By Ann Roosevelt
The Army selected Northrop Grumman [NOC] over Lockheed Martin [LMT] to develop a state-of-the-art hybrid airship that will provide persistent time-on station for additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for theater commanders–something the service has long sought.
The $517 million agreement was awarded by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command (SMDC/ARSTRAT) for the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) technology demonstrator.
The five-year agreement provides for the design, development and testing of a long-duration hybrid airship system within an 18-month time period, and then the transport of the asset to the Middle East for military assessment. The agreement also includes procuring two additional airships.
During a teleconference yesterday, Gordon Taylor, representing the U.K.’s Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) on the Northrop Grumman team, said the opportunity “is where the company has been driving this technology. It’s the opportunity we’ve been looking for. and we’re very excited by it.”
To date, HAV has flown the HAV 3 about 60-70 times, he said. It’s about “one-sixth linear scale” of the LEMV.
This contract is the company’s first sale.
Marty Sargent, LEMV Project Manager at SMDC/ARSTRAT, said the Army thinks of the air ship as an “unblinking eye.” It’s advantage over manned or unmanned aircraft is that the airship stays up–in the LEMV case, expected to be 21 days at a time–compared to many sorties by manned or unmanned vehicles. While not directly comparable, he said it would take about 12 of the Reaper-class unmanned air vehicles to do the same.
The advantage of a hybrid airship is its endurance. Kelly Whalen, Strategy Development at Northrop Grumman, said aerodynamic lift is very efficient if done well. “The hybrid technology gets lift from three different mechanisms. One is buoyancy, the lighter than air gas is helium. That aerostatic lift provides about 60 percent. The aerodynamic lift provides about 40 percent. The third area of lift…is through vectored engine propulsion.”
The aerodynamic aspect in flight for sustained and long endurance capability is not something current airships have, he said, which gives the team its advantage and 21-day persistence.
Debra Wymer, acting director of the SMDC/ARSTRAT Technology Center, said the airship would carry intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets currently available in theater. The agreement calls for an airship to be provided for a joint military utility assessment, though there is no actual deployment date at this time.
The football field-sized hybrid airship’s design requirements include the capability to operate at 20,000 feet above mean sea level, a 2,000 mile radius of action, and a 21-day on-station availability; provide up to 16 kilowatts of electrical power for payload; be runway independent; and carry several different sensors at the same time, the command said in a statement. LEMV will be a recoverable and reusable multi-mission platform. It can be forward located to support extended geostationary operations from austere locations and capable of beyond-line-of-sight command and control.
The airship is configured to be “optionally manned,” in other words, it can carry a pilot, or operate autonomously.
Whelan said “the unique nature of hybrid air vehicle design says we can take off in about three of its lengths….about 1,000 feet,” and doesn’t need a runway. However, with no self protection, the air vehicle needs to be based in a physically secure space.
The LEMV is being awarded as an Other Transaction Agreement (OTA), which differs from a traditional FAR contract in that many of the federal laws and regulations governing procurement contracts are waived, the Army statement said.
The OTA approach allows the Army the flexibility to partner with companies that do not normally do business with DoD, such as HAV.
Cathy Dickens, SMDC/ARSTRAT principal assistant responsible for Contracting, said, “The OTA authority is utilized to access commercial technology, and while Northrop Grumman is primarily a defense contractor, HAV, which partnered with Northrop, is not. So that technology that we needed to reach out and touch in the airship business was predominantly commercial. That was the rationale for the OTA at the subcontractor level. We did verify that any company that participated had the appropriate rationale a significant portion being commercial based.”