4 Vendors to Continue Army Tactical UAS Competition With 1st Contract Option

The U.S. Army has exercised the first option period of its other transaction agreements with four companies to review proposed designs for increment two of the Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System.

Griffon Aerospace, Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), Sierra Nevada Corp. and Texton Systems (NYSE: TXT) will go through preliminary and critical design reviews of their vertical takeoff and landing system offerings under the FTUAS Program of Record, the branch’s aviation program executive office said Wednesday.

Systems will be subject to flight demonstrations and third-party modular open systems approach verifications in the next stage of the competition.

The option award follows the completion of the rapid prototyping effort‘s base period, wherein the four vendors and AeroVironment (Nasdaq: AVAV) were participants.

Downselected contractors must submit prototype systems and support equipment to the Army for qualification tests after they complete the design review processes.

The branch envisions FTUAS augmenting the Brigade Combat Team’s reconnaissance and surveillance missions.