Resources

USAF, Lockheed, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Kratos — 2014 contractors plate

Published collage naming USAF and four prime contractors against the MH370 date. Nic’s caption: the US military exercise around MH370 has not been fully accounted for in public.

Aurora Orion contract FA8620-12-C-3027

~$86.56m aggregated · completion extending to 2019

Public award aggregation for the BIG SAFARI / Orion definitive contract. Transaction-level FPDS history — especially modifications August 2013–March 2014 — is still open. Budget authority, ceilings and obligations are not the same as cash spent.

Malaysia extends the search contract to June 2027

29 June 2026

Cabinet extends the Ocean Infinity agreement from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027 to finish a remaining 7,428.54 km². No-find-no-fee terms continue.

Boeing–NAVAIR delivery order signed 4 March 2014

$955,853.54 · N0001914D0012 · engineering/technical support · St Louis

Confirmed public contracting record, four days before MH370. Department of the Navy, Naval Air Systems Command, NAICS aircraft manufacturing, PSC R425 professional engineering/technical support. Subject of the order is not in the public header. Chronology is not a collection event.

Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems

ISIS radar · MTS for USAF UAVs · large classified SAS bookings

Radar on ISIS; MTS-B is an Orion payload lead. 2013 SAS booked $210m MTS for USAF UAVs and $862m classified. Those totals do not establish an MH370/MAGIC contract.

Aurora Flight Sciences

HALE/MALE autonomy house · Orion prime

Founded 1989. Chiron optionally piloted aircraft 1996. Global Hawk structures since 1995. Centaur optionally piloted DA42 from 2010. AACUS autonomous helicopter demo February 2014. ALIAS is later drop-in copilot work.

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics

ISIS systems integrator, Palmdale

Prime on ISIS Phase 3. Confirmed industrial role; no MH370 collection evidence.

MH370 search operation 2025/2026 — update to families

Ministry of Transport Malaysia · 8 March 2026

Official family briefing: 28 operational days, ~7,571 km² of the 15,000 km² box surveyed, no wreckage confirmed. Contract later extended to June 2027.

Ocean Infinity

Private seabed search · 2018 and 2025–2027

No-find-no-fee searches along the 7th arc. 2018 ~112,000 km². 2025–26: 7,571 km² of a 15,000 km² box. Contract extended to 30 June 2027.

What is the bridge from the ISR family to MH370?

Gorgon Stare, Blue Devil and MAGIC/Orion are a documented family under BIG SAFARI. The open question is one specific platform, sensor, command link, contract, deployment or test event in both that family and the MH370 window. Until that object is found, involvement is not established — and is not ruled out.

Freescale gyros and the laser / directed-energy race

January 2025 briefing video: twenty Freescale employees on MH370; gyroscopic sensors; a US-led race with China and Russia on precision laser directed energy; later public silence on Freescale’s role; a prime contractor with Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street as large holders, and a reported 38% profit rise in 2014 after missile-defence grants.

Ocean Infinity 2025–27 priority box

15,000 km² · 7,571 surveyed · 7,429 remaining

New no-find-no-fee area along the 7th arc. Empty as of the 8 March 2026 family update. Contract to 30 June 2027.

Orion 80-hour remotely controlled flight

December 2014 · 1,000 lb ballast · fuel for ~37 more hours

Contractor-confirmed endurance after MH370. This was flight 18 and carried 1,000 lb of ballast. Shows the air vehicle matured; does not rewind payload status to March.

Where is the main wreckage?

Not in the 120,000 km² ATSB box, not in the 2018 Ocean Infinity corridor, not in the 7,571 km² surveyed in 2025–26. Remaining 7,428 km² under contract to June 2027.

2025–2026 Ocean Infinity phases

25–28 March 2025 and 31 Dec 2025 – 23 Jan 2026

Two operational phases survey about 7,571 km² of a 15,000 km² priority box. Malaysia’s 8 March 2026 family update: nothing found that confirms the wreckage.

A BIG SAFARI collection architecture around MH370

The family is documented. A specific 8 March operation is open.

Gorgon Stare, Blue Devil and MAGIC/Orion are one overlapping ISR family under 645 AESG / BIG SAFARI: same office, overlapping WAMI/SIGINT sensors, reusable GFE through Greenville, and a podded architecture meant to move between airframes. That family is confirmed. Whether any of it collected MH370 is not established and is not ruled out.

A specific MH370 collection event is not yet on the record — and is not ruled out

MAGIC/Orion, Gorgon Stare and Blue Devil form a documented overlapping family under BIG SAFARI. That family is not, by itself, a platform, sensor or sortie on 8 March 2014. The same material does not rule such a deployment out.

Anthony Loke

Malaysian Minister of Transport (2025–2026 search rounds)

Announced the 2025 Ocean Infinity restart and the 29 June 2026 extension to 30 June 2027.

Blue Devil I / II

Operational Block 1 WAAS + SIGINT · Block 2 residuals to BIG SAFARI

Block 1 was operational: manned aircraft carrying Angel Fire-derived wide-area imagery integrated with SIGINT. Block 2, the airship, was terminated — but its equipment, including GFE, was packed and sent to a BIG SAFARI facility in Greenville, Texas, available for other programmes. The technology did not vanish with the airship.

Freescale as a causal thread

Twenty employees confirmed; assignment unreconstructed

Presence is a fact. A defence, inertial, or communications assignment that would matter to MH370 is an open question, not a finding.

Freescale last presentation — gyroscopic sensors

Plate from the 18 September 2026 collage: pages of a Freescale presentation on gyroscopic sensors, identified as among the last formal materials before twenty employees boarded MH370.

ISIS

Integrated Sensor Is Structure · DARPA/USAF airship radar

Same PE as MAGIC. Lockheed integrator, Raytheon radar, ~$400–462m. Stratospheric airship with very large low-power radar. Confirmed programme; no evidence of MH370 collection.

L-3 Greenville awarded Blue Devil 2 integration / test

FA8620-06-G-4003 / order 1157 · $12.054m · 17 Aug 2011

L-3 Communications Integrated Systems, Greenville, Texas, paid for BD2 airship integration and test support. Later Q4 FY2012 storage was also at a 645 AESG-managed Greenville facility. Geographic coincidence is not a custody finding.

New Evidence, New Answers? The Endless Search For Flight MH370

Independent overview of debris and Ocean Infinity

Survey of African-coast debris identifications and whether a marine-robotics return can close the case. No new wreckage coordinate.

Ocean Infinity 2018 no-find-no-fee search

January–May 2018

Ocean Infinity’s Seabed Constructor searches on the order of 112,000 km² along a revised 7th-arc corridor. No wreckage.

Orion flight 18 — 80-hour record with 1,000 lb ballast

December 2014 · not an ISR-payload demonstration

Aurora’s endurance attempt was flight 18 and carried 1,000 lb of ballast. Maiden flight (no mission system) and this record flight both fail as evidence of an operational ISR stack. Payload on flights 2–17 remains open.

OSD PB2012 — MAGIC JCTD primary record

PE 0603648D8Z · pp. 32–33 · USCENTCOM sponsor

Primary OSD budget exhibit: MAGIC is a USCENTCOM-sponsored JCTD. 120-hour sortie, nominal 1,000 lb / maximum 2,600 lb at 15,000 ft. Modular payload classes: EO/IR, SIGINT, GMTI, wide-area surveillance, communications relay, strike. Transition named to USAF 303rd AESW.

Raytheon MTS-B as Orion payload lead

Reported option · 2012–13 USAF UAV MTS bookings in the $200m class

MTS-B is EO/IR FMV/targeting. Aviation Week 2010 attributed a planned pair of MTS-B turrets on Orion — planned, not fitted on the maiden article. Flight 18 (Dec 2014) carried 1,000 lb ballast. Raytheon 10-K totals do not identify Orion as the customer.

The Search for MH370 is Back ON!

Mentour Now · 24 March 2025 · 23:19

Follow-up on Malaysia’s 2025 Ocean Infinity restart. Recaps BTO as range and BFO as Doppler, the southern-arc choice, and overlays Godfrey’s WSPR figure-eights on a line through the captain’s simulator coordinates.

What platform received the FY2013 dual-band RF Persistent Sensing integration?

PB2015: completed and integrated onto an ‘identified platform,’ then the effort ended. Public exhibits do not name it. FIRST RF / Shadow 200 and ISIS test-facility work are documented UHF/X-band alternatives. Orion is chronology-only.

What sensors were actually on Orion by March 2014?

Orion was selected as MAGIC’s multi-day, multi-sensor ISR aircraft. First flight had no mission system; flight 18 (Dec 2014) carried ballast. Those two points do not empty the aircraft. Sorties 2–17, including March 2014, are the hole. Gorgon Stare / MTS-B / VADER remain live leads, not closed fits.

What was on Orion flights 2–17 between August 2013 and March 2014?

First flight: no mission system. Flight 18 (Dec 2014): ballast. The MH370-relevant interval is the unlisted sorties in between, plus whether the ‘second flight series’ PB2015 said was being scheduled had begun by 8 March.

Where was the Blue Devil I government-owned sensor package in January–March 2014?

Aircraft gone; sensors remaining as government property, being assessed for reassignment. Destination on 8 March is open — including Orion, MQ-9, MC-12, or another host. Not shown, and not ruled out.