Northrop Grumman awarded contract for CIRCM system

Air May 18, 2021

The US Army has awarded Northrop Grumman a five-year, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract valued at $959.1 million for full-rate production of the Common Infrared Countermeasure (CIRCM) system.

The award follows the US Army’s approval for the Northrop Grumman CIRCM system to enter full-rate production based on design maturity and demonstrated production capability.

CIRCM protects against shoulder-fired and vehicle-launched anti-aircraft missiles that home in on the heat signature of an aircraft. The system’s ability to track and rapidly defeat infrared-guided threats has been validated over thousands of hours of rigorous testing in laboratory, flight, and live-fire test environments.

Bob Gough, Vice President, navigation, targeting and survivability, Northrop Grumman, said: “CIRCM’s cutting-edge capability has been proven against the most advanced threats and the modular open systems approach brings flexibility for the future.

“Northrop Grumman and our partners have proven the mature production capacity to deliver and support the US Army’s mission with this life-saving technology today, and for years to come.”

With a foundation of Lean-Agile software development, the system is built on an open architecture that works with existing hardware, simplifies upgrades, and keeps lifecycle costs low. CIRCM also meets demanding size, weight and power (SWaP) requirements, to offer industry leading capability for a variety of SWaP restrictive platforms for the U.S. and its allies.

Northrop Grumman’s infrared countermeasure systems have been installed on more than 1,500 aircraft, representing more than 80 different aircraft types, including large and small fixed-wing, rotary wing and tilt-rotor platforms.