Mercury (MRCY) Launches Rock 4 Mission Computer With Intel
Mercury Systems MRCY unveiled the first safety certifiable, small-form factor and ruggedized mission computer, ROCK 4, with Intel Corporation’s INTC 11th generation Core i7 processors.
The computer features Mercury’s BuiltSAFE commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) elements and artifacts, which are tested, certified and fielded more than 30 years on airborne platforms to deliver optimal performance and accelerate safety-critical systems integration. The BuiltSAFE technology reduces recertification needs while maximizing interoperability and speed technology refresh.
The company’s ROCK 4 mission computer enables system engineers and integrators to quickly scale computing infrastructure to speed artificial intelligence and autonomous mission applications without significant wait. Its stackable, passively cooled and lightweight design is easy to install and doesn't require special cooling systems. It features 4x4 video/sensor switch that captures, processes and connects video to four displays. Its 2 tera byte of built-in solid-state drive memory records raw camera and map data for mission debriefs and algorithm development.
Mercury Systems Inc Price and Consensus
Mercury Systems Inc price-consensus-chart | Mercury Systems Inc Quote
Mercury’s general manager for mission systems, Wolfgang Tostmann, stated, “ROCK 4 is the ideal solution for fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft that can benefit from enhanced capabilities that were not part of their original design, such as advanced surveillance, sense-and-avoid, autonomous, and semi-autonomous flight applications that enhance pilot situational awareness and increase aircraft survivability. ROCK 4 enhances the mission computing capabilities of the Mercury processing platform, enabling customers to bend the curve for the most critical aerospace and defense missions.”
The newly launched mission computer enables rapid upgradation of air- and ground-based platforms with new sensors and mission applications that increase safety and effectiveness. Some of the first customers for ROCK 4 consist of several European police forces that upgraded their existing helicopter fleets. The mission computers from Mercury enable their helicopters to run artificial intelligence-powered search and rescue and surveillance applications and process video for multiple cockpit displays.
Mercury's domain expertise in analog and digital integration helped it build a solid business relationship with defense prime contractors. In January, the company revealed its next-generation rugged edge servers (RES) with an aim to enhance compute-intensive edge workloads and drive quick insights for the aerospace and defense applications. The latest-gen RES X08 leverages COTS technologies like Intel’s fourth-generation Xeon Scalable processors, NVIDIA’s double-wide H100 graphic processing units, high-speed DDR5 memory, 400 giga-bytes per second network cards and compute express link and latest data storage technologies.
In January, MRCY unveiled DRF3182 direct radio frequency processing module, which is the industry’s first signal processing board purpose-built for the aerospace and defense applications. Featuring Intel’s Stratix 10 AX system-on-chip field programmable gate array, the processing board intends to make sure that the modern electronic warfare and radar systems are able to significantly increase processing densities.
In November 2022, the company launched a radiation-tolerant version of its 8GB DDR4 memory component that sets a new bar for performance in data-intensive processing applications in space. In October 2022, Mercury announced that its rapidly reprogrammable electronic attack training system, mPOD, successfully underwent final flight testing and is now available for order.
The mPOD is a jammer training pod designed to train, test and evaluate military pilots for combat in electromagnetic environments. It simulates realistic adversary jamming threats to better prepare the U.S. pilots by forming unique strategies to gain an advantage over adversaries. This solution offers integrated threat presentations, which drastically reduce training costs for the U.S. Air Force and Navy.
The company’s sustained focus on introducing new and advanced products is helping it win new contracts. Mercury's total bookings at the third quarter end of fiscal 2023 were $245 million, reflecting a book-to-bill ratio of 0.93. MRCY ended the quarter with a backlog of $1.10 billion, up $103.2 million from a year ago. From this backlog, products worth $695 million are expected to be shipped within the next 12 months.
Zacks Rank & Key Picks
Mercury currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell), while Intel has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Shares of MRCY and INTC have lost 31.4% and 1.6%, respectively, over the past year.
Some better-ranked stocks from the broader Computer and Technology sector are Meta Platforms META and ServiceNow NOW, each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
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META’s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in two of the trailing four quarters, missing twice, the average surprise being 15.5%. Shares of the company have climbed 71.6% in the past year.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for ServiceNow’s second-quarter 2023 earnings has been revised northward by 6.2% to $2.05 per share over the past 60 days. For 2023, earnings estimates have moved up by 43 cents to $9.59 in the past 60 days.
NOW's earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in all the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 10.4%. Shares of the company have inched up 27.4% in the past year.
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