There’s one less helicopter hovering above a mountain range, courtesy of BlueHalo’s Virtual Stinger Trainer and the author of this story with some help from Haden Downey (pictured below).

It only took one shot from the company’s man-held missile system from inside the Von Braun Center’s South Hall.

BlueHalo had one of seemingly countless booths and information blocks set up at the VBC for the annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium at the VBC Aug. 9-11.

The author using the Virtual Stinger Trainer with the assistance of Haden Downey, Simulation Hardware & Software Test Analyst at BlueHalo

This symposium, which featured over 200 exhibitors in 2021, provides companies with the opportunity to showcase technology and products to the Space and Missile Defense Command, Aviation and Missile Command, NASA, Corps of Engineers, the State of Alabama and other corporations.

BlueHalo, which is headquartered in Arlington, Va., but locally located at 401 Jan Davis Drive NW, bills itself as “purpose-built to provide industry-leading capabilities in the key mission areas of Space Technologies, Directed Energy, Air and Missile Defense, C$ISR, CNO, Multi-INT and Healthcare.

Hartselle native Ashley Young, the Public Relations Specialist for BlueHalo, said the symposium was “about building relationships with other industry partners, customers, and government within the industry. And as a team, just having everybody here from across our company being together.

“BlueHalo has a large scope of projects and programs across multiple sectors, but we also partner on contracts with other companies alongside us here at SMD–working together to innovate for the future and protect our nation and warfighters.”

Young said BlueHalo has a “huge’’ presence in Huntsville and also Albuquerque, NM., and Colorado. According to Jimmy Jenkins, President, Defense Sector at BlueHalo, the company sets itself apart from its competitors in several ways.

“We’re different in the sense that we’re more agile, quicker and cheaper, so that’s kind of our niche I would say. For example, we do all this missile work and assembly at our Huntsville location.

“We’re a team of seven people. So if customers need a missile, we can do it pretty quickly whereas the bigger guys would be millions of dollars and months long and all of that kind of stuff. We’re able to do stuff quick and agile.’’

Among the featured speakers at the symposium was General Jim Dickinson of SPACECOM and Major General Sean A. Gainey, who represented Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (CUAS).

The event was brought to attendees by ASMDA, NDIA Tennessee Valley and ADAA RSA/Huntsville Chapter.

Sponsors included:

BlueHalo, CACI, Unanet, BAE Systems, Deloitte, Dynetics, SAIC, Parsons, Northrop-Gruman, Boeing, Raytheon Technologies (Platinum); SMX, Mercury, Epirus, Spirit Aerosystems, ASRC Federal, Bradley, Bank of America, Torch Technologies, Teledyne Technologies (Gold), Axient, M3, CAES, Battelle, Riskonnect, deciBel Research, Koda Technologies, Bigbear.AI, General Dynamics, IERUS, Linquest, HTS, AWS, Equator, Sentar, Intrepid, CFD Research, Boecore, Venturi, Radiance Technologies, PeopleTec, Nlogic, Intuitive, DESE Research, Davidson (Silver), Yulista, SMX, Government Matters, DefenseNews, MFGS, TecMasters, IPTA, asmartplace, Cohesion Force, Calibre, Draper, HTS, Aerojet Rocketdyne, UAH, L3Harris, Penta Research (Patrons).