In an era defined by rapid technological change and increasingly complex security challenges, the most consequential advances emerge where operational experience, academic rigor, and industrial scale intersect.
Built on a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), sustained faculty‑industry engagement, mission‑driven experimentation, and collaboration across classified and unclassified environments, the nearly decade-long relationship between RTX and the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) advances defense-relevant education, research, and innovation. Together, they connect postgraduate-level classroom insight to real‑world missions, align emerging technologies with ethical and operational realities, and deliver impact across the national‑security enterprise.
Well before the first formal CRADA was signed, RTX and its three businesses had well-established collaboration in NPS’ educational and research ecosystem. Collins Aerospace (Rockwell Collins at the time) helped seed early unmanned systems research through active participation in the NPS Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER), Pratt & Whitney strengthened propulsion research through test equipment and lab support, and Raytheon engineers instructed as adjunct lecturers—particularly in missile system design.
These early engagements built trust and a mutual appreciation for operationally informed research. NPS students are experienced military professionals and civilian leaders, educated in the realities of conflict, deterrence, logistics, and command. RTX engineers are working on the cutting edge of aerospace and defense technologies. The relationship provided RTX and NPS a forum for sustained, mutually beneficial collaboration – a crucible where technology meets mission.
"By combining highly skilled engineering teams with operational expertise and advanced technologies, this collaboration brings powerful insight to some of the nation’s most complex defense challenges," said Hsin-Fu “Sinker” Wu, RTX co‑Principal Investigator of the RTX‑NPS CRADA and lead for collaboration efforts. “Working together, we are creating an environment where innovative concepts can be rigorously developed and translated into operationally relevant capabilities.”
The relationship matured into formal cooperation in 2019 with the signing of the first CRADA between Raytheon and NPS. The inaugural project focused on one of the most pressing issues confronting modern militaries: how to responsibly command and control autonomous systems operating in complex, contested environments.
The project addressed undersea command, control, and communications for unmanned systems, with a particular emphasis on ethical human supervision. This research in Ethical Control of Unmanned Systems applies precepts of Network Optional Warfare (NOW) to develop a three-step Mission Execution Ontology (MEO) methodology for validating, simulating, and implementing mission orders for unmanned systems. Through monthly technical interchange meetings, the teams developed foundational approaches that set conditions for responsible deployment of unmanned platforms in contested maritime environments. The joint RTX–NPS team explored frameworks that balanced autonomy with accountability—work that later informed national discussions on trusted and ethical artificial intelligence.
The collaborative process of this effort ensured researchers, engineers, and military practitioners remained aligned on real operational constraints.
Following the success of the initial CRADA, the collaboration expanded in both scale and ambition. Follow‑on projects tackled areas of growing importance amid evolving peer threats, including advanced metamaterials to counter microwave and directed energy threats and analytic approaches to managing uncertainty in hypersonic flight trajectories.
Research outcomes were shared with the broader defense community, and in several cases, NPS‑RTX collaboration helped shape future capability decisions by demonstrating both feasibility and operational relevance.
The metamaterials research produced results that led to further collaboration with the Office of Naval Research. The hypersonics project yielded a joint AIAA SciTech paper, advancing modeling techniques and strengthening RTX’s thought leadership in high‑speed weapons analysis.
This period also marked deeper institutional engagement. RTX supported campaign analysis courses, contributed to wargaming and modeling efforts, and participated in technical workshops that brought together NPS faculty and students, government sponsors, and industry experts. What began as research collaboration increasingly functioned as a strategic dialogue about future warfare.
RTX actively supports the Meyer Scholar Program at NPS to help prepare officers to lead the development and employment of advanced naval warfare technologies. RTX provides these scholars with vital insights into advanced combat systems, including the SPY-6 radar and associated missile systems.
“RTX routinely provides the Meyers Scholars with classified seminars on both well-established and emerging capabilities being employed by the fleet,” said John Hammerer, Chair, Integrated Air and Missile Defense at NPS. “Meyer Scholars learn about systems such as the SPY-6 air and missile defense radar and the family of Standard Missiles used for air and missile defense and anti-surface missions to a degree not possible in other professional training programs. Scholars have also fulfilled thesis research and field trip requirements by collaborating with RTX engineers and visiting RTX production and research facilities.”
By 2024, RTX and NPS aligned collaboration efforts with NPS’ Strategic Framework priorities of education, research, innovation and institutional engagement.
One notable example involved analysis supporting an Advanced Distributed Radar (ADR) concept of employment, which helped clarify how emerging sensing architectures could be integrated into future naval operations. Additionally, RTX analysts supported and contributed analytic rigor to NPS‑led simulations and adjudication efforts for complex wargaming events.
These activities demonstrated the partnership’s ability to translate technical research into operational insight that informed force design, doctrine, and acquisition decisions – a win for NPS students and the Fleet.
Education and talent development also remained central. Few know that industry with active defense contracts can send their employees to NPS. RTX embraced the idea. Its employees leverage NPS distance‑learning degrees and certificates, strengthening a pipeline of engineers fluent in joint and naval warfare problem sets. That investment paid dividends in the defense industry workforce: engineers with both deep technical expertise and fluency in the realities of modern warfare gained from studying alongside NPS students.
RTX leaders and technologists maintain a consistent presence at NPS through guest lectures and small group engagements and by participating in NPS and NPS Foundation-hosted events such as Warfare Innovation Continuum (WIC) workshops and Converge @ NPS. These forums enable real‑time engagement with students, faculty, small businesses, and government stakeholders to surface early-stage ideas, accelerate concept development, connect students with mentors, and expose RTX technologists to emerging operational needs.
Through the ongoing partnership, NPS benefits from insights into evolving defense‑industrial challenges, such as production realities and systems integration at scale. This mutual understanding helps ensure research priorities remain grounded in real‑world constraints.
“One of the greatest strengths of NPS is our ability to connect and empower our faculty and operationally experienced students directly to industry talent leading the technologies shaping the future fight,” said Kaitie Penry, NPS Director of Emerging Technology and Innovation. “Collaboration with industry strengthens NPS’ education and research and helps accelerate the transition of promising solutions into prototype capabilities for the warfighter.”
With renewed agreements in place as of 2025, RTX and NPS are positioned to deepen collaboration in areas such as mission engineering and operations analysis, advanced propulsion concepts, long‑range fires, and resilient command‑and‑control architectures. Each effort reflects the same guiding principle that has defined the partnership from the beginning: innovation must serve operational needs, ethical commitments, and national interests simultaneously.
As global competition intensifies and technological change accelerates, partnering like this with leading industry is essential to keep NPS and our warfighters at the cutting edge. The RTX–Naval Postgraduate School collaboration demonstrates how sustained industry‑academic engagement creates lasting advantage for the nation.
