Lockheed Martin awarded Northrop Grumman a $422 million contract to produce sensor payloads for the fifth and sixth Space Based Infrared System missile warning satellites, according to a Northrop Grumman release. “We are committed to reducing cost and payload development cycle times, while still providing exceptional data to our military and intelligence stake holder,” said Anne Ostroff, Northrop Grumman’s vice president of the military/civil space and ground business area. The fifth and sixth geosynchronous Earth orbit satellites, known as GEO-5 and GEO-6, will replenish the constellation when the first two SBIRS spacecraft reach the end of their service lives. Northrop Grumman also built the payloads for previous GEO satellites.
Today’s armament maintainers are tasked with performing flightline (O-Level) maintenance with an assortment of legacy test sets that greatly limit the ability to quickly and efficiently verify armament system readiness, diagnose failures, and ultimately return the aircraft to full mission...