The Navy awarded Raytheon Technologies [RTX] a $172 million contract on July 2 to buy the first three Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) Low Rate Initial production Lot One ship sets.
The contract also includes associated spates, gold units for operations test program set development and associated technical data.
Work will largely be split between Dallas, Texas (44 percent); Forest, Miss. (33 percent); and El Segundo, Calif. (20 percent) and is expected to be finished by October 2023.
The contract came the same week acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition Jay Stefany granted the NGJ-MB Milestone C approval, which anticipated soon moving to the LRIP phase (Defense Daily, June 30).
Raytheon originally won a $1 billion contract to design, build and test the NGJ-MB in 2016 (Defense Daily, April 15, 2016).
The Navy is replacing the legacy ALQ-99 tactical jammer used by EA-18G Growlers to counter enemy air defenses and communications systems, splitting the NGJ program into low, mid and high-band frequency contract systems
The NGJ-MB pod is designated the AM/ALQ-249(V)1.
When Milestone C was approved the Navy said the pod has finished over 145 hours of developmental flight testing on the Growler and over 3,100 hours of chamber and lab testing.
The NGJ-MB is also a cooperative program the Navy is jointly developing with Australia for both countries to use.