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This Global Hawk Mission Not Clouded in Secrecy, Just Clouds

NASA plans to dispatch one of its high-altitude, unmanned Global Hawk aircraft to investigate El Niño weather patterns in the Pacific Ocean — and perhaps help the U.S. government fine-tune its weather forecasts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (aka NOAA) plans to collect the environmental data with sophisticated sensing gear aboard a NASA Global Hawk.

Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) built the Global Hawk and supports the aircraft from its office in Rancho Bernardo. The mission control center will be at the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert.

Global Hawk is a military aircraft — the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and NATO are among the forces that fly it. NASA, however, owns two of the first Global Hawks that Northrop Grumman built. They can fly as high as 65,000 feet and stay aloft for 28 hours.

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Radios for Whirlybirds: ViaSat Inc. said it will supply radios for U.S. Army Apache helicopters that Boeing Co. will produce over the next two years. The radios, called Link 16 small tactical terminals, will go aboard production lots 5 and 6 of the Apache AH-64E Guardian attack helicopters. Carlsbad-based ViaSat (Nasdaq: VSAT) plans to build approximately 90 radios for prime contractor Boeing (NYSE: BA). Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The radios are two-channel, software-defined models. They are small in the area known as “SWaP” — that is, size, weight and power.

The award is “a key first step in laying the groundwork for future terminals that will provide key operational data to warfighters but in form factors previously considered unimaginable,” said Ken Peterman, senior vice president and general manager for ViaSat’s government systems division, in a prepared statement. The deal was announced Jan. 28.

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Time Out for Anchorage: BAE Systems San Diego Ship Repair will spend part of this year conducting shipyard work on the USS Anchorage. The Anchorage is a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock that can carry a landing force of 700-800 Marines, in addition to its 374 sailors. The $25.6 million deal covers what the Navy calls depot-level maintenance as well as alterations and modifications to upgrade the 684-foot ship’s capabilities. Work will continue through October. The U.S. Navy’s Southwest Regional Maintenance Center of San Diego announced the contract modification, made public Jan. 28.

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That Unseen Work, Software: Also on Jan. 28, the U.S. Air Force awarded $17.7 million to Poway-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. for software work on the Reaper unmanned aircraft. Work will continue through November 2017. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio awarded the contract modification.

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Catapult Control: San Diego-based General Atomics awarded Massachusetts-based QinetiQ North America a subcontract to deliver control hardware and software for the aircraft catapult and recovery systems on the future aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy. The deal is worth $16 million to QinetiQ, the Boston-area company said early this year.

General Atomics is the main contractor behind the electromagnetic catapults and advanced arresting gear on the new, Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers. It received a $737 million contract for the future John F. Kennedy’s equipment in June.

The Navy plans to phase out the old, but still serviceable, steam catapult technology that launches its jets off carrier decks. The service calls the new, electromagnetic technology EMALS, short for electromagnetic aircraft launch system. QinetiQ has been a subcontractor on the program for more than 10 years. Shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries plans to deliver the Kennedy as early as 2022.

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Company Keeps Morphing: Leidos Holdings Inc., the Virginia-based company that is a remnant of the original, San Diego-based SAIC, said Jan. 26 that it struck a deal to buy Lockheed Martin Corp.’s 16,000-employee information technology business for $5 billion in stock and cash. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2016. In the last 15 years SAIC went public, moved to Virginia and split itself in half. Now this. You have to wonder what Bob Beyster, the original chief at SAIC, would have said about the latest turn of events.

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Mule Project Had Its Trade-Offs: It was interesting to learn that the U.S. Marine Corps dropped a program to create a mechanical “pack mule” that could carry foot soldiers’ gear. The four-legged, headless creature known as LS3 was the work of Boston

Dynamics and the military’s R&D office, DARPA. It could follow Marines over uneven terrain — even rough terrain — carrying 400 pounds of equipment along with enough fuel for a 24-hour, 20-mile trek.

The problem, according to Military.com and other sources, was that it was loud. Military.com writer Hope Hodge Seck reported that the LS3 sounded like a lawnmower, and a video on the publication’s website bears that out. Whatever element of surprise the Marines wanted would be lost; LS3 was bound to give their position away.

Though it is not a San Diego story, it is a good reminder of how hard it can be for defense contractors to please their customers.

Seck also said that LS3’s makers learned several things about robotics in the process.

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

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