The INSIDER daily digest -- April 21, 2020

This Tuesday INSIDER Daily Digest has news from Lockheed Martin's quarterly earnings conference call with Wall Street analysts and more.

We start off with a bunch of news involving defense contractor Lockheed Martin:

Lockheed Martin says it expects coronavirus crisis to reduce F-35 production

Lockheed Martin said today it is lowering its sales guidance for the year, primarily because of expected challenges to F-35 production related to the coronavirus crisis.

Air Force to end Lockheed's LRSO funding this month, considers accelerating schedule

The Air Force will stop funding Lockheed Martin's risk-reduction work for the Long-Range Standoff Weapon program, after announcing last week it had chosen Raytheon's design, and is looking at ways to speed up the program's schedule.

USAF, Lockheed finalizing $62B contract to sell allies commoditized F-16 jets

The Air Force's F-16 program office is finalizing a contract worth up to $62 billion with Lockheed Martin to provide foreign partners a standard version of the advanced Block 70/72 Viper variant -- starting with Morocco and Taiwan.

Some missile defense news:

DOD eyes offensive attacks against North Korean threats while waiting for NGI

The Pentagon plans to attack North Korean long-range missiles while on the ground -- if it can target them -- as part of its new strategy to offset anticipated shortcomings in the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system caused by modernization delays, including the Next Generation Interceptor development schedule.

The goal of DARPA's Hallmark program was two-fold: to prove out a new acquisition model that could allow space capabilities to be better optimized for users and more quickly integrated into existing C2 frameworks and to mature new software tools to aid space operators by improving space situational awareness and using artificial intelligence to provide decision aids:

DARPA expects space agencies could begin testing to adopt Hallmark capabilities this summer

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recently closed out a five-year program aimed at modeling a new way to develop and test improved space battle management command-and-control tools, and expects several agencies interested in the program's work may begin testing and experimentation as soon as this summer.

Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord held a briefing this week on the Defense Department's efforts to mitigate impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic:

DOD expects three-month COVID-19 delay across all programs; needs 'billions and billions' to reimburse contractors

Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord said this week the COVID-19 outbreak will delay all major programs by about three months and require Congress to supplement the Defense Department with "billions and billions" of dollars to reimburse contractors experiencing virus-related challenges.