Raytheon wins follow-on Next Generation Jammer production contract

Raytheon, an RTX company, was awarded a $590 million follow-on production contract for continued work on the Navy’s next-generation aerial jamming capability, the company said in a Thursday announcement.

The program is for the Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band pod, which will be mounted on EA-18G Growlers. Raytheon won the initial contract for the Mid-Band pod in 2016.

Overall, the Next Generation Jammer — a cooperative program with the Royal Australian Air Force — is the replacement for the decades-old ALQ-99. The program was initially broken up into three separate jamming pods covering various ends of the electromagnetic spectrum based upon the criticality of current and emerging threats: Mid-Band, Low-Band (which L3Harris won in August after years of protest) and High-Band (for which there hasn’t been any line item in Navy budgets since at least fiscal 2020).

The pods are expected to be significantly more powerful than the ALQ-99, with extended range and the ability to jam multiple targets simultaneously. With the increase in sophistication and range of adversaries’ military systems — especially across the Pacific — such a jamming capability could be critically important for the U.S. military in future conflicts.

The award is part of the low-rate initial production and is one in a series that is also projected to be awarded in the future, according to an RTX spokesperson.

Raytheon was awarded the low-rate initial production in March 2023. The first production pods were delivered to the fleet in July 2023, according to the Navy.

“NGJ-MB is a revolutionary offensive electronic attack system for the joint force that puts a critical combat capability in the hands of our Naval warfighters,” Barbara Borgonovi, president of naval power at Raytheon, said in a statement. “We’re working with the U.S. Navy to ensure NGJ-MB provides the advanced electronic warfare solution needed as quickly as possible.”

The work under the contract will take place through 2028, Raytheon said.

The company also recently won a $192 million contract to develop an extended-range capability for the Mid-Band pod, known as NGJ-MBX. Last year, the Navy initiated a change to the Mid-Band program to develop an extended pod, NGJ-MBX, to provide increased range and address specific gaps in the upper frequency. This capability provides a frequency extension of the Mid-Band as the quickest way to address near-term threats in light of the High-Band capability that remains unfunded.

The RTX spokesperson said the contract award announced Thursday covers the baseline configuration, and the MBX capability will come in a future lot.