Northrop Grumman Corp. [NOC] broke ground on a new facility at Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the first building in Wallops Research Park.

The research Park is a joint effort by NASA, which owns Wallops Flight Facility, and the Marine Science Consortium and Accomack County to attract science, technology and educational organizations and provide high-tech jobs to the region.

The one-story, 15,000-square foot building can house up to 55 Northrop employees supporting the Navy Surface Combat Systems Center and NASA.

Northrop provides the Navy with systems engineering, planning, installation, operations and maintenance services for the Ship Self Defense System (SDSS) and the Aegis Combat System.

Both SDSS and Aegis are advanced, shipboard command and control systems using computers and sensors to track and destroy enemy missiles. For NASA, the company designs, manufactures, tests, and provides launch support for the Sounding Rockets program, which uses low-cost rockets to launch sensors and instrumentation into suborbital space for exo- atmospheric measurements and experimentation.

Empire Development, a Virginia Beach, Va., development, brokerage and consulting firm, is expected to complete the building in June. It will be located on Atlantic Road, across from the Surface Combat Systems Center headquarters.