Carol Collins
Northrop Grumman has secured a $13.3 million contract to continue developing a software-defined positioning, navigation and timing payload as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Blackjack program.
The company’s Future PNT Systems Operating Unit in Woodland Hills, which assists DARPA Tactical Technology Office’s mission of attaining low Earth orbit national security space capabilities, will work on the PNT payload initiative, Northrop said Thursday.
Nicholas Paraskevopoulos, chief technology officer and sector vice president of emerging capabilities development at Northrop, said the PNT technology is meant to provide military users with a new signal from LEO that is independent of the current satellite navigation systems.
Northrop indicated that the satellite payload will feature its software-enabled reconfigurable global navigation satellite system embedded architecture for navigation and timing capability.
The company received its first contract to develop two PNT payloads under the Blackjack program on April 28.
