Northrop lands $177M deal for local-built tech

The Australian Defense Force has inked a deal with Northrop Grumman to install and maintain a satellite monitoring system that was developed in its Orlando office.

The deal, about $177.7 million, will install ground systems that receive information from and monitor satellites.

More than 100 of Grumman’s Orlando workers helped develop the system, company officials said.

That total number is expected to grow during the next few years, said

“We are busting out at the seams” in Orlando, said Marty Amen, Northrop’s Orlando-based director of secure network operations.

The company has grown by 30 percent in Central Florida during the last three years, to about 350 workers, and he said he expects that rate to continue during the next five years.

Northrop’s secure network operations have grown from being a 12-person team about 13 years ago to including more than 100 in Central Florida, Amen said.

“This is a very strategic and important region for us,” he said. “We are experiencing a lot of growth, especially as information assurance and cyber threats become more prevalent.

The ADF contract is a 20-year deal that covers several antennae in Wagga Wagga and ground monitoring stations for the satellites.

The deal gives the ADF greater access to the satellite communications system Wideband Global SATCOM, a nine-satellite system expected to grow to 12.

Northrop will install a ground facility that will include three large antennae, along with 13-meter satellite dishes.

The U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force all have major modeling and simulation presences in Central Florida.

A longtime virtual-reality expert who leads Ford Motor Company’s efforts in that field will head up a summit meant to showcase Central Florida’s high-tech community in Orlando.

Elizabeth Baron, considered the leader of Ford’s Immersive Vehicle Environment, will be one of the featured speakers at the Florida Simulation Summit, which starts at 8 a.m. Thursday at the Orange County Convention Center.

Other speakers at the summit will include representatives from Walt Disney World, Luminar Technologies, the City of Orlando and the University of Central Florida.

Tickets for the event cost $25 in advance and $50 at the door.

A Silicon Valley-based online brokerage has chosen Lake Mary as the location for its first office outside of its headquarters.

Robinhood, an appbased firm that allows customers to make stock purchases from their smartphones, recently debuted a 14,500-square-foot office, where it hopes to hire more than 200 people during the next three years.

Robinhood’s arrival comes months after the company failed to land the more than $1 million in incentives combined it had sought from Seminole County and Florida.