The Northrop Grumman Corporation and Raytheon Technologies Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) team has completed its System Requirements Review (SRR) and is proceeding with initial system design, further risk reduction testing, and critical component qualification activities. Protection from an incoming intercontinental ballistic missile attack is a complex task involving radars, space sensors, interceptors and a robust command and control system that must work as one.
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) approved the SRR, which was completed ahead of schedule, and is the first major technical review for the Northrop Grumman and Raytheon Technologies NGI homeland defense interceptor program. This achievement comes after Northrop Grumman and Raytheon Technologies demonstrated their NGI Common Software Factory, which enables rapid development, integration and delivery in a DevSecOps environment.
“We’re leveraging our two decades of performance on the current Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI),” said Scott Lehr, vice president and general manager, launch and missile defense systems, Northrop Grumman. “With our combined workforce, extensive expertise and state-of-the-art facilities, we will deliver a highly capable new interceptor that will protect our nation against long-range missile threats for decades to come.”
The Northrop Grumman and Raytheon Technologies team is leveraging high-fidelity model-based systems engineering and hardware manufacturing in customer-certified facilities. The team is also conducting internally-funded risk reduction hardware development and testing to ensure deployment of NGI in the rapid timeline the nation requires.
“Raytheon is the nation’s provider of kill vehicle payloads that maneuver in space to destroy missile threats, with 47 successful exo-atmospheric intercepts achieved to date,” said Tay Fitzgerald, vice president of Strategic Missile Defense, Raytheon Missiles & Defense. “Our digital system design approach gives us high confidence in our solution going into the preliminary design review.”
The Northrop Grumman-led NGI team brings flight-proven missile defense experience to the NGI program, including expertise in ground systems, battle management, command and control, interceptor boost vehicles, kill vehicles, agile processes and certified manufacturing capabilities. The team is committed to delivering a highly capable, affordable and low-risk NGI solution that meets the customer’s schedule and mission requirements.
