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Northrop Grumman wins JSTARS upgrade

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U.S. Army Sgt. Jason Horton, an airborne target surveillance supervisor with Army JSTARS, monitors tracking information from an operator work station aboard an E-8C Joint STARS during a mission in the Boars Nest 2015 exercise, Robins Air Force Base, Ga., Aug. 20, 2015. The 116th Air Control Wing, Georgia Air National Guard, hosted the eighth annual Boars Nest Large Force Exercise bringing together more than 20 joint-force units and 55 different aircraft for aircrew training in a realistic land and maritime threat environment. Crews flying the E-8C Joint STARS manned platform, used their unique battle management, command and control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, integrated with other Air National Guard, Air Force, Navy, and Marine aircraft, to complete maritime and land-based missions during the exercise. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Senior Master Sgt. Roger Parsons/Released) (Portions of photo blurred for security purposes)

Northrop Grumman has been awarded an Air Force contract to upgrade radio terminals on E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) aircraft.

Under the contract, Northrop Grumman will replace existing terminals with Air Force Tactical Receive System-Ruggedized (AFTRS-R) terminals. “The AFTRS-R capability will modernize the Integrated Broadcast Service by replacing the current Commander’s Tactical Terminal/Hybrid-Receive Only (CTT/H-R) radio,” said a Northrop Grumman news release. “The modification also addresses cryptographic modernization and diminishing manufacturing source (DMS) issues with the CTT/H-R radio.”

The delivery order was awarded under the indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity Joint STARS Systems Improvement Program (JSSIP) III contract awarded by the U.S. Air Force to Northrop Grumman in October 2013.

About 

Michael Peck is a correspondent for Defense News and a columnist for the Center for European Policy Analysis. He holds an M.A. in political science from Rutgers University. Find him at theuncommondefense.com. His email is mikedefense1@gmail.com.