Northrop Grumman has just received a new contract from DARPA to continue developing a means to accurately determine structural failures in advance. The effort—called Structural Integrity Prognosis System, or SIPS—has been underway for two years and last summer provided its first demonstration, predicting the results of live fatigue tests on components of a Navy EA-6B Prowler. The SIPS team currently is using SIPS to assess the fuselage of a retired A-10 Warthog. DARPA awarded $14.2 million for the first two-year effort, and the new two-year contract is worth $17.8 million. As Joseph Garone, Northrop’s director of advanced capabilities development, said, “The potential benefits from SIPS are huge.”
The Air Force demonstrated that it can operate the remotely-piloted MQ-9 Reaper in long-range flights in the Pacific using limited ground support gear and non-specialist ground personnel. The demonstration provided a boost for its agile combat employment concept, the service said Dec. 7. The deployment required only seven people and…