Northrop Grumman [NOC] has received a $54.6 million contract to build U.S. Cyber Command’s first joint warfighting platform, the company said Monday.

The Air Force, working as the acquisition lead, has tasked Northrop Grumman with building Unified Platform, which will serve as a weapons-system like capability to integrate Cyber Command’s offensive, defensive and command and control operations across all cyber forces.

Credit: Courtesy of Northrop Grumman
Credit: Courtesy of Northrop Grumman

“Northrop Grumman is proud to partner with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Cyber Command to deliver this critical mission capability in support of our nation’s Cyber Mission Force,” Linnie Haynesworth, Northrop Grumman Mission Systems’ general manager for cyber and intelligence mission solutions, said in a statement. “We look forward to delivering the integrated, shared capabilities that will give our cyber warfighters the edge in cyberspace and across all domains.”

Northrop Grumman will serve as the systems coordinator for Unified Platform, and is tasked with bringing together the service cyber components’ platform to improve integration of operations and provide immediate access to new capabilities.

Chris Valentino, the company’s director of joint cyberspace programs, previously told Defense Daily Northrop Grumman’s offering leveraged both model-based engineering and agile software development to create a virtualized environment that would allow for more seamless command and control battle management across all Cyber Mission Force components (Defense Daily, September 4).

Work is expected to be completed by October 2021.