Scott Nicholas
The U.S. Navy intends to award General Atomics‘ aeronautical systems business a contract to provide contractor-owned/contractor-operated unmanned air systems to support Task Force Southwest missions across the U.S. Central Command area of operations in fiscal 2018 and fiscal 2019.
A FedBizOpps notice posted Tuesday says the Naval Air Systems Command will ask GA-ASI to supply military group 5 and MQ-9 Reaper UAS units to aid TFSW ground forces in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations.
GA-ASI pilots, sensor operators, launch and recovery crew and maintainers would help transport, maintain and operate UAS units alongside the military for missions within and outside the continental U.S. as part of the proposed contract.
NAVAIR wants the contractor to equip group 5 UAS platforms with radar, multi-spectral imaging sensors and beyond line-of-sight communications capacities that are compatible with the Air Force Remote Split Operations communications architecture.
The service branch expects a response from GA-ASI by Jan. 24.
