BAE Systems Selected to Provide Electronic Warfare Systems for B‑2 Bomber

NASHUA, New Hamp­shire — BAE Sys­tems has won a con­tract from Northrop Grum­man – Aero­space Sys­tems to pro­vide Elec­tron­ic Sup­port Mea­sure (ESM) sys­tems for use on all 20 B‑2 Spir­it bombers. This ESM upgrade will be a com­plete replace­ment of the cur­rent aging AN/APR-50 sys­tem. With this award, BAE Sys­tems will now be pro­vid­ing Elec­tron­ic War­fare sys­tems on all three of the U.S. Air Force’s Low Observ­able plat­forms; the F‑22, F‑35 and B‑2 aircraft. 

The B‑2, also known as the “Stealth Bomber” (U.S. Air Force / Bob­bie Garcia)

“As a result of an extreme­ly rig­or­ous com­pe­ti­tion for a mod­ern­ized ESM sys­tem for the B‑2, Northrop Grum­man is pleased with the selec­tion of BAE Sys­tems as our pri­ma­ry part­ner to deliv­er a rapid, afford­able defen­sive capa­bil­i­ty to the warfight­er,” said Dave Mazur, Aero­space Sys­tems vice pres­i­dent, Long Range Strike. “Mod­ern­iz­ing the B‑2 defen­sive sys­tem is crit­i­cal to con­tin­ued long-range strike suprema­cy and that will be accom­plished through lever­ag­ing BAE Sys­tems’ exten­sive port­fo­lio of ESM technology.” 

Northrop Grum­man select­ed BAE Sys­tems in a com­pet­i­tive bid process over the incum­bent and industry’s top Elec­tron­ic War­fare providers, to replace the aircraft’s 30-year-old lega­cy AN/APR-50 ESM sys­tem. The sys­tem, in con­junc­tion with the radar warn­ing receiv­er, detects elec­tron­ic threats encoun­tered by the B‑2 and pro­vides sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness of detect­ed threats to its air crew. 

“As the provider of sim­i­lar capa­bil­i­ty on 5th gen­er­a­tion fight­er air­craft, BAE Sys­tems is well suit­ed to mod­ern­ize the ESM capa­bil­i­ties of the B‑2 fleet,” said Bri­an Wal­ters, vice pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er of BAE Sys­tems’ Elec­tron­ic Com­bat Solu­tions busi­ness. “The B‑2 is a long-range mis­sion capa­ble air­craft that must have stealth, mis­sion plan­ning and excep­tion­al sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness to reach its tar­gets through high­ly devel­oped, increas­ing­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed ene­my defens­es. Our ESM Sys­tem will pro­vide air­crews with real-time threat warn­ing and sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness of threat emit­ters and will allow crews to alter their planned flight path through con­test­ed air­space to safe­ly com­plete their mission.” 

The B‑2, also known as the “Stealth Bomber,” is the pre­mier deep-threat strike air­craft designed to pen­e­trate dense anti-air­craft defens­es and deploy con­ven­tion­al and nuclear weapons. Northrop Grum­man is the U.S. Air Force’s B‑2 plat­form provider and prime con­trac­tor for all B‑2 mod­ern­iza­tion efforts involved with the aircraft’s ser­vice life exten­sion into 2058. 

The ESM con­tract work will be con­duct­ed in Nashua, N.H. and Cam­bridge, Mass. 

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Matthew Tin­kham, BAE Sys­tems
Tel: +1 603 885 2810 Mobile: +1 603 315 1540
Matthew.Tinkham@baesystems.com

Source:
BAE Systems