Scott Nicholas
Northrop Grumman has received a one-year, $39.9 million letter contract from the U.S. Air Force to provide Battlefield Airborne Communications Node units for the service branch’s remotely piloted aircraft.
The Defense Department said Wednesday that Northrop will modify, integrate and install BACN payloads onto EQ-4B Global Hawk drones.
BACNs help pilots exchange data via the payload’s airborne executive processor when merged with Global Hawk aircraft.
EQ-4B is a variant of the RQ-4 platform designed to support peacetime, contingency and wartime operations using imagery intelligence, signals intelligence and moving target indicator sensors.
The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center will obligate $10.8 million in fiscal 2015 aircraft procurement fund for work to be performed in San Diego and Palmdale, California, through May 2, 2018.
Northrop also secured a $55.3 million contract modification from the Air Force in December to support the military branch’s BACN Node E-11A system.
