NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Navy plans to order a second Low-Rate Initial Production lot of the ALQ-249 Next-Generation Jammer-Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) in 2022, a Navy official said.
Capt. Michael Orr, the Navy’s program manager for speaking at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Expo in National Harbor, Maryland, said the Navy plans to order five shipsets of the NGJ-MB in fiscal 2022. One shipset includes two jamming pods for an EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft.
The NGJ is a program to augment and eventually replace the ALQ-99 jamming pod, which first was deployed in 1971 on EA-6B Prowler aircraft in 1971 for combat in the Vietnam War.
The Navy ordered three shipsets of NGJ-MB on July 2 under Low-Rate Initial Production Lot 2.
The NGJ-MB, designed and built by Raytheon, is the first of three planned increments of the jammer. The NGJ-Low Band, designed by L3Harris, entered Engineering and Manufacturing Development in December 2020. The Navy ordered four test articles and eight operational prototypes. The NGL-LB shipset will consist of one pod. The selection of L3Harris for the program currently is under protest.
NGJ-High Band is still in concept development.
Orr said the NGJ-MB has completed 145 test flights and more than 3,000 hours of testing in an anechoic chamber and in laboratories.
The Royal Australian Air Force, which also flies EA-18Gs, has been a cooperative partner in the NGJ-MB and -LB development since June 2020.
Orr said the Navy will continue to upgrade the antennas and transmitters of the ALQ-99 pods. He said that, in his opinion, the ALQ-99 will continue to serve through the life of the EA-18G.
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