Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions
Table of Contents

⚠ Disclaimer: This entry may be incomplete, out of date, or inaccurate. It is AI-maintained on a best-effort basis. Do not rely on it as a sole source — verify claims independently using the sources listed below.

Summary

Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions, based in Ashburn, Virginia, is the defense computing arm of Curtiss-Wright Corporation (NYSE: CW). It sells rugged compute at two tiers: OpenVPX GPU modules that defense primes slot into their own chassis, and compact PacStar edge computers. The VPX3-730 (3U, announced 2025-07-29) and VPX6-731 (6U, announced 2025-10-28) use NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell GPUs and are described as SOSA-aligned. In the same October 2025 announcement cycle it introduced the PacStar 431, built on NVIDIA IGX Thor. The parent reported Q2 2026 sales of $924M, of which Defense Electronics was $246M (down 3%), and on 2026-09-22 announced that COO Kevin Rayment will succeed CEO Lynn Bamford on 2027-01-01.

Key Facts

  • Parent: Curtiss-Wright Corporation, NYSE: CW; CEO Lynn M. Bamford (to 2026-12-31); Kevin M. Rayment becomes President and CEO 2027-01-01, with Bamford as Executive Chair
  • Division location: Ashburn, VA (per product announcements)
  • Parent financials (Q2 2026): sales $924M (+5%); Defense Electronics $246M (−3% from $253M), 28.0% operating margin; FY2026 sales guidance raised to $3,768–3,813M
  • Value chain position: component/subsystem supplier at the VPX module tier and the compact edge-system tier
  • VPX3-730: 3U OpenVPX GPU module; NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell; up to 50 TFLOPS peak; 100 GbE via ConnectX-7 over PCIe Gen5; SOSA-aligned (announced 2025-07-29)
  • VPX6-731: 6U OpenVPX; one or two RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell GPUs; up to 100 TFLOPS peak and 48 GB GDDR7; conduction-cooled, liquid flow-through and air flow-through options; designed for SOSA-aligned systems (announced 2025-10-28)
  • PacStar 431: NVIDIA IGX Thor with Blackwell GPU (IGX T5000); up to 2,070 TFLOPS AI performance (vendor rating); 14-core Arm Neoverse V3AE CPU; 128GB DDR5X; 25 GbE interfaces; enclosure 5.3" × 7.1" × 1.7" (announced 2025-10-28)
  • Standards: OpenVPX (VITA 65) and the SOSA Technical Standard for the VPX modules

What It Is / How It Works

VPX module tier. The VPX3-730 and VPX6-731 are cards a prime contractor adds to its own chassis, next to RF front-ends and FPGA processing. The company’s stated targets are radar, display and sensor-fusion systems that need deep-learning inference. SOSA alignment means the module is designed to the Sensor Open Systems Architecture technical standard so cards from different vendors can interoperate in aligned chassis.

PacStar tier. PacStar began as a tactical-communications line. The PacStar 431 is a compact enclosure rather than a rackmount server: a Blackwell-based IGX Thor module with 128GB of memory aimed at real-time inference, sensor fusion and autonomous processing at the edge. The 2,070 TFLOPS figure is the NVIDIA-platform AI rating cited by the vendor; the numeric precision behind it (and whether it assumes sparsity) is not stated in the sources reviewed.

SOSA context. DoD policy favors open, re-competable architectures. For a module vendor this opens new program starts but weakens proprietary lock-in; see the Mercury Systems entry for the same dynamic.

Notable Developments

  • 2026-09-22: CEO succession announced: Kevin Rayment (COO) becomes President and CEO on 2027-01-01; Lynn Bamford becomes Executive Chair. (SEC 8-K)
  • 2026-08-05: Q2 2026 results: Defense Electronics sales $246M; management cites record defense electronics orders and embedded computing demand from fighter and UAV programs; full-year guidance raised. (Business Wire)
  • 2025-10-28: VPX6-731 (6U) and PacStar 431 (IGX Thor) announced. (EE Journal — VPX6-731, EE Journal — PacStar 431)
  • 2025-07-29: VPX3-730 3U SOSA-aligned GPU module announced with NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell. (Military & Aerospace Electronics)

Key People

Brian Perry — Senior Vice President and General Manager, Defense Solutions Division

  • LinkedIn: not found
  • Role: named as head of the Defense Solutions division on Curtiss-Wright’s leadership page (Curtiss-Wright)

Lynn M. Bamford — Chair and CEO (CEO through 2026-12-31)

  • LinkedIn: not found
  • Role: becomes Executive Chair on 2027-01-01

Kevin M. Rayment — EVP and COO; incoming President and CEO (2027-01-01)

  • LinkedIn: not found

Prior employers were not confirmed from fetched sources.

People — Last Reviewed: 2026-10-23

Claim Verification

Claim: First SOSA-aligned Blackwell VPX modules

Status: Unverified

Supporting sources:

Refuting / questioning sources:

  • “Aligned” is a vendor term, not an independent conformance certification. Competing SOSA-aligned 6U GPU cards from other vendors appear in trade coverage, so “first” was not confirmed.

Summary: Alignment is a vendor assertion; priority over competitors is unconfirmed.

Claim: PacStar 431 delivers 2,070 TFLOPS

Status: Partially verified

Supporting sources:

  • EE Journal — “up to 2070 TFLOPS of AI performance,” described as 8x the prior IGX Orin 500

Refuting / questioning sources:

  • Precision (for example FP4) and sparsity assumptions are not stated, so the number is not comparable with FP16 or INT8 figures; no sustained thermal data for the 5.3" × 7.1" × 1.7" enclosure.

Summary: A vendor peak AI rating, not a sustained throughput.

Sources

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