C4ISR News

The Department of the Navy has begun its search for potential industry sources of a small unmanned aerial system designed to perform vertical take-off and landing operations. A FedBizOpps notice posted Oct. 12 says the VTOL-based small UAS will work to help the U.S. Marine Corps perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions in any environmental conditions. […] More

Textron‘s unmanned systems business held an inaugural customer demonstration of a small unmanned aircraft system designed to combine vertical takeoff-and-landing capacity of a multirotor platform with the speed of the company’s Aerosonde fixed-wing aircraft offering. The company said Wednesday it demonstrated the Aerosonde HQ at the Textron Systems Unmanned Systems Service and Support Center as well as showcased the system’s transition […] More

Leonardo-Finmeccanica has secured a contract to provide active electronically scanned array radars for integration onto the U.S. Navy‘s new MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned helicopter built by Northrop Grumman. The company said Monday it will deliver five Osprey AESA radars to the Naval Air Systems Command to support testing and evaluation work and NAVAIR has the option to acquire more […] More

IAP Worldwide Services has landed a potential $53 million contract to help the U.S. Army implement a ground intelligence system at Fort Hood in Texas and other military facilities worldwide. IAP said Monday it will provide integrated logistics, fielding and training services for the  Distributed Common Ground System-Army under the contract awarded through the military branch’s Rapid Response Third Generation vehicle. Work also covers hardware […] More

The U.S. Air Force can continue its program to develop a new ground-based command system for the military branch’s GPS satellite constellation after Defense Department acquisition chief Frank Kendall certified the project to Congress, DoD News reported Friday. Karen Parrish writes Raytheon, the prime contractor on the $5.46 billion GPS Advanced Control Segment, works with DoD procurement officials to address challenges […] More

Drone Aviation will provide WATT electronic tethered drones, in-field support packages and operator flight training services to a Defense Department  component under a $400,000 contract. The WATT unmanned aerial system is designed to provide communications and monitoring support for ISR, government, news gathering and emergency response missions in all weather conditions, Drone Aviation said Thursday. The UAS features dual sensor electro-optical/infrared military-grade, […] More

Lockheed Martin has secured a potential $41.6 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to obtain, deliver and install a gap-filler radar system for Jordan as part of a foreign military sales deal. The Defense Department said Thursday the company will also supply two long-range radars and modernize an additional three radars as well as integrate the new and updated surveillance technology into a command, […] More

An Airbus subsidiary has been selected to provide its imagery streaming tool to North Carolina in support of the state’s emergency response efforts following Hurricane Matthew. The company said Wednesday its defense and space unit’s i-cubed subsidiary will also employ its Geospatial Appliance Targeted for Operational Response device to help deliver six-inch orthorectified images based on data collected from January […] More

Northrop Grumman has flown a legacy U.S. Air Force sensor for the first time on a company-built RQ-4 Global Hawk drone as part of efforts to demonstrate sensors that are previously unavailable to the unmanned aerial vehicle. The Optical Bar Camera test marks the second of three planned demonstrations of the technology, Northrop said Wednesday. The broad-area sensor is designed to transmit panoramic […] More

A team composed of Lockheed Martin, MBDA Deutschland and Leonardo-Finmeccanica has submitted a final proposal to the government of Germany to compete for the development of the Medium Extended Air Defense System, Defense News reported Tuesday. Jen Judson writes Richard Edwards, executive vice president of Lockheed’s missiles and fire control business, told Defense News that the […] More

A Lockheed Martin-built legacy U.S. Air Force satellite has begun to provide communications services for the National Science Foundation‘s South Pole-based Amundsen-Scott Station. Lockheed said Tuesday the Defense Satellite Communications System III B7 replaced NSF’s decommissioned Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-3 in June to establish communication and data links between Amundsen-Scott Station and the U.S. Antarctic Program facility in New Zealand. DSCS III B7 […] More