The Navy has cleared a new infrared targeting system that will be deployed on F/A-18 Super Hornets.
Boeing [BA] and Lockheed Martin [LMT] co-developed the infrared search and track system known as IRST that centers around Lockheed Martin’s IRST21 sensor. The Navy has now signed off on low-rate production.
The system has been tested and integrated on the Boeing-built Super Hornets to enhance the ability of the aircraft to take out hostile air threats. IRST is to become operational on the aircraft starting in 2017, the two companies said.
“This ‘see first, strike first’ capability can be used in a variety of threat environments and is a game changer for our warfighters as we combat future adversaries,” Frank Morley, the Navy’s F/A-18 program manager, said in a statement provided by the two companies.
The IRST21 sensor is the latest version of Lockheed Martin’s legacy IRST sensor system that has flown on F-14s and F-15s an accumulated more than 300,000 flight hours.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin said the new IRST technology provides increased threat discrimination at better resolution than radars, and at longer ranges than previous iterations.