Army hands down $93M unmanned target contract

Four companies have received positions on a five-year, $93.4 million contract to help the Army research and develop unmanned aerial target systems.

Griffon Aerospace, Kord Technologies, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions and Trideum will vie for orders under the contract that also includes test and evaluation services.

The Defense Department said in its Tuesday awards digest they were the lone bidders for the Aerial Target Systems 2 contract that is a full-and-open program. Griffon, Kord and Trideum are small businesses.

Griffon and Kratos will continue as incumbents, while ASI and Boeing did not bid this time.

Publicly-traded Kratos has been on a winning streak in the unmanned domain recently as it is a partner with Dynetics on the “Gremlins” program for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The Dynetics-Kratos team upset General Atomics in April for the potential $64 million program to build unmanned aerial drones that can be launched and retrieved from an aircraft in-flight.

Unmanned is one of four priority areas for Kratos along with its satellite, training and microwave electronics businesses. The company is selling its public safety business in order to focus on those four areas.