Whistleblower accuses Northrop Grumman providing phony test data on LN-100 INS

LN-100 used in H60 Helicopter

Contractor sold faulty navigation units to armed forces, lawsuit claims | The Salt Lake Tribune

Todd Donaldson, a Northrop Grumman employee for more than 25 years, alleges in a federal court lawsuit that technicians were instructed to manually type in "pass" so it appears on results after seeing that the navigation units typically failed the required tests, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for Utah in September but only made public on Friday.


Donaldson was a manager for more than 10 years in the Navigation Systems Division in Salt Lake City that manufactures the LN-100 Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System, which the complaint says "is absolutely essential to the proper functioning of the myriad weapons, vehicles, and other equipment in which it is installed."

Divers recovered this wreckage from a U.S. Air Force Predator MQ-1B
drone that crashed while trying to return to Camp Lemonnier
military base in Djibouti last year.

Northrop faked tests of GPS systems, whistleblower suit claims - News - Stripes

in May 2011, Air Force investigators blamed the LN-100 for a crash of a Predator drone carrying a Hellfire missile in the north African Republic of Djibouti. [Remote U.S. base at core of secret operations - The Washington Post; Remote U.S. base in Djibouti at core of secret drone operations - Houston Chronicle] The investigators said the device recorded the drone’s altitude to be 400 feet higher than it actually was. The crew, piloting the craft remotely, failed to see the problem, the investigators said, before the Predator flew into the ground.

The lawsuit was filed under a federal whistleblower law that allows those who expose government fraud to keep part of any resulting financial settlement. Donaldson filed the lawsuit two years ago, but it was sealed from view of the company and the public until last week.

On Friday, Judge David Nuffer of U.S. District Court in Utah ordered the complaint unsealed after the federal government declined to join the case. He said the government can still decide to intervene.

 DoD Contracts: Northrop Grumman Wins $200 Million EGI Contract 

AIR FORCE
Northrop Grumman Guidance and Electronics Company Inc., Woodland Hills, Calif., has been awarded a $200,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to perform acquisition and sustainment for the Embedded Global Positioning System Inertial Navigation System (EGI). The acquisition and sustainment will consist of platform integration, modernization, diminishing manufacturing sources, flight test support, technical support following integration efforts, training, engineering support/studies, contractor depot repair, spares, and data for the standard EGI. Work will be performed at Woodland Hills, Calif., and is expected to be complete by Dec. 31, 2018.

LN-100G Embedded INS/GPS (EGI)

The LN-100G is a versatile Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System (INS/GPS) capable of performing high-accuracy navigation while supplying unsurpassed sensor stability for superior geo-location needs.


The LN-100G is a non-dithered 0.8 nm/hr free INS/GPS utilizing the Zero-Lock™ Gyro (ZLG™) and various GPS solutions. The LN-100G is ideally suited for use as a Synthetic Aperture Radar, electro-optical reference, sensor stabilization or underwater system due to the absence of acoustic noise.


The LN-100/LN-100G has now been selected by more than 70 customers, including the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Army, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, in addition to over 25 international applications. These units are flying in various aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned undersea vehicles, launch vehicles, PODs, missiles, fighters and trainers (e.g. F-22, T-45), a variety of helicopters, and transport aircraft (e.g., C-130, P-3, C-295).

ln100g.pdf

Northrop Grumman Delivers 8,000th LN-100 Inertial Navigation System - News Release

"After 20 years of continuous production, our LN-100 product continues to provide reliable, high performance to a broad customer community while evolving with emerging needs," said Gorik Hossepian, vice president of Northrop Grumman's Navigation and Positioning Systems business unit. 

 Navigation and Sensors Capability Assessment - Nav_and_Sensors_Capability_Assessment.pdf