Friday, July 11, 2008

Navy buys $12M worth of hydrophones from Massa

Massa Products Corp. has landed a $12.1 million deal from the U.S. Navy for underwater sound instruments, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

The Hingham company will provide the Navy with about 3,100 of its DT-574 hydrophones each year until 2013. Work on the contract, which was issued by the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, will be performed in Hingham.

In 2003, privately-held Massa received $1.3 million from the Office of Naval Research to develop an underwater robotic mine detector. The company also worked with Northeastern University professor Joseph Ayers of the school’s Nahant-based Marine Science Center to develop a biomimetic robot that resembled and walked like a lobster.