American Firsts: A Timeline of L3Harris Innovations That Bolstered U.S. Leadership in Tech
L3Harris highlights milestones from 1929 to present, detailing innovations that advanced U.S. defense, aviation, space, and weather monitoring technologies, including pilot trainers, radar systems, and Mars mission contributions.
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In 1929, Ed Link invented the first pilot trainer at L3Harris’s Binghamton, New York facility, later training 500,000 airmen during World War II. The company’s early aerial reconnaissance programs, beginning in Greenville, Texas, evolved into advanced signals intelligence capabilities, supporting modern fleets like the U.S. Air Force’s RC-135 aircraft and the U.K. Royal Air Force’s reconnaissance platforms.
L3Harris developed foundational technologies such as the first Doppler Weather Radar, essential for forecasting, and the Traveling Wave Tube, used in early night vision devices. The company’s fiber-optic tethers now provide secure, unjammable communications for drones and subsea platforms, addressing vulnerabilities in contested environments where adversaries disrupt radio signals.
The company contributed to NASA’s Viking 1 Mars mission in 1976, providing engines for the Titan IIIE-Centaur rocket and the lander’s descent system, which captured the first photo on Mars. L3Harris also supported the Ingenuity helicopter’s 2021 flights on Mars by supplying relay communications technology and components for the Atlas V rocket that launched the Perseverance rover.
L3Harris achieved the first fully autonomous launch and recovery of an underwater vehicle from a U.S. Navy submarine using its Iver4 AUV technology. The company introduced the first Network-Centric Collaborative Targeting System for the U.S. Air Force, enabling real-time networking of ISR data across multiple platforms, and developed the first NSA Type-1 certified handheld radio, the Falcon III AN/PRC-152A, to enhance military communications.