#northrup-grumman

[okan170]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmfhzYo_i8E)

Northrup-Grumman (formerly Orbital-ATK) presents their new proposal for the Lunar Gateway program elements.  The final gateway design is likely to be a combination of different designs from various nations and companies.

[theamericanbear]

186 Million Dollars Worth of Shadenfreude

“It’s the first UAV that I would happily fly in myself strapped to the back of it.”

This morning I woke up to this pitch piece on "AOL Defense" following a link in a tweet:

Navy To Unveil New Drone, BAMS, Boasting See-Everywhere Radar

PATUXENT RIVER NAVAL AIR STATION: An impressively large hangar is rising here to house a familiar-looking, yet in some respects revolutionary, version of a drone Northrop Grumman Corp. is to unveil to the world this Thursday. Northrop’s MQ-4C has the same sweeping, 130.9-foot wingspan and whale-nosed silhouette as the unmanned aircraft whose airframe it uses, the Air Force’s RQ-4 Global Hawk. The Navy’s version, however, incorporates many new features – including two radars with rare capabilities – and goes by the name BAMS, which stands for Broad Area Maritime Surveillance. “The air vehicle is based on the RQ-4B, the Block 20, 30, 40 versions of Global Hawk, but that’s where the similarities end,” said Stephen Chadwick, who directs development of BAMS’s advanced technologies for the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). “The truck looks the same, but we made a lot of changes to meet the maritime mission.”

[...]

If BAMS works as planned when it goes into service — an event now scheduled for December 2015 — it will give naval commanders an unblinking God’s-eye view of the seas and littoral battlefields, something existing ISR aircraft – including Global Hawk — can’t do. Along with BAMS’s flying range of more than 9,550 miles and endurance of more than 24 hours ...

[...]

“The airplane is just more robust,” said Walt Kreitler, Northrop’s director of business development for BAMS. “It’s the first UAV that I would happily fly in myself strapped to the back of it.”

Then later in the day:

Navy Unmanned Drone Crashes on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, $186 Million Burns | ABCNews

A nearly $200 million U.S. Navy unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) crashed during a test flight Monday in an unpopulated marshy area of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.  No one  was hurt in the crash nor was there any property damage, according to Navy officials.

Known as a Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Demonstrator (BAMS-D), the 44-foot-long drone crashed near Bloodsworth Island in Dorchester, Maryland about 22 miles east of the Patuxent Naval Air Station where it had taken off.

A Navy statement said the crash occurred at 12:11 p.m.

The BAMS-D is a testing version of a jet-powered high altitude aircraft, the Navy’s version of the Air Force’s RQ-4 Global Hawk, which is designed to provide long-term surveillance and reconnaissance. In a recent report, the Government Accountability Office estimated that the Navy’s batch of 70 BAMS cost $13 billion, more than $186 million each.

They should have waited on the PR piece. I wonder if the kids whose schools won't be built with that money got to watch the crash.

BAMS!