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The prime is set to advance its electronic warfare program for the fighter jet after landing a new deal.
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The US Air Force (USAF) has awarded a contract to Northrop Grumman Corporation for the continued preparation of the AN/ALQ-257 Integrated Viper Electronic Warfare Suite (IVEWS) ahead of developmental test and full hardware qualification.
The hardware and software verification tests aim to ensure the system is ready for F-16 flights later this year.
Northrop Grumman is also expected to continue development of the infrastructure required to move the system to production once testing is complete.
“We continue the process of putting IVEWS through a rigorous testing program to ensure that it will be ready to protect warfighters,” James Conroy, vice president, navigation, targeting and survivability at Northrop Grumman, said.
“As advanced radio frequency threats proliferate, the capabilities IVEWS will provide are critical for the fourth-generation fighter fleet.”
Last year, the prime’s IVEWS and AN/APG-83 SABR radar demonstrated “pulse-to-pulse” interoperability at the Northern Lightning joint exercise, alongside a range of airborne and ground-based threats.
IVEWS leverages an open-systems, ultra-wideband architecture, designed to provide the instantaneous bandwidth needed to defeat modern threats.
This F-16 system forms part of a broader product line of electronic warfare capabilities.
This latest contract follows Northrop Grumman’s receipt of a $99.6 million (AU$134.6 million) contract from the US Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific for the provision of mission-critical capabilities for Relay Ground Station-Asia (RGS-A).
Specifically, the prime has been tasked with designing, developing, integrating, testing and delivering the first of the next-generation relay ground stations to support legacy and future missile-launch and missile-warning detection satellites.
This aims to help address the US Space Force’s broader push to modernise existing missile warning and missile defence systems with the Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution (FORGE) system.
[Related: Northrop Grumman tapped to develop Asia-Pacific missile detection capability]
