Military Embedded Systems

Radar, EW comms jammer pods for Growler aircraft announced by U.S. Navy

News

October 29, 2018

Lisa Daigle

Assistant Managing Editor

Military Embedded Systems

Radar, EW comms jammer pods for Growler aircraft announced by U.S. Navy

NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND, PATUXENT RIVER, Md. The U.S. Navy awarded Demonstration of Existing Technologies (DET) contracts valued at about $36 million each to L3 Technologies Communications Systems West and Northrop Grumman Corp. Mission Systems in support of the Next Generation Jammer Low Band (NGJ-LB) capability.

NGJ-LB is an external jamming pod that is part of a larger NGJ weapon system that will boost and ultimately replace the older ALQ-99 Tactical Jamming System technology currently used on EA-18G Growler aircraft.

Under the terms of the DET contracts -- which span 20 months -- the NGJ-LB team will assess the technological maturity of the industry partners’ existing technologies, plan for future NGJ-LB capability development, and define the NGJ-LB acquisition strategy.

“NGJ-LB is a critical piece of the overall NGJ system in that it focuses on the denial, degradation, deception, and disruption of our adversaries’ abilities to gain an advantage in that portion of the electromagnetic spectrum,” said Capt. Michael Orr, PMA-234 program manager. “It delivers to the warfighter significant improvements in power, advanced jamming techniques, and jamming effectiveness over the legacy ALQ-99 system.”