L3Harris Books $19.3 Billion in a Single Quarter as Backlog Hits $53.2 Billion

L3Harris posted $6.06B in Q3 2026 revenue, booked $19.3B in orders, and lifted backlog 47% year over year to $53.2B. Space & Mission Systems drives the volume, while Communications & Spectrum Dominance, with a 25.2% margin, drives the profit.

LHX · Industrials · October 29, 2026

S&P 500 Position

L3Harris sits in the Industrials sector's Aerospace & Defense industry alongside the large U.S. defense primes. Its differentiation is the electronics and space-payload mix rather than platform integration. A record $53.2B backlog and 3x-plus quarterly book-to-bill position it as a growth name within a sector that otherwise trades on steady cash flow.

Index Weight: Data unavailable | Rank: Data unavailable (market cap not provided)

Company Overview

L3Harris is a three-engine defense electronics company: sensors and payloads in space, radios and electronic warfare on the ground, and propulsion-driven missile work. Q3 2026 showed which engine sets the pace. Space & Mission Systems (SMS) grew 10% to $3.09B. Management attributed that growth to missile warning and tracking, classified space programs, ISR, FAA work and F-35 volumes. Missile Solutions grew 17% organically once the divested commercial space propulsion business is excluded. Communications & Spectrum Dominance (CSD) grew just 3%, but its 25.2% segment margin is more than double the margin of either sibling segment. The order book is the headline. Q3 orders of $19.3B against $6.06B of revenue put the quarter's book-to-bill above 3x. Total backlog reached $53.2B, up 27% sequentially and 47% year over year. Funded backlog is $31B. CFO Ken Sharp gave that figure on the call after the CEO first cited roughly $22B. For anyone modeling the company, the funded number matters more than the headline, because it shows how much of the backlog has appropriated money behind it. Even so, the funded figure alone exceeds the trailing twelve months of revenue. The technically interesting work sits at the edges of the portfolio. In CSD, the VAMPIRE counter-UAS system is ramping, and international software-defined radio deliveries are adding volume. Both are software-heavy products that are cheap to iterate on, which explains why that segment's margin profile looks closer to a tech company's than a prime contractor's. In SMS, missile warning and tracking payloads place L3Harris directly in the architecture for detecting and tracking hypersonic and ballistic threats from orbit. The main supply-side risk is China's rare earth export curbs, which threaten the magnet and materials supply chains that missiles and RF hardware depend on.

Products & Revenue

Revenue and profit come from different places. SMS is half the top line, but it is cost-plus-heavy space and airborne integration work at a 10.9% margin. CSD is roughly a third of revenue at a 25.2% margin. That works out to about $504M of Q3 segment operating income, versus $338M from SMS and roughly $127M from Missile Solutions, so CSD generates about half of segment profit. The reason is its product model: tactical and international software-defined radios, plus electronic warfare and counter-UAS systems like VAMPIRE. These are catalog-style products built on reusable waveforms and software stacks, so each additional unit carries more margin than bespoke integration work. Missile Solutions is the growth story at 17% organic, though its 12.0% margin slipped 30 bps on mix. The combination of a $53.2B backlog and a $31B funded backlog gives multi-year revenue visibility across all three segments.

Space & Mission Systems (50%): This segment builds space payloads for missile warning and tracking and for classified programs, along with ISR mission systems, FAA programs and F-35 content. Q3 2026 revenue was $3,093M (+10% YoY), with operating income of $338M and a 10.9% margin, up 20 bps.

Communications & Spectrum Dominance (33%): This segment covers software-defined tactical radios, electronic warfare and counter-UAS systems such as VAMPIRE. Q3 2026 revenue was $2.0B (+3% YoY) at a 25.2% margin, up 50 bps on the VAMPIRE ramp and international radio deliveries.

Missile Solutions (17%): This segment handles propulsion and missile-related production. Q3 2026 revenue was $1.06B, up 5% reported and 17% organic after excluding the divested commercial space propulsion business. The margin was 12.0%, down 30 bps on mix.

Based on Q3 2026 results (Form 10-Q for the period ended Oct 2, 2026; Q3 earnings call, Oct 29, 2026). Percentages are computed against the $6.15B sum of segment revenue before intersegment eliminations; consolidated revenue was $6.06B. CSD and Missile Solutions operating income figures are approximations derived from reported revenue and margin. The company description supplied in the data profile, which cites Communication Systems, Electronic Systems, and Space and Intelligence Systems, reflects the legacy pre-merger Harris structure and is outdated.

Leadership

Mehta (full name unavailable in research; identified as CEO on the Q3 2026 earnings call)

CEO since Data unavailable. Mehta led the Q3 2026 earnings call, which presented a record $53.2B backlog and a raised 2026 outlook. Biographical detail, technical background and start date are unavailable in the research findings.

Ken Sharp, Chief Financial Officer: Sharp clarified on the Q3 call that funded backlog stands at $31B, the number that anchors near-term revenue visibility.

The AI Angle

AI at the edge of the spectrum

The research findings contain no specifically branded AI products, models or announced AI partnerships for L3Harris, so the analysis below starts from the portfolio rather than press releases. The AI story runs through the products already generating revenue: counter-UAS, electronic warfare, software-defined radios and space-based missile tracking. Each of these is a real-time signal-classification problem. VAMPIRE has to detect and engage small drones in cluttered environments. Spectrum-dominance systems have to identify and respond to emitters faster than a human operator. Missile warning and tracking payloads have to separate threats from background in orbital sensor data. On infrastructure, the relevant compute for L3Harris is not a data center. It is inference inside radios, EW pods, payloads and launch-control hardware, all under strict size, weight and power limits. The software-defined radio franchise shows the company's core competency is shipping updatable software onto fielded hardware. That is the same delivery mechanism any onboard AI model needs. Build-versus-buy decisions, model vendors and partnerships are not disclosed in the research findings (data unavailable). Named AI research leadership and team structure are likewise unavailable in the findings. The talent signal shows up in the margins instead. CSD's 25.2% segment margin shows that the software-centric part of the business is where L3Harris earns its premium, and that is where machine learning compounds value. On competition, the counter-UAS and EW markets reward speed of iteration, and software-native defense entrants pressure incumbents on exactly that axis. L3Harris holds two advantages: installed hardware across allied forces, illustrated by its international radio deliveries, and classified space program access that new entrants cannot easily replicate. The risk is that autonomy and targeting software become the differentiated layer while the hardware becomes a commodity. A second risk is supply: rare earth export curbs threaten the hardware that the software runs on.

Financial Snapshot

Revenue (TTM): $22.93B (TTM, period ended 2026-06-30) | Net Income: $1.87B (TTM net income)

Margins: Gross: data unavailable; operating: data unavailable at consolidated level (Q3 2026 segment margins: SMS 10.9%, CSD 25.2%, Missile Solutions 12.0%); net 8.2%

The TTM figures ending June 2026 already trail the business. Q3 revenue of $6.06B annualizes above $24B, and management raised 2026 revenue and earnings guidance. The balance sheet is conservatively levered at 0.53x debt/equity, and $31B of funded backlog supports multi-year revenue. The portfolio is being actively pruned, as the divestiture of the commercial space propulsion business shows, to concentrate on defense-core growth.

1-Year Performance

$278.43, down 1.3% year over year. The stock is essentially flat while backlog grew 47% over the same period.

The stock's flat year contrasts with operating momentum: Q3 2026 beat earnings and revenue estimates, guidance was raised, and orders hit $19.3B. The gap between the order book and the share price leaves room for a rerating if the funded backlog converts on schedule. Rare earth supply risk tied to Chinese export curbs is the most visible overhang.

Recent News

Fun Fact: The legacy Harris Corporation profile, which still circulates in some data feeds, describes a company with about $6 billion in annual revenue. L3Harris now generates that amount in a single quarter: Q3 2026 revenue was $6.06B. In that same quarter it booked $19.3B of orders, more than three years of legacy Harris revenue.