$113 Million Payment for 17th E-8C

Northrop Grumman has received a final $113 million increment of a $257 million contract for production of the 17th E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) aircraft.

The contract includes funding to establish postproduction planning and support after the completion of the final aircraft. Delivery of the 17th E-8C Joint STARS to the U.S. Air Force is
scheduled for March 2005.

"Since this contract award coincides with the successful conclusion of Operation Iraqi Freedom, we have already begun writing the next chapter in the Joint STARS program history," said Alan Doshier, sector vice president for Airborne Ground Surveillance and Battle Management (AGS&BM) Systems. "Northrop Grumman is very proud of the recent operational performance of Joint STARS, and we will be actively involved with our Air Force customers in translating the lessons learned from Operation Iraqi Freedom into improved surveillance and battle management capabilities for the future."

This will be the seventh aircraft produced in the Block 20 configuration, which contains commercial-off-the-shelf computing and data processing capability. This technology provides the Air Force with increased performance and reliability in addition to a major increase in future growth capacity for onboard battle management, all at a lower cost per aircraft.

Joint STARS offers battlefield commanders real-time situational information, while simultaneously transmitting target locations to aircraft and ground strike forces. Joint STARS is the only platform in the U.S. arsenal that combines accurate wide-area moving-target detection with synthetic aperture radar imagery to locate, classify and track ground targets in all weather conditions from standoff distances.

FMI: www.northropgrumman.com; www.is.northropgrumman.com