The Navy awarded RTX [RTX] a $581 million contract on May 15 for production and delivery of low-rate initial production (LRIP) Lot V Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) sets for the U.S. and Australia.
In January, the Navy
declared initial operational capability for the NGJ-MB (Defense Daily, Jan. 6).
The overall NGJ program aims to replace the legacy ALQ-99 jammer on EA-18G Growler aircraft while dividing it into low, mid and high-band frequency increments. The mid-band portion proceeded to award and production first.
RTX won the initial $1 billion NGJ-MB contract in 2016 to design, build and test the jammer pods (Defense Daily, April 15, 2016).
The DoD contract announcement said this LRIP order for NGJ-MB ship sets includes spares and data “in support of ensuring that manufacturing technologies and processes are mature and will support full rate production decisions for the Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).”
Australia entered into a cooperative development agreement with the U.S. back in 2017, so they will also use the new electronic attack pods in their aircraft.
The work will largely occur at the company’s facilities in Forest, Miss., and McKinney, Texas and is expected to be finished by November 2028.
$114 million of the funding obligated at the time of award comes from the Royal Australian Air Force.
The Navy first used the NGJ-MB capabilities on Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 133 when it was deployed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) during a five-month deployment in 2024. The carrier’s commanding office, Capt. Pete Riebe, told reporters in January that while it can be hard to determine effectiveness of an electronic attack, he assessed it as “so far, so good” (Defense Daily, Feb. 6)
The latest 2024 report from the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) said while NGJ-MB has had significant progress in reliability problems, most of the remaining issues are focused on software.