PATUXENT RIVER, Md. – On January 28th, 2011, the Navy awarded Composite Engineering Incorporated, a small business, a contract for $31.5 million, the result of a competition to provide new subsonic aerial targets (SSAT) to upgrade current capabilities in ensuring fleet readiness.

The contracted work includes a three-year engineering and manufacturing development phase, two firm, fixed-price options for production, and options to provide logistics support.

“We assessed each proposed system from a holistic cost perspective, to get a sense of the overall cost of ownership for each system up front, as we will probably be using SSAT for the next twenty years,” said Capt. Dan McNamara, Program Manager for aerial targets and decoys.

“This is a milestone for SSAT and an example of how small businesses can help NAVAIR and the Navy. We have a long history of working very closely with small businesses, and their ability to deliver technology and innovation rapidly to the fleet,” said Emily Harman, associate director of NAVAIR's small business program office.

The Navy uses aerial targets like SSAT as surrogates for air, land, surface and sub-surface launched anti-ship cruise missiles to test the effectiveness of shipboard air defense systems, and to train and ready the fleet in employing air-to-air and surface-to-air missile systems.

SSAT provides cost savings potential as they are recoverable and reusable, and can be easily configurable through the addition of a variety of payloads to provide utility to both customers: weapons development programs and the fleet for training and qualifications.

“We’re in a pressurized budget environment, but we must continue to provide the most realistic training systems to the fleet for their readiness before they sail into harm’s way, and to our weapons development programs to maintain our technological edge,” said McNamara.

SSAT will be fielded at multiple operating sites around the world, and are capable of being launched from land or sea, and potentially from airborne platforms. The Navy intends to field SSAT initially in 2015, and achieve full fielding in 2017.