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)
Anduril and General Atomics will develop their Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the Air Force, beating out Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the service announced on April 24. But any of the non-selected companies can compete to actually manufacture the eventual design the Air Force said.