UAV contract wins put Northrop Grumman in driving seat

A series of contract wins in 2000 for Northrop Grumman Corporation's Integrated Systems Sector (ISS) has enhanced the company's leadership position in unmanned systems, an area of increasing importance for military planners world-wide.

"Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems are being considered across a wide spectrum of missions, including surveillance, reconnaissance and intelligence, targeting and weapons delivery," said Robert A. K. Mitchell, vice president- Unmanned Systems at Northrop Grumman ISS's Air Combat Systems business area. "Northrop Grumman provides integration capabilities in all of these areas, building upon our experience and expertise on a number of programmes."

Northrop Grumman ISS is the prime contractor for Global Hawk, the US Air Force's high-altitude, long-endurance reconnaissance system designed to provide military field commanders with high-resolution, near real-time imagery of large geographic areas. Global Hawk holds the world endurance record for jet-powered ummanned aircraft and recently completed its first nonstop trans-Atlantic mission, flying unrefueled from the US East Coast to the coast of Portugal and back. The Air Force this year awarded Northrop Grumman a $71.9 million modification to an existing contract for two additional Global Hawk air vehicles and other equipment.

The company also is prime contractor for the US Navy's Fire Scout vertical takeoff and landing tactical UAV (VTUAV). Northrop Grumman won a competitively awarded $93.7 million engineering and manufacturing development contract for Fire Scout in February 2000. The VTUAV will be able to fly from any "air capable" combat ship for real-time reconnaissance and targeting missions.

Other UAV contract wins in 2000 for Northrop Grumman include:

• A contract valued at $3 million awarded in April to perform risk- assessment studies for the US Navy's multirole endurance (MRE) UAV. The MRE system is a sea-based endurance UAV potentially capable of various missions including reconnaissance; command, control, communications, computers and intelligence; suppression of enemy air defenses; and weapons delivery.

• A contract with the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence awarded in May to define and assess optimum system solutions for the Watchkeeper Tactical UAV program.Watchkeeper is defined as an intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance UAV system that will deliver battlefield intelligence to British Army commanders.

• An agreement valued at $2 million awarded in June for development studies on a potential US Navy unmanned combat aerial vehicle.The Naval UCAV is envisioned as a ship-based, "first day of the war" force enabler that will complement manned strike aircraft by performing pre-emptive destruction and reactive suppression of sophisticated enemy air defenses.The system will have an immediate lethal strike capability to target high-value, time-critical targets at any time and place on the battlefield.

• In July, the US Navy awarded the company one of four contracts valued at approximately $500,000 to perform concept exploration studies for the Multimission Maritime Aircraft/Broad Area Maritime Surveillance program. Northrop Grumman's concept is a hybrid system that uses a reduced number of manned aircraft but multiplies their effectiveness through cooperative engagement with a fleet of adjunct high-altitude endurance UAVs.

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