Northrop Grumman is consolidating activities of its aerospace systems sector into five centers of design and integration excellence, announced the company on Monday. It’s also going to shutter a facility in Dominguez Hills, Calif., that supports its information systems work, states the company’s March 4 release. The five COEs are: Manned Aircraft Design in Melbourne, Fla.; Unmanned Systems in Rancho Bernardo, north of San Diego; Electronic Attack in Bethpage, N.Y.; and two for Aircraft Integration: one in Palmdale, Calif., and one in St. Augustine, Fla., according to the company’s March 4 release. The Manned Aircraft Design COE will include aircraft design work currently performed in Bethpage; however, the company’s B-2, F/A-18, and F-35 programs will remain in Palmdale, El Segundo, and Redondo Beach, Calif., respectively, acccording to the release. The Unmanned Systems COE will incorporate the company’s MQ-4C Triton program from Bethpage and NATO Airborne Ground Surveillance program from Melbourne, states the release. “Consolidating these centers of excellence will improve our strategic alignment with our customers’ need for increasingly innovative and affordable products, services, and solutions,” said Wes Bush, company chairman, CEO, and president.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.