Northrop Grumman has just received a new contract from DARPA to continue developing a means to accurately determine structural failures in advance. The effort—called Structural Integrity Prognosis System, or SIPS—has been underway for two years and last summer provided its first demonstration, predicting the results of live fatigue tests on components of a Navy EA-6B Prowler. The SIPS team currently is using SIPS to assess the fuselage of a retired A-10 Warthog. DARPA awarded $14.2 million for the first two-year effort, and the new two-year contract is worth $17.8 million. As Joseph Garone, Northrop’s director of advanced capabilities development, said, “The potential benefits from SIPS are huge.”
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.