Northrop Grumman has been awarded a contract to work on the US Air Force’s (USAF) joint threat emitter (JTE) follow-on production programme.
Under the $219m contract, the company will manufacture, test and deliver JTE first article production units, including two variants of the threat emitter unit (TEU), which is the standard TEU and the wide band version, in addition to mobile command and control units, and fixed command and control units.
The contract also features a $44m initial award for a foreign military sales (FMS) programme.
Northrop Grumman Buffalo-based Amherst Systems business unit site director Joe Downie said the JTE offers the best electronic warfare simulation capability available today.
"We are looking forward to continuing our work with the US Air Force to provide our warfighters with this premier training capability," Downie said.
The JTE is a ruggedised, multi-threat, high-fidelity electronic warfare simulator designed to accurately train combat aircrews to defeat or avoid integrated air defense systems worldwide through high-fidelity replication of surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery threats in a war-like training environment.
Reactive to aircrew/aircraft for fast-jet, fixed-wing and other rotary-wing defensive measures, the easily relocatable system is capable of simultaneously replicating different types of threats in the surface-to-air missile family, including those categorised as single-digit and double-digit threats, and can also be rapidly reprogrammed with new threats.
The systems scheduled to be delivered under the contract are expected to be fully backward- and forward-compatible with all currently deployed systems and will also enable seamless interoperability of all existing and new elements.
Northrop’s existing JTE is the current air force programme of record, with 18 systems fielded.
Image: A joint threat emitter satellite deployed at Ritidian Point on Northwest Field, Guam, US. Photo: courtesy of USAF Airman first Class Mariah Haddenham/Released).
