Fargo company awarded contract for 119th Wing’s Remotely Piloted Aircraft Operations Center

FARGO (KVRR) – A Fargo company will build a new, state-of-the-art operations center for the North Dakota Air National Guard’s 119th Wing in Fargo.

Sen. John Hoeven says the Army awarded a more than $13 million contract to Gast Construction Company, Inc. of Fargo.  The facility will be home for the Air National Guard’s Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) program.

“The 119th Wing has a global mission, and they’re in the fight every day,” Hoeven said. “With the $17.5 million in funding we secured, we can now build a new operations center and they can move into it without any interruption in delivering their important mission.”

The National Guard says the Remotely Piloted Aircraft mission is to provide close air support, air interdiction, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and attack to eliminate threats when present. The RPAs allows Combat Search and Rescue operations and extended time over targets to locate, track, target, strike, and assess time sensitive targets.

A groundbreaking ceremony is planned Tuesday at the Air National Guard’s 119th Wing Base in Fargo.  The facility will open in 2023.