May 26, 2011 defpro.com
VANCOUVER, British Columbia | Northstar Electronics, Inc. announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Northstar Network Ltd. (NNL), has received new purchase orders from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Inc. totaling approximately $2,400,000 for work on the P-3 Mid-Life Upgrade (MLU) Program. The new work is under the umbrella of a $16.4MM Master Purchase Order (MPO) contract previously announced by Northstar. Production for this work is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2012.
Northstar is manufacturing components and assemblies for new production Service Life Extension kits for the wing upgrade for the P-3 Orion. Lockheed Martin's P-3 MLU Program is the only certified, low-risk and cost-effective solution to extend aircraft service life. The MLU replaces the aircraft outer wings, center wing lower section and horizontal stabilizer with new production components. It removes all current P-3 airframe flight restrictions and will add more than 15,000 flying hours to each aircraft, representing 15 to 20 additional years of service for this critical maritime patrol and reconnaissance resource. There are more than 430 P-3 aircraft in the worldwide fleet.
Terry McLeod, Northstar’s VP-Operations and Planning, added, “Our relationship with Lockheed Martin continues to grow, showing the success of their upgrade program and the ever-growing interest from global P-3 users. We now have 21 new aircraft commitments this year under the existing MPO and have been advised of further production increases under the current program. The strong production commitments will support our present plans for NNL’s facility expansions in the near future.”
