Lockheed to use $4.6M contract to help develop small unmanned-aircraft system

OWEGO, N.Y. — Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT) will use a $4.6 million federal contract for the “continued development” of a maritime, canister-launched small unmanned-aircraft system (sUAS).

The combating terrorism technical-support office (CTTSO) awarded the funding, Lockheed Martin said in a news release issued on Tuesday.

The Lockheed release used a dateline of Owego, N.Y., which is home to a company plant focused on the firm’s mission systems and training business area, which includes Lockheed’s work on sUASs.

“We are extending our sUAS capabilities to tactical maritime users with the Vector Hawk’s innovative canister deployment and launch ability,” Jay McConville, Lockheed Martin director of business development for unmanned solutions, said in the release.

Lockheed Martin is currently working on a re-configurable version of the collapsible wing Vector Hawk.

The Vector Hawk design is “well suited” to support a man “packable all in one solution” that includes a fixed-wing aircraft for standard and long endurance missions; a collapsible, fixed-wing aircraft that can be launched from a tube from land or water; a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft; and a tilt-rotor enabling VTOL with transition to forward flight, the company said.

Vector Hawk is capable of autonomous flight and landing, which shifts the operational focus from flying the aircraft to conducting the mission. The system also incorporates fail-safes to ensure it can safely return to the user or auto-land when situations such as loss of communications with the ground-control station or low power occur.

Lockheed Martin builds Vector Hawk with an “open architecture” to enable “rapid” technology and payload integration, the company said.

About CTTSO

CTTSO works to “identify and develop capabilities to combat terrorism and irregular adversaries and to deliver these capabilities to [U.S. Department of Defense] components and interagency partners through rapid research and development, advanced studies and technical innovation, and provision of support to U.S. military operations,” according to the CTTSO website.

The assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low-intensity conflict (ASD (SO/LIC)) established CTTSO in 1999 to “consolidate” its research and development programs that the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (command, control, communications and intelligence) previously administered, the CTTSO site says.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com