Northrop Grumman has received a $17.5 million contract for a fifth generation upgrade to the central computers on 16 aircraft in the US Air Force's E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) fleet, the company announced on 3 October.
This effort will serve as a low-risk pathfinder for the air force to continue to enhance fleet capability while it develops the follow-on advanced battle management system.
Joint STARS is an all-weather, long-range, real-time, wide area surveillance and battle management and C2 weapon system. It supports battlefield commanders with real-time situational information while simultaneously transmitting target locations to aircraft and ground strike forces.
Jane Bishop, VP, manned airborne surveillance programs, Northrop Grumman, said: ‘Our latest central computer replacement programme upgrades the current computers with powerful, advanced technology running Linux - delivering a quantum leap forward to the mission system.
‘Our goal is to continue to rapidly deliver new capability to our combatant commanders to ensure that Joint STARS always provides our warfighters with information dominance for decision superiority.’
The airborne three-domain, the two ground-based and the ¼ ATR OpenVPX-based cross-domain systems were engineered to provide real-time security across multi-domain operations.
DARPA’s Mission-Integrated Network Control (MINC) programme was set up to develop an autonomous tactical network and enable critical data flow in contested environments.
Why space is an essential part of modern military capabilities
Defence-secure mixed reality headsets can save hours, or even weeks, of travel time to fix defunct equipment or get subject experts effectively “on-site” where they are needed.
The Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare (JCREW) counter-improvised explosive device (C-IED) and Drone Restricted Access Using Known Electromagnetic Warfare (DRAKE) counter-UAS (CUAS) systems are mounted and dismounted RF jammers.
Adarga’s Vantage information analysis tool is in service with the UK MoD and individual UK forces. It builds on the company’s Knowledge Platform which processes, organises and analyses open source material, as well as information held by the user’s military, security and intelligence services.
Connect with us on socials
