Teamed With Northrop Grumman, U.S. Navy On X-47B Program

The U.S. National Aeronautical Association (NAA) has recognized Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) with the Robert J. Collier Trophy for one of the company’s “greatest achievement in aeronautics.” Teamed with Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Navy, SNC received the award for its contributions to the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System-Demonstrator (UCAS-D) program. Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Navy presented SNC with the Collier Trophy Friday, September 5, 2014 at the company’s headquarters in Sparks, Nevada.

Auto-land recovery of the X-47B aboard an aircraft carrier was a major UCAS-D program milestone achieved in 2013. SNC’s team provided the precision navigation via differential GPS (DGPS) technology (PNav) and contributed significantly to the development of the guidance and control system, all of which are critical to successfully auto-landing an unmanned aircraft on an aircraft carrier. Greg Cox, corporate vice president for SNC’s Communication, Navigation and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) business area accepted the award on behalf of the company.

“We are honored to be recognized by NAA for our role in achieving this milestone in naval aviation,” said Cox.

The X-47B is a tailless, strike fighter-sized unmanned aircraft able to autonomously operate from and perform arrested landings upon an aircraft carrier. The unmanned aircraft was developed by Northrop Grumman as part of the U.S. Navy's UCAS-D program. Under a contract awarded in 2007, the company designed, produced and is currently flight testing two X-47B aircraft.

“The technical contributions of the Sierra Nevada Team were key to the resounding success of the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration,” said Carl Johnson, vice president and U.S. Navy UCAS program manager, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems.

In 2013, these aircraft were used to successfully demonstrate the first ever carrier-based launches and recoveries by an autonomous, low-observable relevant unmanned aircraft. The program is currently maturing relevant carrier launch, landing and integration technologies.

"SNC, a key member of the X-47B government-industry team, is most deserving of the elite recognition of the Collier Trophy,” said CAPT Beau Duarte, program manager for the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation program. “Through its tireless contributions to navigation technology maturation, SNC enabled our highly successful sea-based detachments, which clearly demonstrated that an unmanned air system could be controlled precisely, reliably, and repeatably in the harsh carrier environment."

(Image provided by Sierra Nevada Corp. (L-R) Carl Johnson, SNC’s Greg Cox, CAPT. Beau Duarte and Jonathan Gaffney at the Collier Award ceremony in Sparks, NV)

FMI: http://naa.aero, www.sncorp.com