NASC is proud to offer the products, training, and services vital to our military and civilian customers. Acoustic Engineering involves multiple technical disciplines directed towards the goal of detecting underwater acoustic phenomena, primarily in support of the US Navy. NASC incorporates advanced technology and innovative concepts to design increasingly complex systems.
We have all the tools required to develop these systems, including oceanographic and acoustic modeling, FEA stress and vibration analysis tools, electronic circuit board design, acoustic calibrators, open water test facilities and signal processing development software. These capabilities have been successfully utilized in the development of many advanced systems. We have developed a compact autonomous underwater vehicle. We have developed an air launch system to provide improved sensor location accuracy following air launch.
We have developed improved active and passive transducer systems, providing improved performance in smaller packages. We have developed self-deploying underwater mechanical structures which form the framework for large arrays of transducers. We have developed miniature electronics which enable us to collect data from a large number of individual acoustic sensors deployed as a large aperture array.
Aerodynamic performance of our UAV products is critical to satisfying customer requirements. We address all aspects of flight performance, take-off roll-out, climb rate, cruise speed, maximum service ceiling, and endurance which are affected by lift, drag, and aircraft stability.
We also address aircraft structural strength. This affects weight and assures that there is sufficient strength to accommodate the aircraft maneuvering flight profile. Additionally, we conduct structural tests to verify that our strength design goals are met. To accommodate various payload configurations, we modify the aircraft fuselage as required, typically the nose. These modifications are supported by analysis to determine the impact on aircraft drag and stability. Our aerodynamic analysis tools help us design the most efficient shape to minimize the impact of drag and determine optimum center of gravity location so that aircraft stability is not affected by fuselage modification and payload configurations.
We conduct Computational Fluid Dynamic analyses to improve the design of winglets, wings, and to analyze flow around propellers and engine inlets.
We also conduct engine performance tests to determine thrust, fuel consumption, engine temperature, and acoustic output. The scope of our work spans everything from component selection, power budgeting, and prototype development to test data collection, analysis, and fully integrated system testing. We regularly collaborate with the mechanical, software, and flight operations teams to continue to improve the performance and maintainability of the aircraft and ground control stations GCS.
In addition, configuration management is foundational to our engineering process as our vast product line is diverse and constantly improving. We push ourselves to deliver innovative and customized solutions in an effort to meet and exceed design requirements, which has successfully strengthened our relationships with customers. The NASC avionics engineering design approach always starts with a very clear definition of the requirements and constraints.
Once candidate avionics components are identified, we balance size, weight, and power requirements with cost, availability, and compatibility with other components that will form the overall system. Once the preliminary design is complete we hold the Preliminary Design Review and based on the outcome we complete the final design which must be approved at the Critical Design Review before being released for prototype fabrication or production, depending on the scope of the project.
Our extensive experience over more than 10 years of integrating over 20 different payloads has made NASC the go-to UAS company for Group 3 unmanned aircraft systems. We strive to automate processes and to reduce the required time to complete a given task. In this way, we allow the pilot to focus on the more mission-critical aspects of the flight. Having a solid relationship with the pilots is critical and we rely on their feedback to improve the software. Many times pilots have suggested and new feature or a change the way an existing system functions.
Dec 22, The sun won't set on the Reaper program for at least another year — as long as a budget bill is passed into law. Air Force. About Valerie Insinna. More In Budget. America must act now to invest in new weapons, divest legacy systems as the new ones come online, and harden our space and cyber assets.
US Army secretary talks FY23 budget and the war for talent What are Secretary Wormuth's biggest priorities, and what does she want her legacy to be? Other contractors include Raytheon, which supplies some of the advanced sensors on the drone, and L-3 Communications, which provides training simulators and satellite communication infrastructure.
While the U. We have dived into the Department of Defense budget documents to find out exactly how much the U. Within the Air Force, each type of spending—procurement, research, operations and maintenance, and construction—is detailed in multiple budget documents.
In addition to these documents, the Air Force regularly publishes assessments of changes to the costs of the program as well as analysis of general defense spending changes. The U. At the time, Reaper procurement was still combined with its predecessor, the MQ-1 Predator. In the following years, however, the procurement goals for the Reaper and cost estimates varied according to shifting priorities, demand from commanders, and funding availability. The first Reaper squadron, the 42nd Attack Squadron , was activated on November 6, and became operational in In FY08, when the Air Force purchased a set of four Reapers , the MQ-9 program was separated from the Predator program and consolidated under its own title.
The biggest jolt to the program came in when then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates set a goal of 65 drone Combat Air Patrols—each consisting of four Predator or Reaper aircraft—by ; Gates emphasized that goal in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee in February In , the U.
The demand for the drones peaked in , when the Air Force planned to purchase a total of Reapers throughout the lifetime of the program.
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