Jane Edwards
The U.S. Army has awarded Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin a five-year other transaction agreement to build a missile warning system for deployment on the military branch’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft and other aviation platforms.
The Army said Friday the two companies will work on the Improved Threat Detection System, which will be designed as a Modular Open Systems Approach-compliant platform.
ITDS will feature a processor, memory module and a two-color infrared sensor suite designed to enable crewmembers to detect and classify electro-optical/infrared threats.
The system will also integrate a laser detection tool and a hostile fire indications functionality to help differentiate small arms from rocket threats.
The initial phase of the OTA will focus on technology demonstration and maturation activities, including sensor characterization, digital simulation modeling evaluation, technical readiness assessments, aircraft integration strategies and flight test.
The OTA, awarded by the Army Project Manager Aircraft Survivability Equipment and Army Contract Command-New Jersey, has options for Phases II and III to facilitate vendor down-selection and support rapid acquisition and integration with additional platforms.
“This critical capability is required for Army aviation to maintain overmatch against near peer threats and enables advanced tactics through increased detection range, improved detection in clutter, and threat agnostic algorithms to rapidly respond to emerging threats and allow the execution of full spectrum multi-domain operations,” said Col. Brock Zimmerman, project manager for PM ASE.
