The U.S. Navy awarded Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) a $542.9 million modification to a previously awarded contract covering the MQ-4C Triton Unmanned Aircraft System. The deal was announced on Oct. 31.
The modification provides for the production and delivery of MQ-4C Triton Unmanned Aircraft System Low-Rate Initial Production Lot Six, to include three unmanned aircraft (UA) for the Navy; one UA for the government of Australia; and one main operating base for the Navy, as well as associated support and related technical and administrative data.
Approximately one quarter of the work, worth an estimated $140 million, will be performed in San Diego. Northrop Grumman bases its Triton program at its Rancho Bernardo offices.
Some 18.4% of the work will go to Palmdale, where the aircraft are built. Approximately $6 million of the work will be performed in San Clemente.
Work is expected to be completed in January 2028.
Fiscal 2023 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $411.4 million; fiscal 2022 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $971,678; and Royal Australian Air Force cooperative funds in the amount of $40 million were obligated at the time of award. The Naval Air Systems Command of Patuxent River, Maryland, awarded the contract, announced on Oct. 31.
Kratos Gets Contract Modification
The U.S. Space Force awarded San Diego-based Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: KTOS) a $5.3 million modification to a previously awarded contract for Control System Consolidated transition services from the Command and Control System-Consolidated Sustainment and Production Contract to follow-on contract. Work will be performed at Colorado Springs, Colorado, and is expected to be completed by March 30, 2024. The Space Systems Command, Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado awarded the contract, announced on Oct. 27.
Kratos’ corporate office is in Scripps Ranch.
Corbara Receives Construction Work
Corbara Building Group Corp., a small business based in National City, is among nine companies expected to divide as much as $248 million in design-build (DB)/design-bid-build (DBB) construction contracts for the U.S. Navy. The contracts cover new construction, repair, alteration and related demolition of existing infrastructure within the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) Hawaii area of operations (AO).
The work to be performed provides for labor, supervision, tools, materials and equipment necessary to perform new construction, repair, alteration and related demolition of existing infrastructure based on DB or DBB for infrastructure. Each awardee receives $5,000 at contract award. The maximum combined dollar value, including the base period and four option years, for all nine contracts is $248 million. Work will be performed primarily within the NAVFAC Hawaii AO, and is expected to be completed by October 2028. Fiscal 2024 operation and maintenance, Navy funding in the amount of $45,000 will be obligated at the time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Future task orders will be primarily funded by operations and maintenance, Navy; and Navy working capital funds. This contract was competitively procured via the System for Award Management website (SAM.gov) with 15 offers received. NAVFAC Hawaii, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, awarded the deal, announced on Oct. 27.
In September, Corbara received a separate award: an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for alteration, repairs and construction services with minimal design requirements that could be worth as much as $10 million.
Work will be performed in Port Hueneme, California, and is expected to complete in September 2028. Fiscal 2023 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $322,362 were obligated at the time of award and were set to expire at the end of fiscal 2023. This contract was procured via the SAM website, with seven offers received. The Naval Surface Warfare Center Port Hueneme Division awarded the deal, announced on Sept. 14.
Narf Gets Health Records Contract
The federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (also known as ARPA-H) awarded up to $1.8 million to Narf Industries LLC of San Diego for research related to electronic health records, abbreviated EHR.
Michael Locasto, Ph.D. is principal investigator with Narf Industries. ARPA-H made the award Sept. 28 as part of its Digital Health Security initiative.
The project is titled EHR-FIST: Digital Format Rehabilitation to Improve Interoperability of EHR Systems and Record.
According to ARPA-H, the project’s goal is to characterize the most problematic constructs in widely used electronic health record (EHR) data formats by discovering and reporting parsing bugs in existing EHR management systems. Once identified, procedures will be specified for reducing existing records into a safe form that facilitates unambiguous and secure interpretation of health records, while maintaining compatibility with existing EHR systems. EHR-FIST aims to improve the security and privacy of patient data without requiring patches to the software processing that data.
