From left: Kennie Martinez and Marc Dannemiller, Raytheon Intelligence & Space employees, unbox the first of two Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band fleet representative pods that were delivered to the Airborne Electronic Attack Systems (PMA-234) pod shop at Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Md. on July 7, 2022. (Photo: U.S. Navy)
By Rich Abott |
@ReaderRabott
1 year ago |
03/31/2023
highlights Navy/USMC

Naval Air Systems Command awarded Raytheon Technologies [RTX] a $650 million contract to build and deliver 15 ship sets’ worth of Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) units as part of low rate initial production (LRIP) Lot III.

The NGJ program seeks to replace the legacy ALQ-99 jammer on the EA-18G Growler aircraft by dividing the replacement into low, mid and high-band frequency increments, with the mid-band being the first increment.

From left: Kennie Martinez and Marc Dannemiller, Raytheon Intelligence & Space employees, unbox the first of two Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band fleet representative pods that were delivered to the Airborne Electronic Attack Systems (PMA-234) pod shop at Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Md. on July 7, 2022. (Photo: U.S. Navy)
From left: Kennie Martinez and Marc Dannemiller, Raytheon Intelligence & Space employees, unbox the first of two Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band fleet representative pods that were delivered to the Airborne Electronic Attack Systems (PMA-234) pod shop at Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Md., on July 7, 2022. (Photo: U.S. Navy)

The Navy received its first two fleet-representative test articles last July, which make up a single NGJ-MB shipset. At the time, the Navy said it expected to receive six shipsets of the NGJ-MB for testing (Defense Daily, Aug. 10, 2022).

Following the flight test program, the test pods were set to join the fleet with the first Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) shipsets for the Initial Operational Capability (IOC). IOC is scheduled for fall 2023

Under this contract, the AN/ALQ-249 NGJ-MB order includes 15 ship sets, with two pods per set making it 30 total new pods. 11 ship sets are being assigned to the Navy and four sets for Australia.

Work will mostly occur in Forest, Miss. (50 percent) and Dallas, Texas (37 percent) and is expected to be finished by April 2024.

Funding for this contract is split among $462 million from the fiscal year 2023 Navy aircraft procurement account, $6 million from the FY ‘22 Navy aircraft procurement account and $182 million in foreign cooperative project funds. None of these funds will expire at the end of this fiscal year.

An EA-18G Growler from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23, located at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, conducts a Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) flight test over Southern Maryland in 2021 (Photo: U.S. Navy by Steve Wolff)
An EA-18G Growler from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23, located at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, conducts a Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) flight test over Southern Maryland in 2021 (Photo: U.S. Navy by Steve Wolff)

The Navy’s FY ‘24 budget request documents seek to procure nine more shipsets of NGJ-MB for Full Rate Production Lot 1 along with support equipment, training equipment, integrated logistics support and other support. The nine FY ‘24 jammer shipsets are meant to support the initial standup for the third and fourth aircraft carrier squadrons.

The budget document also notes the Navy expects the total NGJ-MB program to ultimately cost $5.5 billion total for a total of 120 planned NGJ-MB shipsets and associated equipment and support.

In 2021, the Navy earlier approved NGJ-MB for Milestone C, which led the way to LRIP (Defense Daily, June 30, 2021.)

Soon after, the Navy awarded Raytheon the first LRIP Lot One contract for the initial three NGJ-MB shipsets, with the first order planned to be delivered by October 2023 (Defense Daily, July 6, 2021).