58.9 F
San Diego
Monday, Mar 18, 2024
-Advertisement-

Making It Past ‘Milestone C’ Is Triton’s Current Mission

Executives at Northrop Grumman Corp. in Rancho Bernardo are keeping tabs on six test flights that its client, the U.S. Navy, is making with its Triton unmanned aircraft in Patuxent River, Maryland.

Triton is a version of Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC)’s Global Hawk, and the program has its home in Rancho Bernardo. The two-month series of flights began Nov. 17.

The Naval Air Systems Command recently reiterated its plans to order 68 Tritons in total, and have the first operational in 2017. NAVAIR said it expects to buy three Tritons in 2016.

The Navy’s immediate goal is to get the Triton program past a point that the Pentagon calls “Milestone C.” It’s a big step. Successfully passing Milestone C means that a program moves out of the engineering phase and into production and deployment.

Separately, Northrop Grumman won a program excellence award from Aviation Week in December. The award recognized the first autonomous aerial refueling, which happened earlier this year. The unmanned aircraft that took part in the April event was the X-47B. Northrop Grumman built two of the experimental aircraft, which are now retired. Like Triton, the X-47B program is based in Rancho Bernardo. Pablo Gonzalez is program manager.

The X-47B was originally built to test operations of unmanned aircraft on Navy carriers. The aircraft took off from, and made arrested landings on, carriers during 2013 and 2014.

• • •

Human Oversight: Though there is no pilot in the aircraft, unmanned systems need to interface with human beings somehow. The U.S. Air Force awarded General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. — maker of the Predator — a two-and-a-half year, $32.3 million deal to produce Block 30 ground control stations at its factory in Poway. The sole-source deal announced Dec. 7 is a delivery order to a previously awarded contract. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio awarded the work.

• • •

Woman-Owned Business Nets Deal: G2 Software Systems Inc. pulled in a U.S. Navy contract that may be worth as much as $70.5 million over as many as five years. Under the deal, awarded Oct. 29, San Diego-based G2 will provide technical, management and administrative support to the Joint Tactical Networking Center at SPAWAR headquarters in San Diego. (SPAWAR is the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command.)

The contract was a task order awarded under a SeaPort Enhanced contract, and a small-business set-aside. G2’s subcontractors on the deal are Booz Allen Hamilton, CommLargo, INCA, JANUS Research Group Inc., Paladin Systems, SAIC and WCG Solutions. G2 is a woman-owned small business; Georgia Griffiths is CEO.

• • •

Aegis Update: A portion of a $49 million weapons system contract awarded to Lockheed Martin Corp. will come to the San Diego waterfront. The Navy said on Dec. 1 that it had exercised an option for the test and integration of the Aegis Weapon System, now a common part of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

Some 12 percent of the work will come to San Diego and 10 percent to the Navy port of Norfolk, Va. Major amounts will go to Bath, Maine; Camden, N.J.; and Pascagoula, Miss.

The deal also covers integrated combat system modifications and upgrades.

The Aegis system combines a powerful radar and weapons control system. It has been adapted for ballistic missile defense.

Lockheed Martin’s (NYSE: LMT) Mission Systems and Training unit won the contract, which runs through November 2018. The Naval Sea Systems Command of Washington, D.C. awarded the deal.

• • •

Bringing Training Home: San Diego-based Tapestry Solutions said Dec. 2 that it is a subcontractor to Pasadena-based Parsons Corp. on a three-year training deal for the U.S. Army National Guard. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Tapestry and Parsons will help the National Guard offer simulation-supported training. Specifically, the partners will provide mission command training “in realistic tactical environments” to units during pre-mobilization training at National Guard mission training centers and other locations across the United States. Tapestry will provide services allowing National Guard units to train at their assigned unit locations without requiring travel to a regional center for the majority of the training.

Tapestry Solutions and sister company Miro Technologies are subsidiaries of Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA).

• • •

Sounding Off: The San Diego Military Advisory Council has released a detailed look at the economic impact of the local shipbuilding and repair industry, which reported sales of $1.5 billion in 2014. You’ll find a summary of the study elsewhere in this issue.

SDMAC got dignitaries together to discuss the study on a Monday morning, on the lawn in front of General Dynamics NASSCO’s executive offices. The news conference was punctuated with industrial noise. There was the din of a freight train passing in front of NASSCO offices, with auto carriers from the National City Marine Terminal behind it. There was the chime of the shipyard public address system, marking out portions of the hour. Leaving the news conference and walking along the fence of the sprawling yard, I heard the deep clang of a very heavy piece of metal coming in contact with another large surface, somewhere in the bowels of the place. The working waterfront is many things, but it’s not quiet.

• • •

Seen at December Nights: The retired A-12 Blackbird spy aircraft outside the San Diego Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park, with a red light on the end of its nose.

Send San Diego defense contracting news to bradg@sdbj.com.

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-