FALLS CHURCH, Va. –Dec 2, 2015 – Northrop Grumman Corporation's (NYSE:NOC) Protected Satellite Communications Payloads Orbital Operations program and its Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator (UCAS-D) program received Program Excellence awards from Aviation Week last month for being among the top-performers in the aerospace and defense industry. According to Aviation Week the awards celebrate the "best of the best programs" that are delivering results but also finding new ways to be more innovative, efficient, and better at delivering value to customers.
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Northrop Grumman has built and sustained protected satellite communication payloads for more than 21 years, and delivered software updates to improve the constellation's capacity and capability. Collectively, the payloads have provided more than 750,000 hours of service with more than 99 percent availability in operational service. The communications payload built by Northrop Grumman offers senior leaders an assured means of communicating with our strategic nuclear forces and tactical warfighters day or night, anywhere in the world, under any level of military conflict.
The program is led by Peggy Paul, program manager, Protected Satellite Communications Payloads. She is the first program manager in the history of the Aviation Week Program Excellence Awards to win twice; Aviation Week recognized Paul and the Defense Support Program team in 2007.
The U.S. Navy UCAS-D - Northrop Grumman team, led by program manager Pablo Gonzalez, won for performing the first ever autonomous aerial refueling of an unmanned aircraft earlier this year, demonstrating the system's capability of extended range and endurance. The team developed new software and integrated it with an off-the-shelf electro-optic/infrared system to enable the X-47B to achieve the first-ever autonomous unmanned Navy-style probe-and-drogue aerial refueling. In 2013, with its initial historic first, the UCAS-D team demonstrated that an unmanned, fighter-sized, flying wing aircraft could safely and successfully land aboard and launch from an underway aircraft carrier.
The Aviation Week awards competition began with 72 competitors. Northrop Grumman had two other finalists in the competition: Global Combat Support System-Army (GCSS-Army) and the KC-10 Contractor Logistics Support (CLS) program. GCSS-Army provides a single enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to manage and monitor Army equipment and supplies for logistics planning, force mobilization and combat operations. With an anticipated user base of nearly 160,000 personnel, GCSS-Army is poised to be one of the largest ERP implementations in the Department of Defense. The KC-10 CLS program supports the U.S. Air Force KC-10 Extender, an airborne refueling aircraft that also transports personnel, equipment and patients during refueling missions. The team has helped the Air Force achieve the highest sustained KC-10 fleet mission capable rates in more than 16 years and has enabled the delivery of more than 2.4 billion pounds of fuel since 2010.
Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in unmanned systems, cyber, C4ISR, and logistics and modernization to government and commercial customers worldwide. Please visit www.northropgrumman.com for more information.
