Lockheed Martin has agreed to provide the University of North Dakota’s John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Science with access to an unmanned aerial vehicle. Bruce Smith, dean of the school, says Lockheed would make an operational UAV available for test flights as early as this spring. This will fit in nicely with the school’s new UAV center of excellence, not to mention the UAV mission that awaits Grand Forks Air Force Base. The Odegard School also has applied to the state for a $3.4 million research grant that officials say it would use to expand unmanned research at the school “to promote private sector UAV-industry job growth in Grand Forks.”
A legislative standoff has led to a lapse in a $4.26 billion small business innovation contracting program widely used by the Air Force and could spell the end of it entirely, industry sources warned Air & Space Forces Magazine.
