The Army has awarded a pair of deals to Palantir Technologies [PLTR] and
Raytheon Intelligence and Space [RTX] to deliver prototypes for the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) program, before the service downselects to one vendor for production.
After both companies participated in the first phase of TITAN to work through their designs for the future intelligence ground station, each has now received a $36 million, 14-month deal to build prototypes for evaluation and testing.
“Now more than ever, the nation’s warriors and allies are being asked to make more decisions, at a faster speed, with more available data,” Aki Jain, president of Palantir USG, said in a statement. “TITAN is the crucial combination of the defense industry’s best technology from both emerging and enduring DoD partners, and we’re proud to serve as a non-traditional prime contractor for this effort.”
The Army initially selected Palantir and Raytheon for the first phase of TITAN in January 2021, awarding each company deals worth $8.5 million for 12 months of work focused on design reviews, software demonstrations and a series of soldier touchpoints to gather feedback (Defense Daily, Jan. 11 2021).
The TITAN program is expected to deliver scalable and expeditionary intelligence ground stations capable of providing fused sensor data to weapons systems at the battalion level, with the Army describing the future system as “a crucial component to enable deep sensing and [shortening] the sensor-to-shooter loop.”
Initially, the Army had planned to downselect to one vendor for complete system prototyping after the first phase concluded.
“Upon further review from the program office, they decided that for a program that’s this important to the Army they should have a physical prototype delivered from both vendors to actually see what it looks like, get feedback, field it and see how it actually functions,” a senior Palantir engineer associated with the program told reporters.
The Army has previously said a third phase will then focus on refining prototype capabilities by echelon and fourth phase will work to “develop the system for integration of future sensors, technology advancements, and option to build additional assets.”
The base platform for TITAN is expected to be a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle or a Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles truck, according to the senior Palantir engineer.