US Army receives first CIRCM missile defence system
The US Army has received the first of eight Common Infrared Countermeasures (CIRCM) missile defence systems to be delivered by Northrop Grumman under a $31.4 million technology deemonstration contract.
The contract will see the development of next generation aircraft survivability equipment to defend helicopters against man-portable air-defence systems and other heat-seeking munitions.
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.
According to the company, this delivery took place two months ahead of schedule. Northrop Grumman successfully completed acceptance testing – to confirm system performance, size, weight and power compliance - with the army on the first CIRCM suite of equipment and delivered a complete hardware set. The system is now scheduled to enter reliability testing.
Jeffrey Palombo, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman's Land and Self-Protection Systems division, said: ‘With the growing proliferation of infrared threats, it is more important than ever that our troops have effective protection from these missiles.
'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.’
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