UNMANNED SYSTEMS UPDATE
28 Jan 09. The U.S. Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman Corporation an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract valued at $276m for operations and maintenance support of the RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. With eight Global Hawks (seven Block 10s and one Block 20) currently stationed at their main operating base at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., or deployed in-theatre, this sustainment contract calls for continued training and peacetime operations support for fiscal years 2009 and 2010. It will also provide operational assistance for two new forward operating locations at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and Naval Air Station Sigonella, Italy.
23 Jan 09. Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Integrated Systems Sector, San Diego, Calif., is being awarded a $39,987,905 not-to-exceed modification to a previously awarded firm fixed price contract (N00019-07-C-0041) for the procurement of three Low Rate Initial Production Vertical Takeoff and Landing Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle units, including support. In addition this modification provides for three Ground Control Stations, three Light Harpoon Grids, three UCARS systems and six Portable Electronic Display devices. Work will be performed in San Diego, Calif., and is expected to be completed in Mar. 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
18 Jan 09. Israel’s Aeronautics to Supply Dutch UAV Service. Aeronautics Defense Systems of Israel will supply UAS and associated services to Dutch troops serving with NATO forces in Afghanistan. Since Israeli personnel are not allowed to operate within Afghanistan, UAS operators will likely be provided by subcontractors from the United Kingdom or United States. The deal is believed to be valued at up to EUR50m. (Source: Flight International/AUVSI)
23 Jan 09. L-3 Services, Inc., Marlton, N.J., is being awarded a $16,432,260 indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity, cost plus fixed fee contractto provide for Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems; Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) motion imagery software development; remote sensing; multispectral exploitation; imagery analysis; intelligence operations; digital production; knowledge management; virtual reality systems; signal exploitation; surveillance activities; information assurance, network security, emergency preparedness planning, technology validation, and mission training. This contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to an estimated $87,424,534. Work will be performed in Washington, D.C., (65 percent) and Charleston, S.C., (35 percent), and is expected to be completed by January 2010 (January 2014 with options exercised). Contract funds in the amount of $50,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured with an unlimited number of proposals and one offer received via the Federal Business Opportunities website and the SPAWAR e-commerce website. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic is the contracting activity (N65236-09-D-6814).
26 Jan 09. Elbit Systems Ltd. was awarded an approximately $40m contract by the Israeli Ministry of Defense to supply the Skylark® I LE mini-UAVs for all Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Ground Forces battalions, including training and logistics support. The project is to be delivered over the next few years, subject to the IDF’s requirements and procurement process.
22 Jan 09. Enerdyne Technologies Inc., a ViaSat company, will supply its EnerLinksII DVA digital data link technology to Insitu Inc. for use in its Integrator(tm) and next generation ScanEagle(tm) unmanned aircraft system (UAS) programs. The DVA (Digital Video over Analog) system enables simple conversion of older FM analog video links to encrypted digital links. The ScanEagle UAV has cloc