The Department of Defense announced 18 new defense contracts worth a combined $613.9 million on Friday. Among the winners:
- Privately held drone manufacturer General Atomics Aeronautical Systems was awarded a $40.2 million option exercise increasing funds allocated to the full-rate production of Gray Eagle unmanned aerial vehicles. This contract will run through Sept. 30, 2016.
- Military shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls (HII 0.50%) was awarded a $39 million contract modification to perform life cycle engineering and support services on U.S. Navy San Antonio-class Amphibious Transport Docks (known also as landing platform docks, or LPDs). Work on this contract should be complete by next December.
- The joint venture between Textron's (TXT -1.33%) Bell Helicopter division and Boeing (BA -2.87%), known as the Bell-Boeing Joint Project Office, was awarded a $15.6 million firm-fixed-price delivery order to supply additional nonrecurring engineering and technical support for forward fit/retrofit engineering changes on U.S. Navy V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. Bell-Boeing will be expected to deliver eight helmet mounted display retrofit kits, plus spare parts, support equipment, tooling, and training devices to the Navy by March 2015.
- Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH -1.08%) was awarded an $18.1 million contract modification extending its contract to perform systems engineering and integration support of the U.S. Air Force Range and Network Division, Space and Missile Systems Center's Launch and Test Range System by one year. This contract will now run through Dec. 7 of next year.
