MARCH/APRIL 2016tra-spacepark.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Documents/... · 2016. 7. 12. · Breitling Jet Team at the Melbourne Air & Space Show The 2016 Melbourne Air & Space

MARCH/APRIL 2016

© 2016 Northrop Grumman Corporation w w w. A m e r i c a s N e w B o m b e r. c o m

WHEN YOU HAVE 35 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE BUILDING

STEALTH BOMBERS, YOU’RE INHERENTLY MORE AFFORDABLE.

With over 35 years of experience manufacturing stealth bombers, Northrop Grumman’s

Long Range Strike Bomber is inherently more affordable. Our innovative approach

combines a mature design with our award-winning integrated assembly line for maximum

efficiency. And because we also make the key avionics and stealth components for other

advanced aircraft, we can deliver better-produced stealth systems.

THIS IS WHAT WE DO. AGAIN.

CONNECTIONS

It’s been an amazing four years working together. We have made incredible progress building a strong and focused business portfolio, an innovative pioneering culture, a formidable competitive spirit, and the brightest future of any organization in our industry.

We have connected in new ways, and you can all be very proud of our accomplishments, especially when you think about what we have overcome.

When the industry was consumed by the issues of sequestration, budget cuts, and federal debt ceiling crises, we took the long-term perspective. We looked for the opportunity beyond the dark clouds. We could see an unprecedented set of new opportunities that would emerge in the United States and with several of our allies. And, we moved quickly — and quietly — to position ourselves to win.

As a result, we have extended our number one position in autonomous systems. We advanced to number one in defense space while also doing the most innovative work in space exploration. We have advanced to number two in military fixed-wing aircraft with the win of B-21, and are continuing to work hard to re-emerge as the nation’s premier fighter prime.

We have created and stood up NGNEXT, the modern embodiment of iconic centers of innovation like Bell Labs, Skunk Works‰, and Google’s X, combined into one. We have already begun to envision, create and design brilliant solutions to the world’s hardest problems. We have encouraged the NGNEXT team to fail often and quickly — invention and failure are both essential components to ultimately achieving greatness.

Our invention disclosures are expected to triple in 2016 com-pared to 2012. We are eliminating four million hours of non-value added time by year-end through our busting bureaucracy initiative. Our new program capture rate in 2015 nearly doubled since 2012, while our return on sales significantly exceeds our nearest competitor.

We are becoming an even greater place to work because of the innovative thinking and work you are doing every day. We are attracting the nation’s most incredible talent, hiring more than 2,800 new employees, including hundreds of recent college graduates and interns last year. Our NEST initiative is also taking hold.

We still have so much in front of us — this is really an amazing time!

We are aggressively pursuing a new jet trainer, a new intercontinental nuclear ballistic missile system to replace the current ICBM, the next generation of high-efficiency and high-power fiber laser weapons systems and an incredible range of new systems and program opportunities. And by the way, we are focused on amazing innova-tive solutions beyond James Webb Space Telescope that will find life on distant planets in our universe.

2016 — year four! Let’s UNITE to change the world and have fun doing it.

CONNECTIONS

Tom Vice kicks off the Summit with a recap of the company’s recent accomplishments and provided an introduction to the mindset that will take Northrop Grumman to unprecedented heights.

Photo by Alex Evers

Tom ViceCorporate Vice President and President, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems

6 HEADLINES

CONTENTS

8 INNOVATION

16 COMMUNITY

20 PERFORMANCE

26 ACROSS THE SECTOR

32 HOMEFRONT

HERITAGE 12

18 COVER STORY Setting the Stage for 2016

COVER STORY“This year the conversation is about uniting, and that uniting takes a lot of different forms.”

—Tom Vice Corporate Vice President and President, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems

Leaders from Aerospace Systems gather in the lobby of the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center between sessions of the 2016 Leadership Summit.Cover photo by Robert M. Brown

MARCH/APRIL 2016

6 7INSIDE AEROSPACEMARCH/APRIL 2016

Crew preparing Global Hawk for takeoff.

Northrop Grumman Gets Back to Work on America’s New BomberOn Feb. 16, the U.S. Government Accountability Office announced its decision to deny Boeing’s protest of the Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) contract award to Northrop Grumman. This decision reaffirmed the U.S. Air Force’s selection of Northrop Grumman to design, build and deliver America’s next-generation bomber.

“I am proud of the work this team has accomplished on this company-wide effort with all sectors uniting to continue to drive unmatched innovation and affordability for our customer,” expressed Wes Bush, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, Northrop Grumman Corp.

With more than 35 years of experience in advanced stealth technology, Northrop Grumman is the only company that has designed, developed and delivered a long-range stealth bomber. LRS-B is vitally important to national security and Northrop Grumman can now resume work on the next-generation Long-Range Strike Bomber.

Global Hawk Honored with Prestigious Innovation AwardThe RQ-4 Global Hawk won the William W. Otterson award at CONNECT’s 28th annual Most Innovative New Products Awards ceremony.

CONNECT is an innovation company accelerator in San Diego that creates and scales great companies in the technology and life sciences sectors. It recently awarded its highest honor for a technology or product developed in San Diego to the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system in recognition of Global Hawk’s significant impact on society and quality of life.

Global Hawk earned this recognition for its record-breaking endurance, vital intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities and its support to science missions and disaster-relief responses to wildfires, hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes.

“Global Hawk has always been on the cutting edge of innovation, from its first flight in 1998 to our current efforts to fly any current or future sensor at any time,” said Mick Jaggers, vice president and program

Inside Aerospace © 2016 Northrop Grumman Corporation

All Rights Reserved. Printed in USA

Sector Vice President, Communications Cynthia Curiel

Director, Enterprise Communications Cyndi Wegerbauer

Manager, Employee Communications Ann Akutagawa

Executive Editor Kathy Ford

Managing Editor Chris Boyd

Associate Editor Ann Carney

Creative Director Adam Ugolnik

Art Director Antoinette Bing Zaté

Advertising Director Darrell Brock

Contributors Chris Boyd, John Bruner, Jessica Burtness, Ann Carney, Jacqueline Farrell, Katie Hamic,

Linda Javier, Elizabeth McCann, Brooks McKinney, Bonnie Poindexter,

Alan Radecki, Katherine Thompson

Editorial Board Chris Boyd, Jessica Burtness, Alex Evers,

Steve Fisher, Kathy Ford, Linda Javier, Sally Koris, Christina Thompson,

Katherine Thompson, Adam Ugolnik, Antoinette Bing Zaté

Inside Aerospace magazine is published for employees by Aerospace Systems Communications. Archives are available on the intranet. Please contact Kathy Ford ([email protected]) for permission to reprint, excerpt material, request additional copies, or to provide story ideas.

All photography courtesy of Northrop Grumman unless otherwise indicated.

HEADLINES

The U.S. Air Force released the first rendering of the Long-Range Strike Bomber, designated the B-21, on Feb. 26.

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Air Force

The Melbourne Air & Space Show promotional poster.

Photo courtesy of Bryan Lilley with the Melbourne Air Show

manager, Global Hawk. “William Otterson’s efforts to evolve San Diego as a world-class technol-ogy community played a role in Northrop Grumman’s decision to establish its Autonomous Design Center of Excellence in San Diego. We have a strong connection to this city and are honored to accept this award.”

Since entering combat operations in 2001, Global Hawk has flown operational missions over Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, as well as humanitarian missions supporting relief during the 2007 Southern California wildfires, Japanese tsunami, Haitian earthquake and the Philippines typhoon.

— Elizabeth McCann

Breitling Jet Team at the Melbourne Air & Space ShowThe 2016 Melbourne Air & Space Show, sponsored by Northrop Grumman, April 1-3 at Melbourne International Airport, featured the Breitling Jet Team — the world’s largest professional civilian flight team performing on jets. Approximately 250,000 specta-tors attended the weekend event.

Based in Dijon, France, the Breitling Jet Team’s seven-aircraft squad includes top former European military pilots. Unlike North American teams typically holding common formation during each pass, this lineup mimics an aerial symphony, transitioning between formations during several passes.

The show began with a new segment this year: Night Flight, which combined the spectacle of precision aviation and the thrill of fireworks.

“Across the company, we are design-ing the next generation of innovative capabilities for our nation and we were excited to showcase some of it for everyone to see at the Melbourne Air & Space Show,” said Rick Matthews, vice president and Center of Excellence leader, Manned Aircraft Design.

— Jacqueline Farrell


More than 20 Aerospace Systems employees recently came together over the weekend so a Southern California artist afflicted with a rare form of muscular dystrophy could extend his career.

Engineers combined their talents and spent more than 12 hours at Space Park’s FabLab in Redondo Beach, Calif., on Jan. 29, creating

“It was great seeing the smile on Raul’s face when he was trying the equipment,” Geesing said. “It was heartwarming getting the joy from him being able to do the things he hasn’t been able to do in a long time.”

Fellow teammate and manufacturing engineer Caitlyn Alexander, a two-year employee, was inspired by

Pizarro’s artwork. “His paintings are so far beyond anything I can create,” she said. “If I can help him do that longer, that is awesome.”

As he sat in a wheelchair and scan- ned the FabLab while engineers busily worked to breathe new life into his artistic existence, Pizarro could only smile.

THE ARTIST Born in Mexicali, Mexico, Pizarro has spent most of his life in Los Angeles, where he currently lives and works. Until the point when muscular dystrophy made it nearly impossible for him to paint, Pizarro tackled the easel on a regular basis, usually with oil paints.

Los Angeles artist Raul Pizarro found new artistic range thanks to a corps of Northrop Grumman volunteers who engineered an innovative way for him to paint on large canvas.

Photos by Linda Kranz

By Chris BoydBUILD ITPaint ... again

a device that would enable artist Raul Pizarro to prolong his passion for painting.

“The amount of effort that people are putting into this is amazing. Some teams came in here today with solutions that are almost complete,” said Tony Long, FabLab manager who organized the event.

“This story is so inspiring, and Raul is so inspiring. The collection of talent here from across the company is incredible.”Created by employees for employ-ees, FabLab is a space to advance technology, transform ideas into inventions and innovate new ways of designing, manufacturing and collaborating.

It began when Long’s girlfriend, Nina, a talent manager for Broadway actors, met a woman who runs a musical theater version of the FabLab in New York City. She told Nina that Pizarro hadn’t been able to paint on large canvases for nearly six months due to muscular dystrophy. Within an hour, she wrote an expert proposal and sent it to Long, who signed up 25 volunteers within a week.

Those volunteers visited Pizarro’s home to get the lay of the land, did a 3-D scan of his arms and order-ed the parts necessary to build the equipment. “It all happened in reverse order and really challenged the people participating to think fast,” Long said. “It’s truly nuts. They overcame a ridiculous situation to get this done.”

Engineer Michael Geesing, a Northrop Grumman employee since 1992, volunteered for more than 15 hours on Friday and another 8 hours on Saturday. He and his team produced an easel that enables Pizarro to sit up straight while he is painting and a remote-controlled device to move the easel up, down, left and right. This is critical, as Pizarro works in a small 6-by-8-inch space due to his limited movement.

“It’s really overwhelming. Just seeing all of these people working to keep me working is blowing my mind,” he said. “I love these people and I don’t even know them yet. When I heard about this, I was kind of dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to think of it. I had to see it to know it was real.”

AND HE WILL

INNOVATION

—Raul Pizarro


INNOVATION

Danny Lieu is a nine-year veteran with Northrop Grumman; he also has 24 years of additional experience under his belt with other aerospace companies. Lieu won a 2015 Innovator of the Year honor for his work with Microsoft HoloLens technology. He shares his story below.

As a project engineer at Aerospace Systems, I support the Sector Affordability and Business Process Excellence Organization where I work on the Busting Bureaucracy initiative. I help oversee the website and its workflow to make sure the train runs on time in terms of busting bureaucracy.

By nature, engineers like to solve problems in a creative manner. It’s a challenge to take different elements, to borrow from something old to create something new. When I came across the revolutionary Microsoft HoloLens, I knew it was a concept we could use in aerospace to make our work lives better.

ideas. He saw the application of creating radio stations where one person can reach out to the masses; he saw TV as an opportunity to put moving pictures into people’s homes. Sarnoff knew how to take that next step with technology in different environments and by using different applications.

As a general example to explain the technology, imagine you are wearing a HoloLens headset and you need to find the nearest public transit system. HoloLens will scan your surroundings in 3-D, while a built-in app finds the closest public transit and super-imposes a 3-D icon of that option into your normal field of view with the correct perspective. Meanwhile, the computer presents the best option. For instance, it indicates a subway station and provides directions to the site, which it states is a half-mile away.

It’s a concept we call augmented reality. Because HoloLens is hands-free technology, it’s much safer than having a cell phone in front of your face, trying to navigate traffic and walk through crowds.

Back at Northrop Grumman, tech-nicians on the floor could use this in a hands-free production environment — arrows could point to objects, such as airplane parts, in proper places even as their field of view changed.

An interest in science and engineer-ing came to me around junior high school. I kind of gravitated to it naturally. Here at Northrop Grumman, I immediately took to the Innovation initiative. I always participated in the Engineers Week competitions and similar endeavors. A lot of times, the ideas didn’t go anywhere, but I never saw any reason I should stop — I

We started reaching out across the sector to Enterprise Shared Services, Technology Services and Mission Systems, and they were interested as well. Representatives in other sectors came up with some really cool ideas: What happens if we create products that we can sell to first responders like paramedics and fire departments? They could quickly find water valves in buildings during emergencies such as fires.

While this technology was not invented here — we’re talking about Silicon Valley, Apple, Google — our challenge in 2016 is to take and incorporate it into our environment fairly quickly. It’s a competitive requirement for us to innovate. Our competitors have a lot of smart people too. If we stress innovation with technologies like this, we have a way to gain an edge over our competitors.

My innovation hero is David Sarnoff, the founder of RCA. He had fantastic insight into new inventions and new

always kept the faith and didn’t quit. Now my persistence is really paying off. I hope the HoloLens technology is a game changer for Northrop Grumman.

Chris Boyd also contributed to this article.

Danny Lieu, a project engineer at Aerospace Systems and proponent of Microsoft HoloLens technology, watches as Tim Franck, a Palmdale, Calif.,

Manufacturing Technology engineer, uses 3-D glasses, which could change the way Aerospace Systems does business in the future.

Photo by Robert M. Brown

SHARE

YOURSTORY

I’m inspired by reading and being in tune with the world, seeing new inventions and new ideas.

—Danny Lieu

INSPIRATION

MAKING TECHNOLOGY WORK FOR US By Danny Lieu


The Army Air Service saw that big world and decided to fly around it. Gen. Mason Patrick asked the Pentagon “to send a flight of four Army airplanes around the world, to secure for the United States, the birthplace of aeronautics, the honor of being the first country to encircle the world entirely by air travel.”

But the Army needed a suitable plane. Donald Douglas was pro-ducing the DT torpedo bomber for the Navy, a tough design eas-ily convertible from landplane to seaplane. The Army asked Douglas to modify five aircraft, one for testing and four for the flight.

To give the design more fuel range, Douglas assigned a new energetic and innovative engineer he’d just hired: John K. “Jack” Northrop. The 28-year-old Northrop had been a draftsman at Loughead Aircraft but found himself unemployed when the company went bust. He had a talent for thinking far outside the box when problem-solving aircraft design and structures issues, so for Northrop’s first major design project as an engineer, Douglas asked him to figure out where to stick all the extra needed fuel.

Northrop designed an interconnected series of tanks mounted in the wings and bomb bay, increasing the capacity from 115 to 644 gallons. The challenge wasn’t just the volume: more gas meant six times more weight to be supported by a structure originally designed to be as light as possible. So Northrop redesigned both the wings and fuselage. Larger oil and engine-coolant tanks were also needed.

When finished, the Douglas World Cruiser (DWC) was practically a whole new design. Northrop and his team worked fast: The redesign and modification work took 45 days, and the prototype was delivered in November 1923. Pleased, the Army authorized

Douglas to modify the other four, plus produce spare parts to build two more aircraft. These spares would be stored along the projected route.

Named the Boston, Chicago, New Orleans and Seattle, the four DWCs departed April 6, 1924, from Sand Point, Wash., heading for Alaska. There were endless problems, however. The lead plane, Seattle, crashed in thick fog near Port Moller, Alaska, on April 30. The crew survived 10 days in the Arctic wilderness before being rescued.

An engine failure on the Chicago forced a water landing in the Gulf of Tonkin, and the crew hired three paddle-powered sampans to tow the DWC 10 hours to Hue, where repairs were made. En route to Allahabad, India, the crew of the Boston heard a noise behind the cabin and found a stowed-away reporter. The New Orleans’ engine began to self-destruct; an emergency landing in the inhospitable terrain would mean certain death, so pilots nursed the

engine along until reaching Karachi on July 4; the entire plane was dripping black oil.

The New Orleans got lost due to weather over the Atlantic and ended up in Iceland, while the others turned back to England. On the next attempt, the Boston lost power and set down in heavy seas off the Faroe Islands. The cruiser USS Richmond found them, but huge swells capsized the plane while it was being towed to shore.

The prototype DWC was quickly rechristened Boston II and met the Chicago and New Orleans in Nova Scotia, and the three triumphantly flew to Washington, D.C. After pomp and ceremony there, they toured the United States, arriving in Seattle on Sept. 28, 1924.

The trip covered 27,553 miles in a total flight time of 371 hours, 11 minutes (over a period of 175 days), set numerous records and didn’t have a single issue related to Northrop’s fuel system design.

The Chicago (bottom) and the New Orleans during the U.S. tour, on their way to Seattle to complete the round-the-world flight.

Photos courtesy of U.S. Army, MojaveWest collection

1923FIRST AROUND THE WORLDBy Alan Radecki

The world was a big place in 1923; aviation was only 20 years old, and Charles Lindbergh’s Atlantic crossing was still four years away.

Wherever the Douglas World Cruisers landed, they drew large crowds, eager to see machines so amazing that they could actually fly all the way around the world.

HERITAGE

PILOTS TRAINED ARE JUST THE BEGINNING.


WRAPPING WARMTH ON SKID ROW

By Christina Thompson

Northrop Grumman employees in Southern California work to build partnerships for

stronger communities by distributing jackets on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.

Photo by Michael Regan

A team of Redondo Beach and El Segundo, Calif., employees united to distribute jackets to more than 600 people on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles on Feb. 6 as part of the Wrapping Warmth campaign. Skid Row contains one of the largest homeless populations in the United States.

An idea started two years ago by employees Elisa Pitts and Terence Johnson, the Wrapping Warmth effort expanded sector-wide this year with six sites across the country participating in the fundraising drive through the Northrop Grumman Federal Credit Union (NGFCU). The goal was to raise money to purchase jackets

for people in need in the surrounding communities this past winter.

Northrop Grumman and the NGFCU also gave charitable contributions to the cause. Enough was raised to purchase 1,600 jackets, which employees helped distribute. In January, another group of em-ployees handed out jackets at a Shelter in Bell, Calif. Similar events also took place in Palmdale, Calif., St. Augustine and Melbourne, Fla., and Bethpage, N.Y., at the beginning of the year.

The expansion of this program left founders Pitts and Johnson touched by their fellow employees’ generosity. “At Northrop Grumman,

we don’t just build awesome products, but we have incredible people working here who have big hearts,” said Johnson. “There are a lot of people who were very enthusiastic; we had a beautiful turnout.”

Pitts commented, “Everybody has hard days at work now and then, but when you come together, it’s really overwhelming to know that people in this company will back a vision that you have to reach out to your community.”

This spirit of connecting and building partnerships for stronger communities is precisely what drives Vice President of Global Corporate Responsibility Sandra Evers-Manly.

She joined the Aerospace Systems team to distribute the jackets on Skid Row.

“Being down here in the center of Skid Row is heart-wrenching — it’s heartbreaking,” she said. “We have so much more to do as a nation and as a company to make sure that everyone can have a safe home, that everyone is fed, everyone has a coat, clothes and socks. Sometimes we take life for granted, and being down here is a very humbling experience.”

When asked what prompted him to give up a Saturday morning and go down to the most poverty-stricken streets of Los Angeles, Quality Manager Luis Echeverria said,

“There is so much need out there, and doing something for others is better than just taking care of yourself.” He brought his wife and 13-year-old grandson, who at first didn’t want to go. However, Echeverria said, “The experience impacted all of our lives. Now our grandson wants to do more! He even asked, ‘When are we doing this again?’ ”

With great effort, energy and enthusiasm, hundreds of employees donated gifts and volunteered time to support Aerospace Systems’ giving campaigns last fall.

Holiday giving was at an all-time high in 2015, as Melbourne, Fla., employees donated more than 950 toys with an estimated value of nearly $20,000 to the Toys for Kids Campaign in Brevard County.

With incredible success, St. Augustine, Fla., teams donated 270 bicycles, 209 helmets, two scooters and two large bags of toys worth an estimated $19,500 to the St. Johns County Toys for Tots program.

In December, staff, family and friends volunteered in both counties to help distribute the holiday gifts.

Additionally, employees at both Centers of Excellence supported the annual Wrapp1NG Warmth campaign, generating more than $1,200 for Daily Bread, Inc. in Melbourne, which helps feed the hungry, and St. Francis House in St. Augustine, which serves the homeless. Through the campaign, 200 jackets were provided to those in need.

“It was amazing, and the generosity of our employees made a wonderful difference to those in our com-munities,”said Stephanie Fitzsimmons, Corporate Citizenship lead, who oversaw the Florida campaigns.

FLORIDA EMPLOYEES BRIGHTEN KIDS’ HOLIDAYS

COMMUNITY

By Jacqueline Farrell

THE STAGE FOR

The Leadership Summit prompted candid discussions and underscored the amazing power of collaboration.

Photo by Alex Evers

SETTING

2016

Minutes after Sector President Tom Vice showed the film during his keynote, it was released both internally and on YouTube; a humble way of connecting every employee to what was happening at the summit.

Vice then expanded upon the theme. “This year the conversation is about uniting, and that uniting takes a lot of different forms,” he said.

Leaders, colleagues, scientists and panelists answered questions about how we unite in new ways with exceptional stories and insights. Employees can view films of their presentations by accessing Mediasite.

Special guest speakers included Sal Kahn, the CEO of Khan Academy, which offers a free world-class education for anyone; Jennifer Deal, professor and author of the book, “What Millennials Want from Work;”

Dr. Sara Seager, an MIT professor who has dedicated her life to search for the next Earth in our universe; and extraordinary Broadway ac-tress Sarah Jones, who wowed the audience as she changed from one character into another, weaving messages of diversity throughout.

Later in the program, Vice brought Northrop Grumman CEO Wes Bush on stage for an open conversation. They covered topics facing our company, our industry and our cus-tomers. Bush also took questions from the audience. While respond- ing, he reminisced about his days as an engineer and shared some personal advice.

When asked about how to culti-vate creativity in ourselves, Bush replied, “The best thing I can say in that regard is listen to other people. We work in this amazing place and it’s gotten even more amazing as

the diversity has improved at our company. The flow of ideas and ideas exchanged in the enterprise is phenomenal. And when you listen and hear all of those ideas, it gives you not only the opportunity to learn from everyone else but to integrate and test different ideas yourself.”

Personal introspection and outreach were major topics throughout the conference. Sandra Evers-Manly, vice president, Global Corporate Responsibility, ended her talk with the reminder to, “Take a pause. Celebrate life. And most of all, celebrate you.”

The 2016 Leadership Summit was filled with celebration, inspiration, laughter and moments in which tears flowed freely. The annual conference hosted more than 800 sector leaders and began with a creative film announcing the conference’s theme: U N I T E.

How do we connect and unite in new ways across our company? And, as importantly, how do we unite in new ways with our communities?

“

”

Sector President Tom Vice connected to the summit audience during his opening keynote address.


By John Bruner

COVER STORY

19INSIDE AEROSPACE18 MARCH/APRIL 2016

21INSIDE AEROSPACE

Artist rendering of the Northrop Grumman T-X protoype by graphic designers Rob Gonzales and Kent Rump.

PERFORMANCE

Northrop Grumman has partnered with BAE Systems and L-3 to deliver a total training system with a “clean sheet” design aircraft. The expected award announcement will be in late 2017.

“The design and delivery of a new advanced trainer aircraft, ground-based training devices and an integrated training system that brings everything together is what makes this capture unique,” said Steve Hixson, vice president, Pro-gram Capture, Trainer-X.

“Northrop Grumman’s strategic teaming with BAE Systems and L-3 to deliver this system-of-systems solution has positioned us with more pilot training experience than any competitor.”The Air Force has requested production of 350 T-X aircraft, with the potential need for an additional thousand or more in the future. These revolutionary training aircraft will have a projected lifespan of at least half a century and replace the legendary and celebrated T-38 Talon, which Northrop Grumman designed and delivered more than 50 years ago.

The Air Force has trained more than 75,000 pilots in the T-38 since it entered its service. T-X has the potential to train that many students or more during its lifespan, based on potential future orders. Training will be conducted across five U.S. Air Education Training Command bases, all headquartered at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio. Currently, the Air Force trains about 500 pilots

per year. In addition to Air Force student pilots, members of foreign air forces will also train on the T-X aircraft via pilot-exchange programs.

Northrop Grumman is the aircraft design and manufacturing lead on the program, and across Aerospace Systems, several hundred employ-ees are collaborating to support this tremendous effort, with that number expected to grow significantly by year-end. This new aircraft has been designed from the ground up by Northrop Grumman engineers, with collaboration from engineers at BAE Systems.

The design and implementation of this new aircraft training system is a collaboration across the Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems and L-3 partnership. In addition to the aircraft, this team is designing the ground-based system that will build the foundation for the students’ in-flight training.

Students may be introduced to pilot training on a portable device, such as a tablet — a first for the Air Force. Then, with instructor guidance, students will begin using a series of devices, similar to a desktop trainer, and eventually a high-fidelity cockpit simulator. This will provide training consistency and better prepare students for their first actual flight in the T-X.

The Northrop Grumman team announced its intention to pursue the T-X contract with a “clean-sheet” design aircraft in February 2015. Scaled Composites in Mojave, Calif., a wholly owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman, is constructing the prototype, which will undergo flight testing later this year.

In January, Corporate Vice President and President of Aerospace Systems

Tom Vice and Sector Vice President and General Manager of Military Aircraft Systems Pat McMahon hosted Northrop Grumman Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President Wes Bush and BAE Systems CEO Ian King for a program update and an up-close look at the aircraft that could be the first of hundreds to come.

“Northrop Grumman has repeatedly earned the trust of the Air Force to deliver innovative, agile products that meet demanding standards,” Hixson said. “The responsibility and privilege of replacing a legacy like the T-38 is an honor we intend to keep right here at Northrop Grumman.”

The Trainer-X program (T-X) is an estimated $33 billion U.S. Air Force acquisition that will revolutionize the training of fourth- and fifth-generation pilots for the next several decades.

“We are dedicated to building upon an already strong and effective pilot training partnership with the U.S. Air Force.”

THE FUTURE OF U.S. AIR FORCE PILOT TRAINING

T-X: T-X: THE FUTURE OF U.S. AIR FORCE PILOT TRAININGBy Katherine Thompson and Ann Carney

—Steve Hixson vice president, Program Capture, Trainer-X

20 MARCH/APRIL 2016

PERFORMANCE

Employees cheered and clapped as the aircraft took off from the flight line at Aerospace Systems’ Palmdale Aircraft Integration Center of Excellence. The aircraft soared to 40,000 feet during a 2.5-hour mission before successfully landing at Edwards Air Force Base.

This was a much-anticipated mile-stone for the program, coming on the heels of the aircraft rollout in June 2015 and subsequent ground station rollouts from Airbus and Selex in November and December 2015, respectively. The aircraft and ground segments will be delivered to the Italian Air Station in Sigonella, Italy, in 2016. The same air base is already home to U.S Air Force-owned Global Hawk.

“First flight is the culmination of years of hard work and represents Northrop Grumman’s commitment to advanced airworthy systems for the Alliance,” said Rob Sheehan, NATO AGS deputy program manager, Northrop Grumman.

“Strong collaboration between the Alliance and industry partners continues to move this extraordinary program forward.”The system is being procured by 15 NATO nations (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany,

Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United States) and includes five aircraft and European-sourced mobile and transportable ground stations.

The ground stations will provide data link connectivity, data process-ing and exploitation capabilities to multiple deployed and nondeployed operational users. Following acqui-sition, NATO AGS will benefit and be supported by all 28 Alliance nations.

A derivative of the wide-area surveil-lance Global Hawk, the unmanned aircraft has the ability to fly for up to 30 hours at a time. The high-altitude, long-endurance system will perform all-weather, persistent wide-area

NATO AGS successfully made its maiden flight on Dec. 19, 2015.

Photo by Alan Radecki

On Dec. 19, 2015, nearly 100 Northrop Grumman employees and NATO customers braved the chilly morning air to watch the maiden flight of NATO’s first Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) aircraft.

terrestrial and maritime surveillance in near real-time. The system will provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to support a range of NATO missions, such as protection of ground troops and civilian populations, border control, maritime safety and humanitarian assistance.

In May 2012, NATO decided to acquire an AGS system that would expand the Alliance’s joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (JISR) and give commanders a comprehensive picture of the situation on the ground using five Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles and associated ground segments. Northrop Grumman signed on as the prime

contractor at the 2012 NATO Summit in Chicago.

NATO has prepared for the introduction of the AGS capability by using a Global Hawk to participate in large-scale JISR exercises, including Unified Vision 2014 and Trident Juncture 2015. These exercises combined the unmanned Global Hawk aircraft with additional air, land and sea assets to test NATO’s ability to gather information and fuse intelligence from multiple sources.

“The NATO AGS aircraft is part of a system that will allow NATO to meet the requirements of

emerging situations around the world. The program will provide unprecedented flexibility and intelligence to the Alliance,”

said Jim Edge, NATO AGS Management Agency general manager.

By Jessica Burtness NATOAGS AIRCRAFT SOARS SUCCESSFULLY DURING FIRST FLIGHT

“I couldn’t be prouder of the multinational team’s hard work and dedication coming

to fruition with first flight.”

—Jim Edge NATO AGS Management Agency general manager


PERFORMANCE

The sector is also driving F-35 affordability using another, less obvious resource — a group of machinists and manufacturing specialists from its Space Systems Design Center of Excellence in Redondo Beach, Calif., who have spent their careers designing and producing exquisite, high-precision hardware for satellite payloads.

“My team in Space Park [Redondo Beach campus] specializes in identifying details that make a part easy — or difficult — to produce,” said Don McKinzie, manager of machining, plating, processing and assembly in Global Manufacturing.

“We work closely with manufac-turing engineers from Northrop Grumman programs, customers and suppliers to resolve produci-bility issues that could prevent the sector from meeting production commitments, whether it’s for a spacecraft or aircraft program.”

On F-35, McKinzie’s team has worked with engineers to resolve subtle issues with several of the jet’s doors — issues that could have disrupted plans for affordable, high-volume production.

Since the F-35 program began in 2001, work in Palmdale has includ-ed assembly not only of the jet’s center fuselage but also other Lockheed Martin-designed F-35 doors, largely from parts made

in Aerospace Systems’ compo-sites shop in El Segundo, Calif. By 2012, limited assembly space in Palmdale, and the growing cost of shipping parts to and from El Segundo, drove the sector to seek a smarter, faster way to assemble the doors.

“Space Park provided a perfect solution for meeting F-35 require-ments,” explained McKinzie. “It offered the required climate-controlled assembly facilities, easy access to F-35 support engineers, and a simpler, more cost-effective way to integrate, test and deliver aircraft doors directly to Lockheed Martin.”

It also allowed F-35 to take advan-tage of a downturn in production requirements on the company’s F/A-18 assembly line in El Segundo.

“We hired a group of very talented but junior F/A-18 mechanics, then retrained them to do F-35 work,” said Andy Roberts, manager of machining and fabrication, Space Systems Design Center of Excellence. “It’s an investment that’s feeding new talent into both the F-35 program and the Space Park machinists’ apprenticeship program.”

Today, in a sparkling clean facility at Space Park optimized for F-35 production, a team of 10 mecha-nics performs final assembly —

precision drilling and attachment of hinges to curved composite panels — of various F-35 weapons bay doors. The panels are produced in the composite shop in El Segundo, while the hinges are provided by the company’s global supply chain.

The F-35 assembly team produces a shipset of weapons bay doors in less than two weeks; each shipset comprises four 14-foot doors and two 4-foot secondary (flipper) doors. Upon completion of its final quality inspection, each shipset is delivered to Lockheed Martin or other F-35 final-assembly facilities around the world.

Aerospace Systems is responsible for producing the weapons bay doors for all F-35s. In addition to shipsets in Space Park, the doors are being made under subcontract to Northrop Grumman by Elbit Systems Cyclone Ltd., in Israel, and Turkish Aerospace Industries in Ankara, Turkey. Members of the F-35 assembly team are helping to train these subcontractors to do the work.

For Roberts, the company’s use of its expertise in designing exquisite, special-purpose space systems to increase the affordability of a high-volume, high-performance aircraft is both ironic … and completely appropriate.

F-35 technicians Trevor Ternes (left) and Alec Lujan remove completed weapons bay door from its assembly tool to prepare it for final quality inspection.

Photo by Alex Evers

By Brooks McKinney TO INCREASE F-35 AFFORDABILITYMIXING AIR and

SPACE

“ COLLABORATETHE MORE WE

AMONG OUR CENTERS OF

SATISFIED AND SUCCESSFULEXCELLENCE, THE MORE

OUR CUSTOMERS WILL BE.

”—Andy Roberts manager of machining and fabrication


As a principal member of the Lockheed Martin-led F-35 industry team, Aerospace Systems is using its F-35 Integrated Assembly Line at the Palmdale Aircraft Integration Center of Excellence to help set the tempo for aircraft production and program affordability, mostly with employees who have grown up designing and producing high-performance aircraft.

CAPTURINGACROSS THE SECTOR

During the 2015-16 school year, colleges and universities in the United States expect to award more than 1.8 million bachelor’s and 802,000 master’s degrees, and close to 180,000 students are projected to earn a doctorate degree. According to the World Economic Forum, approximately 240,000 students will graduate with degrees in engineering. There’s no shortage of recent college graduates; however, the talent pipeline narrows significantly when a company like Northrop Grumman invites only the most qualified new grads to join its coveted Aerospace Systems engineering team.

So how does Northrop Grumman capture the stars? That’s easy: We simply show them what we

do. During Aerospace Systems’ College Week in January, the sector did just that and more, wowing top engineering students with what we do and, more importantly, what they will do if selected to come on board.

Throughout a four-day event, hundreds of college students from top engineering schools visited the Space Systems Center of Excellence in Redondo Beach, Calif., for an inside look at our pioneering technologies and emerging innovations.

Employees with related technical backgrounds were paired as ambassadors with the students. Chief engineers, fellows and other engineering experts hosted stimulating technical discussions about their work in Space, Manned

and Autonomous Systems as well as Research, Technology and Advanced Design. Students explored the Aerospace in Motion interactive gallery in Redondo Beach then headed to nearby El Segundo for impressive quadcopter demonstrations, followed by tours of composites and the F-18 production line.

Representatives from key areas of engineering staffed a variety of program and product booths such as Systems Engineering, Electro-nics, Additive Manufacturing and Innovation, and they spoke about their work to the students. Students also participated in interviews for summer internships and learned about the many exciting engineer-ing career paths and opportunities

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona student Stephanie Gamboa examines unmanned aerospace technology during a Redondo Beach learning tour.


THE STARS The wow factor continued with the sector’s unprecedented university leadership dinner and campus tour. Hosted by Sector President Tom Vice and Engineering Vice President of University Relations and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Frank Flores, the event drew several dozen leaders from top engineering schools across Northern and Southern California. It was the first time that these deans, presidents, chancellors and other university executives were brought together in a forum dedicated to fostering partnerships to create defense and aerospace curriculum to meet anticipated future needs of our nation and world.

University leaders toured the Redondo Beach and El Segundo Centers of Excellence, and then joined Vice, Flores and 18 sector vice presidents for an exclusive

dinner presentation. Vice and sector leaders shared Northrop Grumman’s compelling strategic growth objec-tives regarding air and space, and provided deep insight to the talent pipeline needed to achieve company goals and the goals of our customers.

“Northrop Grumman is our top corporate partner,” stated Debra Larson, dean of the College of Engineering at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, who attended the event. “Through our partnership, we are well positioned to anticipate future requirements around key areas of engineering such as cybersecurity, UAV [technology] and more. The depth and breadth of our relationship enables us to anticipate and develop future curriculum as well as new equipment and valuable opportunities for student exposure.”

available at Northrop Grumman after graduation.

On the final day, employees and visiting students celebrated together at Space Park and El Segundo. In a show of school pride, employees wore alumni sweatshirts to work, and in Redondo Beach, house band Hornet Nation treated all to an afternoon concert.

College Week came together through a robust and well-executed collaboration between Aerospace Systems’ University Relations, Staffing and Communications teams. Every aspect of the event was designed to show students what they might look forward to by opting for an engineering career with Northrop Grumman.

THIS IS COLLEGE WEEK.

By Bonnie Poindexter

Students explored Aerospace in Motion in Redondo Beach, Calif.,

with a tour from John Bruner, exhibit curator.



SHOW TELL&

29INSIDE AEROSPACE

ACROSS THE SECTOR

Recycling efforts routinely yield huge mounds of chips, saving tons of wood

from diversion to landfills.

Photo by Ezra Miller

Divert 70 percent of company-generated solid waste from landfills by 2020.

PINGCHIP

By Katie Hamic

That is one of Northrop Grumman’s environmental sustainability goals. And one resource being used to help the company meet that target is a recycling center established at the St. Augustine Aircraft Integration Center of Excellence last June.

When employees in Shipping and Receiving voiced the need for finding a better way to dispose of wooden crates and shipping containers, leadership listened — and acted. A portion of the campus already designated for the treatment of scrap metal and other waste was extended to include recyclable wood.

Employees bring on-site crates and containers, some of which are 10 feet high, to the recycling center for processing. A local vendor receives the broken-down pieces and grinds them into chips, which in turn are

sold to nearby companies. For example, a small power plant uses such chips to fuel its large indus- trial boilers.

By the end of 2015, this site diverted 81 percent of its recyclable wood from landfills. That equals a staggering 90 tons. Also, any nails found in the wood are recycled as scrap metal. The results from last year were also impressive: nearly 184 tons of recy-cled scrap metal.

“Northrop Grumman has a longstanding commit-ment to environmental sustainability and con- servation of natural resources,”

said Christine McGlade, vice president and leader of the Autonomous Design Center of Excellence in San Diego.

McGlade, former vice president of Global Manufacturing and St. Augustine site manager, was instrumental in establishing the recycling center in her prior position.

“A great team effort was made by Operations, Property Management and Global Supply Chain, as well as all employees who have participated in one way or another to make our recycling center successful,” added McGlade.

What’s next on St. Augustine’s list? The recycling and minimization of plastic — including bags, strapping and both shrink and bubble wrap.

28 MARCH/APRIL 2016

AWAY


ACROSS THE SECTOR

They say there is strength in numbers. A good example of that adage is a computing cluster — a set of interconnected computers working in sync as one. Such clusters are fundamental to High Performance Computing (HPC).

Northrop Grumman is harnessing the power of HPC. In fact, its most powerful computing resource is a cluster of hundreds of server-class computers at Space Park in Redondo Beach, Calif., known as Atlas.

Atlas enables the processing of hundreds of gigabytes of data daily — an inconceivable task for individual computers. Currently, standard Northrop Grumman desktop computers have six cores, compared to Atlas’s more than 5,000. By optimizing the power of Atlas, Northrop Grumman has won support contracts from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“The Atlas cluster makes it possible to produce stunning gigapixel imagery of global Earth views captured by satellites,”

said Al Danial, optical engineer for the National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) program. “These images are so large that

they can only be viewed on high-resolution video walls. These cluster-produced images are frequently shown to visiting civil and military customers to great effect.”

According to Danial, Atlas’s huge computing and storage resources enable calibration and validation work done by the Lasers and Sensors Subsystems NPP team. The Atlas cluster offers flexibility needed for multiple analyses, which may require millions of iterations.

For example, a simulation that can pinpoint trajectories world-wide requires the calculation of millions of rendering points, as well as algorithms to determine all the possible scenarios for a given trajectory. This one simulation would take months to run on a standard desktop, but only a few days, and sometimes only hours, on Atlas.

Atlas jobs use homegrown applications and many commer-cial software tools, such as the thermal engineering ones used by the James Webb Space Telescope team. Additionally, applications such as Matlab can be used to simulate, process, calculate and render data in batch mode, running multiple iterations while freeing up local resources.

A second cluster, called Montauk, went live at the company’s site

in Melbourne, Fla., in early 2015. Montauk has helped the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) program expe- dite mechanical and radar analysis. Recently, a JSTARS radar engineer ran a large analysis that would have taken 20 hours to run on a local PC, but with HPC it took just 36 minutes. HPC helps Northrop Grumman meet the demands of its increasingly complex business.

To compete effectively, the company must meet greater performance and cost expecta- tions, including up-front analysis and the creation of physics-based models. Beyond our current HPC capabilities, the Aerospace Sys-tems Information Technology (IT) HPC Strategy Council is taking steps to enhance company capabilities.

“HPC will continue to be a vital resource to our sector,” said Rick Johansson, Engineering Systems IT program director. “Our ability to model full mission scenarios in a timely and affordable manner is critical to our current and future business.”

Both Atlas and Montauk are general-purpose computing clusters available to engineers across the sector.

To find out more about how to leverage this computing power, visit the HPC Wiki page.

Atlas enables display of stunning imagery of Earth onto high-resolution video walls.


By Maria Walker NUMBERSSTRENGTH IN WHERE AT ONE TIME, HPC WAS FOR ONLY A FEW

SELECT ENGINEERS AND PROGRAMS, OUR GOAL IS TO PROVIDE SUPERIOR COMPUTATIONAL

RESOURCES TO ALL WHO REQUIRE IT.

“”—Rick Johansson

Engineering Systems IT program director


It is difficult enough being a sol-dier injured in combat returning from war and trying to transition to civilian life.

Now picture attempting to rejoin the workforce. Think about walking into a career fair where nameless representatives of companies won’t even look at your résumé. That’s impersonal for the average college graduate, but it can be downright insulting to a war veteran.

So imagine Aerospace Systems employee Ryan Clark’s surprise when Northrop Grumman repre-sentatives at a Wounded Warriors Career Fair not only checked out his résumé, but talked to him.

“At the event, only Northrop Grumman actually looked at my résumé, and the recruiters were immediately interactive and interested in how I could be part of the team. Every other defense contractor had the same response: ‘Submit a résumé to the website; we’ll contact you — no need to show your résumé or talk about specific skills,’” Clark recalled. “This single difference is the major reason I joined Northrop Grumman. I was not just another sheet of paper. I would be valued as an individual.”

Clark, a San Diego-based Elec- tronics Engineering manager, is a left leg below-knee amputee due to injuries sustained from an improvised explosive device in 2007 while serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq. Military surgeons worked at great length to repair the extensive damage to the bones in his foot, ankle and tibia/fibula, and Clark began walking with a cane nine months after the injury.

Not satisfied with the prospect of being on the sidelines of life, he elected to have his leg amputated below the knee in 2008. That may seem counterintuitive, but the procedure would enable him to become more mobile. Five weeks later, on Christmas Eve, he received his first prosthetic and could walk again. During the last weekend in January 2009, “I was provided the opportunity to visit Keystone, Colo., to enjoy the snow. On my third day on the slopes, I was able to ski the expert trails again without anyone except my instructor knowing I was an amputee,” Clark said.

Life with a prosthetic has opened many doors for Ryan. He stays active by hiking, paddle boarding, kayaking and snowboarding — which he just learned to do last year so he could teach his children.

Then on June 15, 2009, Clark reached another milestone: He began the job with Aerospace Systems. Even though it took two years of rehabilitation be-fore he could start work, Northrop Grumman personnel reached out to him several times each month, sometimes just to see how he was doing.

Clark hired on as a Mission Man-agement and Communications Systems engineer for the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) program. Although he’s enjoying his time with Aerospace Systems, Clark admits the transi-tion to the corporate environment hasn’t always been easy.

“Within Northrop Grumman, it can be difficult for veterans to understand and come to accept the corporate methodologies and rationales. It can be exceptionally challenging for leaders to under-stand and appreciate the veterans’ views and opinions as former end users of frustrating weapon sys-tems,” he said.

Despite the challenges, Clark has worked on some of Northrop Grumman’s most innovative programs. He watched as the X-47B UCAS aircraft made its first flight from Edwards Air Force Base and was aboard several aircraft carri-ers as part of surrogate and X-47B flight test events. He currently works on the MQ-4C Triton program.

And ultimately, Operation Impact has made a difference in Clark’s life. “I have been able to meet and find camaraderie with fellow Operation Impact hires, as well as form friendships beyond the daily work responsibilities,” he said. “Often, we all share similar struggles, and open, often frank dialogue has been valuable.”

Linda Javier also contributed to this article.

By Chris Boyd

‘Not Just Another Sheet of Paper’

HOMEFRONT

Operation Impact opens doors for deserving veterans like Ryan Clark.

Photo by Terry Pfrang

VALUING OUR VETERANS


her home to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and today that house is a prominent point of interest on the tour. “Northrop Grumman has a heart,” she said.

In addition to the company’s contribution, Countryman has coordinated two-hour Freedom Trail tours for Northrop Grumman employees every April since 2009. For the last three years, he has invited employees from Melbourne, Fla., to join the event. Although the tour is usually self-guided, employees take it together via a trolley.

Boots on the ground epitomizes Northrop Grumman’s commitment to the community. It echoes the countless steps taken during some of the most profound times in our nation’s history — from the civil rights marches to preserving and sharing its significance today.

An additional step Countryman and other community members have taken is to help preserve hundreds of historic documents discovered in a building known as Echo House just prior to its demolition in 2014. Echo House served as a safe haven for African-American demonstrators

during the 1960s. Among the papers uncovered were letters of correspondence between King and Dr. Robert B. Hayling, who was known as the “father” of St. Augustine’s Civil Rights Movement. All the documents are now archived at the ACCORD Civil Rights Museum in St. Augustine.

To learn more about the Freedom Trail, a free narrated audio tour is available 24/7 by calling (904) 335-3002.

Showing one of the markers that adorn the Freedom Trail.

Photo by Sean Fines

HOMEFRONT

It’s also how Mose Countryman, a Northrop Grumman aircraft technician, describes how the company stepped up in 2005 to help preserve St. Augustine’s Freedom Trail.

A tour of historic sites, the trail commemorates people and places in honor of the pivotal role St. Augustine, Fla., played in the Civil Rights Movement. To date, Northrop Grumman has contributed 35 markers, each telling the compelling story behind its corresponding stop.

“Northrop Grumman took an interest in the Freedom Trail, not

just by putting their name on the site, they actually put boots on the ground to help maintain these sites and properties to help the community learn more about their history,” said Countryman, who has worked in St. Augustine for 29 years. “Northrop Grumman is more than a corporation. It’s part of the community.”

A nonprofit organization, ACCORD (Anniversary to Commemorate the Civil Rights Demonstrations), reached out to various organiza- tions to help preserve the trail and promote its importance, but none of them showed interest.

“Northrop Grumman was the only company to sit down and listen,” said Countryman. “They liked what they heard, they liked what they saw, and they agreed to support the project.”

A local resident who is especial-ly appreciative of Northrop Grumman’s support is Janie Bernadette Price. Now in her 80s, Price was an active member of the Civil Rights Movement. She opened

“Boots on the ground”

By Ann CarneyHONORING A LEGACYFREEDOMTRAIL

It’s a phrase associated with armed forces taking the lead

to protect and defend.