nominees have agreed to form ATK-NIOA Munitions, to deliver a commercially viable business model to the Australian Commonwealth in support of the Domestic Munitions Manufacturing Arrangements.

The Sicilian government is resisting US Navy efforts to place one of four Mobile User Objective System ground sites in Niscemi, Sicily, according to a service spokesman.

A blueprint for future scientific advice and technology support to defence was launched by the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel Warren Snowdon.

Quickstep has received new F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter purchase orders from Northrop Grumman Corporation during the third quarter 2012/13, under the long term agreements already signed with Northrop Grumman.

Rohde & Schwarz has released the Broadband Manpack Antenna R&SHK060, a vertically polarized omnidirectional receive and transmit antenna designed specifically for portable radios.

Illicit markets in East Asia and the Pacific earn organised criminal groups nearly US$90 billion a year - an amount roughly equal to twice the GDP of Myanmar, according to a UN Office on Drugs and Crime report released this week.

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The Marine Corps' RQ-21A small tactical unmanned aerial system is rapidly approaching several acquisition milestones in the coming months and is set for initial operational capability early next year, even as the Marines and industry are still brainstorming more ideas for payloads to attach to the drone.

The US Navy last month released a market survey seeking information from industry on potential improvements in selected subsystems of the F/A-18 aircraft, in order to "assess improvement initiatives for F/A-18 aircraft parts that are experiencing degradation due to wear and tear, as well as age," the survey notice states.