The Air Force has awarded a $49 million contract to Raytheon to begin engineering and manufacturing development of the Miniature Air Launched Decoy stand-in jammer variant, known as MALD-J. The Air Force already has contracted Raytheon for low-rate initial production for the first two lots of the basic MALD and plans an as-yet unspecified mix of 3,000 of the two systems. In a May 6 company release, Scott Muse, MALD program manager, said, “During EMD, Raytheon will put MALD-J through an aggressive series of free-flight and captive-carry tests.” MALD-J had its first free flight in December 2009, after completing successfully all its test events. USAF’s MALD program manager, Ken Watson, said, “In executing the MALD-J program, Raytheon has been ahead of schedule and under budget for 39 months in a row.” USAF expects MALD-J to reduce the need for manned stand-in jamming aircraft. (For more on MALD programs, read Time to be Fooled)
Boeing received a $2.47 billion Air Force contract Nov. 25 for 15 more KC-46s, bringing to 183 the number of Pegasus tankers on contract to all customers, foreign and domestic. The new contract—for Lot 12 of the initially planned KC-46 buy—is to be completed by 2029.
