The Army’s choice of Northrop Grumman’s [NOC] counter-infrared countermeasures (CIRCM) to protect its helicopters from heat-seeking missiles will ensure that the systems can be affordably upgraded almost indefinitely as technology progresses.
From the beginning of the program to install advanced missile warning and countermeasure systems on the Army’s rotorcraft, the service had modular open-systems architecture in mind, Jeff Polombo, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman’s Land & Self Protection Systems, told Defense Daily.
Photo: Northrop Grumman
“We can bring in technology from other industry partners to integrate into the system and the beauty of that is that industry, as they continue to develop things actually has an avenue to sell product versus us making all of our interfaces proprietary and nobody can get at them except for us,” Palombo said.
The Army specifically required that its CIRCM be compatible with existing missile-countermeasure systems like the Common Missiles Approach Warning System (CMAWS) and Joint and Allied Threat Awareness System (JATAS). Northrop Grumman took it one step further and made its processor compatible with almost any missiles warning system on the market and future technologies.
“If and when the next technology of laser comes along,” it can plug-and play with the software algorithms CIRCM uses, Palombo added. “If we wanted a higher power laser or if we wanted a different architecture of laser, or if we wanted to add a different wavelength of laser, we have the ability to change out that laser component of the CIRCM system while protecting the original investment of our customer because these things are being designed to be interchangeable.”
Beating back a bid from BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman on Aug. 31 was awarded $35 million award for engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) and several future options that include low-rate initial production (LRIP). The original $35 million contract is for a percentage of the non-recurring engineering cost and the delivery of 21 CIRCM shipsets. Each shipset includes a CIRCM processor, two jamming lasers and two pointer-trackers.
“Each of these systems can be mixed and matched,” Palombo said. “When we designed CIRCM, it is not for use with only one specific set of missile warners, for instance. Because of our architecture, we are able to be compatible with almost any missile warning systems out there.”
The first 21 shipsets are scheduled to undergo a series of additional testing by the Army, including environmental testing to make sure they perform adequately in a range on environments and can withstand harsh terrain and elements.
“One of the key attributes that the Army was concerned with, always, is reliability. When they put them onto the helicopters they want to make sure they are going to be there for a long period of time, and be failure free,” he said. “So we will be doing a good amount of reliability testing where we will put them through the rigors of operation, temperature and vibration all at the same time for long periods of time.
“That will be the preponderance of the work associated with the basic award,” he said.
The contract includes options for LRIP of the CIRCM system to be installed eventually on all the Army’s helicopters. The contract also carries an option for development of installation kits for CIRCM onto various rotorcraft platforms, including electric wiring, mounting brackets and mechanical parts, he said. There are options for installation kits for the Ch-47 Chinook, the UH-60M/L Black Hawk and AH-64D/E Apache. The UH-60M will be the first helicopter outfitted with CIRCM for flight testing, the Army has said.
Global banking and investment firm Jefferies put the total potential value of the contract at $1.5 billion to $2 billion, given “international appeal of the system.”
“The win positions NOC as the clear-cut market share leader in the infrared countermeasures market,” the company said. The company’s directional infrared countermeasures (DIRCM) system already is installed on more than 750 aircraft.
Because of its modularity and the fact that the system is platform agnostic, Palombo said there already was a great “thirst for this product from our overseas partners.”
“Obviously, our international partners know how critical this kind of self-protection technology is,” he said. “I do believe there is a substantial potential for this product internationally, not only because there is a hunger, a thirst out there for the self-protection, but also this particular system is more affordable, its lighter weight and it has higher reliability than previous DIRCM systems.”