By Geoff Fein
The next award phase for the Navy’s future jammer will be a technology development phase that will include a competitive prototype, according to a service official
Almost every program now is moving toward competitive prototyping, Capt John Green, airborne electronic attack systems and EA-6B program office, PMA-234, program manager, told Defense Daily recently.
Green anticpates the contract award in the late spring time frame.
Among the companies likely competing for the Next Generation Jammer are: BAE Systems, ITT [ITT], Northrop Grumman [NOC], and Raytheon [RTN].
Green noted lawmakers have more or less directed that large programs do competitive prototyping.
“We are being directed to do competitive prototyping, but what is unique about Next Generation Jammer…we were also directed by OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) to begin maturing the technologies in advance of that phase,” he said.
“What OSD has directed us to do is have a separate technology maturity phase in advance of Milestone A,” Green added.
“We will still do a technology development phase after our Milestone A just like any program would and that will include our competitive prototyping,” he said. “That will most likely be two vendors. We will award a tech development contract to two vendors who will do a flyable prototype, basically a fly-off.”
The Next Generation Jammer is planned initially for Boeing‘s [BA] EA-18 “Growler”. An analysis of alternatives is looking at using the Next Generation Jammer on other platforms such as Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] F-35, Green noted.
But for the technology development phase, the Navy will not require installation on the Growler, he added.
“We are not going to require them to integrate it onto an EA-18G. We are anticipating that fly-off will be on their own platform,” Green said. “We will allow them to do that on whatever their test bed is, for whatever vendor it might be.”
But before ever getting to the technology development phase and before reaching Milestone A, the Next Generation Jammer program office has a technology maturity phase.
“We will be awarding to as many as four vendors. These are the critical building blocks that we need, the critical technologies that have to be matured before we can ever even get to tech development phase,” Green said.
Part of the reason for doing the technology maturity phase is to allow industry to show their best stuff to the Navy, he added.
“We want to have as many as four different companies take a shot. We have identified five critical technology areas we are having them focus on,” Green said. “They were allowed to come in with others that they thought were important.”
Green added that due to the ongoing competition and source selection he couldn’t comment on the details of other critical technologies that have come up.
The technology maturity phase allows for innovation and for individual companies that might be strong in one area but not in another to show what they have, Green said.
“Once we finish this tech maturity phase, where we are strengthening those building blocks and really reducing technology risk, then we will put out a performance spec that really calls for the best of breed,” he said.
“That’s important because if we narrow down the herd too soon then we may be foregoing some technologies that are important or that could provide a much better jammer,” Green added.
Green said he does envision the possibility that some of the competitors might team up in the future.
“We can’t direct that, but it’s possible, especially after doing this tech maturity phase. I think they are going to see they each have their own strengths and weaknesses,” he said. “When we write a performance spec outlining a specific criteria that we are looking for in this jammer, they may elect to team up.”
Getting the best industry has to offer is one of the benefits of this phase, Green added.
“[Industry] can come in and kind of show us their stuff, show us the best technologies they have to offer, and [then] put a performance spec out there that really does ask for the best in breed,” he said.