Farnborough is an air show, but many of the briefings scheduled by American companies this year focus on electronic warfare and missiles — not airplanes. Raytheon, winner of the Next Generation Jammer competition, and the other four defense giants know that much of the money to be made in the next decade will come from upgrades and add-ons, not new platforms. And much of the new money is destined for just the sort of technology the NGJ is sure to bring: the area where cyber and classic electronic warfare now merge thanks to digital technologies such as the AESA radar (active electronically scanned array).
There is news on that front. Since Raytheon’s win over BAE Systems, ITT/Boeing and Northrop Grumman was reaffirmed earlier this year — in spite of BAE Systems’ successful protest — the program has made very little news.
But we can report that the head of the program at Raytheon, Rick Yuse, says the program’s System Readiness Review (intended to ensure the program can meet all its requirements) ”went extremely well” late last month.
“It’s a solid design,” he said, “well thought through.” He added that “program execution is near perfect.” Initial flight testing on the jammer’s components is now set for September. Initial Operational Capability (IOC) should happen in late 2017 or early 2018, he said.
Anyone who has followed high technology programs in the military knows that they often suffer much of their greatest angst in the first few years, as requirements get changed, unexpected technology problems arise, and funding wobbles.
Yuse attributed much of the program’s success so far to the fact that Raytheon “had a plan to do a lot of risk reduction very early in the contract.” He told me that virtually all of the technology sits at or above Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6, which is generally just below production-ready and appropriate for subsystem development. More specifically he said, the program’s four key technologies were at TRL six when they started.
Very little has been said publicly by Raytheon or the Navy about the NGJ, its technologies or its capabilities. Yuse continued that trend, very politely. He described the system as covering both offensive and defensive electronic warfare. It is “initially focused heavily on the air-to-ground mission for air defense.”
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