Northrop Grumman photographPaul Lang (right), director of CIRCM programs at Northrop Grumman in Rolling Meadows, Ill., presents Clinton Sprately of Program Management Countermeasures, U.S. Army, with the initial delivery of CIRCM hardware under acceptance testing procedure.
Northrop Grumman has delivered the first of eight Common Infrared Countermeasures missile defense systems to the U.S. Army two months ahead of schedule.
Northrop Grumman successfully completed acceptance testing with the Army on the first CIRCM suite of equipment and delivered a complete hardware set. This testing, which confirmed system performance, size, weight and power compliance, was completed two months ahead of schedule and validates the Northrop Grumman offering as capable and mature.
The system was delivered under a $31.4 million Technology Demonstration contract to develop the next generation of aircraft survivability equipment to defend helicopters against man-portable air-defense systems and other heat-seeking munitions. The system is now scheduled to enter reliability testing.
“With the growing proliferation of infrared threats, it is more important than ever that our troops have effective protection from these missiles,” said Jeffrey Palombo, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman’s Land and Self-Protection Systems division. “This early delivery confirms the maturity of our CIRCM solution and is an important step toward getting this technology into the field. We will make certain that our CIRCM system performs beyond the Army’s expectations and remains ready to address evolving threat contingencies at a moment’s notice.”
CIRCM is a lightweight, low-cost, highly reliable, laser-based countermeasure system designed to work with missile warning systems for rotary wing, tilt-rotor and small fixed-wing aircraft across the military services. Northrop Grumman is developing its solution with its partners SELEX Galileo and Daylight Solutions.
Northrop Grumman is an industry leader in directional infrared countermeasures system design and manufacture. The company’s infrared countermeasures systems have been installed on more than 800 aircraft representing 50 different aircraft types, including large and small fixed-wing, rotary-wing and tilt-wing platforms.
