Honeywell Aerospace Wins $26 Million AFRL SPARROW Gyroscope Contract

Honeywell Aerospace has won a $25.6 million Air Force Research Laboratory contract to develop flight-qualified, radiation-hardened compact strategic gyroscopes for the SPARROW Inertial Measurement Unit. The Clearwater, Florida, company will design, build, test and deliver the sensors and supporting technical data. Work will be performed in Clearwater and is expected to be completed by July 1, 2029.

Compact Strategic Gyroscope Maturation Details

Under the statement of work, Honeywell will develop a flight-representative prototype, test it against the Air Force’s performance requirements, and use the results to complete a production-representative, radiation-hardened design. The company will establish the gyroscope’s detailed component specification and work with the designated IMU integrator to resolve interface and system-performance issues. It must also provide government teams with editable models, simulations and error budgets for system-level analysis.

The requirements document sets progressively more demanding targets for the prototype and final hardware. For the final design, those targets include bias stability of no more than 0.0001 degrees per hour and, per gyroscope including support electronics, a volume of no more than 24 cubic inches, a weight of one pound and power consumption of eight watts. Honeywell will test the final units against performance and environmental requirements, including radiation-hardness criteria.

The delivery schedule in the statement of work calls for nine gyroscopes and a government test set by March 2028: three sensors for an IMU demonstration, three for a radiation-hardened prototyping unit and three for government validation. Six more gyroscopes are due by March 2029 for IMU insertion and government validation. Honeywell will also deliver a complete technical data package, including the software and firmware source code and build materials needed to operate and sustain the hardware. The research call describes that package as a means to support future government-led competitive procurement.

Award and Contractor Background

The award followed a competitive acquisition that received two offers. It is the first call under AFRL’s Neutron Strategic Technology Advanced Research Announcement, which sought a gyroscope meeting the performance, environmental and interface requirements for integration into SPARROW.

Honeywell has worked on related AFRL inertial-sensing efforts. The Defense Department announced a $41.6 million compact strategic-grade gyroscope award to the company in June 2020. HigherGov also lists a Strategic Compact Inertial Measurement Unit contract with a potential value of $85.6 million that includes work on SPARROW gyroscopes and supporting sensor technologies.

This award was disclosed by the DoW in its daily press release. Additional contract details will be available on HigherGov in approximately 90 days under FA945326CX026 after the contract is formally disclosed by the government.