Northrop Grumman has revealed the first photograph of a pod for the Next Generation Jammer-Low Band (NGJ-LB) system possibly weeks ahead of a competitive contract award.
The U.S. Navy image released by Northrop shows the full-scale candidate for the NGJ-LB contract during testing inside the Air Combat Environment Test and Evaluation Facility’s anechoic chamber.
The image reveals a pod with a dimpled outer mold line similar to the ALQ-99 low-band pods, which the winning NGJ-LB design is expected to augment and then replace.
Northrop and rival L3Harris recently completed anechoic chamber testing of both competing NGJ-LB pods while wrapping up the 20-month Demonstration of Existing Technologies phase, which precedes a contract award for the engineering and manufacturing development phase scheduled in November.
Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) has budgeted $3 billion to develop and build the NGJ-LB pods over the life of the program.
Each pod will be integrated on the Boeing EA-18G aircraft. The low-band pods will complement the Raytheon NGJ-Mid-band pods now in early production. NAVAIR also has expressed long-term interest in a new high-band pod.
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