The Navy awarded Raytheon Technologies [RTX] a $227 million modification on Dec. 23, exercising options to buy five Next Generation Jammer-Mid Band (NGJ-MD) Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) Lot Two ship sets.
The NGJ program is replacing the legacy ALQ-99 tactical jammer used by EA-18G Growlers against enemy air defense and communications systems. The program splits the jammers into low, mid, and high-band frequency contract systems. This NGJ-MD pod is designated the AN/ALQ-249(V)1.
Work will be split among Forest, Miss. (53 percent); McKinney, Texas (38 percent) and El Segundo, Calif. (nine percent ), and is expected to be finished by September 2024.
Raytheon first won a $1 billion contract to design, build and test the NGJ-MB in 2016 (Defense Daily, April 15, 2016).
Then, last June, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition Jay Stefany granted the NGJ-MB Milestone C approval, which was necessary before moving to LRIP (Defense Daily, June 30).
The Navy awarded Raytheon the first LRIP Lot One contract last July, a $172 million contract for the first three NGJ-MB sets (Defense Daily, July 6, 2021).
In August, Capt. Michael Orr, then-program manager of Airborne Electronic Attack Systems (PMA-234), said the service intended to award the next set of five Lot 2 ship sets after the FY ‘22 budget was approved, with a planned contract exercise in early 2022 (Defense Daily, Aug. 5, 2021).