The story
L3 Technologies and Harris Corporation
The "Harris Automatic Press Company" was founded by Alfred S. Harris in Niles, Ohio, in 1895. The company spent the next 60 years developing lithographic processes and printing presses before acquiring typesetting company Intertype Corporation. In 1967, they merged with Radiation, Inc. of Melbourne, Florida, a developer of antenna, integrated circuit, and modem technology used in the space race. The company headquarters was moved from Cleveland to Melbourne in 1978. In May 2015, Harris finalized the purchase of competitor Exelis Inc., almost doubling the size of the original company.
L-3 Communications was formed in 1997 to acquire certain business units from Lockheed Martin that had previously been part of Loral Corporation. These units had belonged to Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta, which had merged three years before in 1993. The company was founded by, and named for, Frank Lanza and Robert LaPenta in partnership with Lehman Brothers. Lanza and LaPenta had both served as executives at Loral and Lockheed. The company continued to expand through mergers and acquisitions to become one of the top ten U.S. government contractors. At the end of 2016, the company changed its name from L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc. to L3 Technologies, Inc. to better reflect the company's wider focus since its founding in 1997.
Between 1999 and August 2021, L3Harris and predecessors spent $131.9 million lobbying for radio procurement for ICE and CBP ($20,000), the Intelligence Authorization Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, and Defense appropriations ($1,510,000), DHS fund appropriations for unmanned vehicles ($430,000), and night vision systems research ($20,000).
In 2008, 72 Iraqi civilians sued L3 Services for human rights violations they had endured at Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq, including "torture; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; war crimes; assault and battery; sexual assault and battery; intentional infliction of emotional distress; negligent hiring and supervision; and negligent infliction of emotional distress." A settlement was reached on October 10, 2012, which was the "first positive resolution to a U.S. civil case challenging detainee treatment outside the United States in the larger 'war on terror' context".
In 2012, L3 subsidiary KDI Precision Products participated in the sale of 11,500 JDAM bomb fuzes to Israel, part of a $647 million contract deal. These were among the weapons used by the IDF in the 2014 Gaza War; the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights highlighted the IDF's weapons usages, which included attacks on densely populated civilian areas, as constituting potential war crimes.
Post-merger
In October 2018, Harris and L3 announced an all-stock "merger of equals". As part of that deal, Harris was required to sell its night vision division. The reasoning was that a merger of Harris and L3's night vision departments would create an effective monopoly on the night vision industry. The merger was completed in June 2019. The new company, L3Harris Technologies, Inc., is based in Melbourne, Florida, where Harris was headquartered. The new company was led by former Harris CEO William M. Brown as the Chairman and CEO, with former L3 CEO as the President and COO. In June 2021, Brown turned over the role of CEO to Chris Kubasik, retaining the title of Executive Chair, and Kubasik adding the title of Vice Chair.
Between 2006 and July 2021, L3Harris was awarded 136 U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts totalling $308.2 million, "as well as six blanket purchase orders potentially worth up to $6 billion".
In 2018, L3Harris acquired two Australian zero-day exploit development companies, Azimuth Security and Linchpin Labs, which were merged as Trenchant. The two companies are reportedly suppliers of zero-day exploits for the Five Eyes and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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In 2019, L3Harris paid $13 million to settle allegations that Harris, before the merger, violated Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations regulations. According to a proposed charging letter Harris Corporation violated AECA (22U.S.C.2751 et seq.) and ITAR (22 CFR parts 120–131) for a total of 131 separate violations.
In January 2022, L3Harris reorganized its business structure, eliminating the Aviation Systems business segment and distributing its divisions between the remaining three Integrated Mission Systems, Space & Airborne Systems, and Communications Systems segments.
In June 2022, Chris Kubasik succeeded as the Chair following Bill Brown's retirement. That same month it was reported to have held talks to purchase the Israeli company NSO, which builds Pegasus spyware. White House officials heard of the talks and voiced opposition, resulting in L3Harris discontinuing its plans.
In December 2022, L3Harris agreed to buy Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings for $4.7 billion in cash. The acquisition was completed on 28 July 2023.
In October 2025, Israel entered into a memorandum of understanding with L3Harris to facilitate the acquisition of new light attack aircraft intended for border defense, aimed at developing the Israeli Sky Warden variant.
In January 2026, L3Harris agreed to sell a majority stake in the Aerojet Rocketdyne "Space Propulsion and Power Systems" sector to AE Industrial Partners, who will spin off the business under the name "Rocketdyne". The deal includes the RL10 upper stage engine used on the Vulcan rocket, but not the RS-25 engine used by the Space Launch System. The remaining Missile Solutions business is planned to undergo an IPO as a new company, with L3Harris retaining controlling ownership and the US Government investing $1 billion. Both transactions are expected to be completed in the second half of 2026.
In June 2026, during the Eurosatory defence exhibition in Paris, Baykar subsidiary Skydagger signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with L3Harris Technologies for the integration of its interceptor drone technologies, including the Hunter variant, into L3Harris’s VAMPIRE counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) platform.
From Wikipedia’s article on L3Harris, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.9