WASHINGTON — The Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman a $705 million contract to develop and test a high-speed air-to-ground weapon generally known as a stand-in attack weapon that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter could wield to destroy enemy targets.
Northrop said Monday that its work on the second phase of the weapon, which can be known as SiAW, will happen over the following 36 months in Northridge, California, and the corporate’s missile integration facility at Allegany Ballistics Laboratory in West Virginia.
The work will include further development of the weapon, platform integration, and completing a flight test program so the SiAW may be rapidly prototyped and quickly sent to the sector, the corporate said. A guided vehicle flight test will wrap up the primary a part of this second phase, and the second part will conclude with three more flight tests and the delivery prototype missiles and test assets.
The Air Force wants this weapon to achieve initial operational capability by 2026.
Northrop was one in every of three corporations, including Lockheed Martin and L3Harris, that in May 2022 each received $2 million contracts from the Air Force for the primary phase of developing the SiAW.
The Air Force wants this weapon to strike enemy air defense targets on the bottom that might be rapidly moved, equivalent to integrated air defense systems, ballistic missile launchers, land-attack and anti-ship cruise missile launchers, GPS jammers, and anti-satellite systems.
A stand-in weapon has a shorter range than standoff weapons, so an F-35 would likely fire the SiAW near the goal after penetrating enemy airspace. A standoff weapon is supposed to be fired from further away, beyond the reach of enemy defenses.
The Air Force in recent times has sought to update its aircraft and arsenals to have the ability to fight in a contested environment against a sophisticated enemy equivalent to China, and away from the 20 years of war within the Middle East which largely took place in uncontested airspace. The service’s work to develop a missile targeting enemy air defenses is one other sign of that shift.
Northrop said it can construct the SiAW using open architecture, which can allow its subsystems to be quickly upgraded with latest capabilities.
A Northrop official told Defense News in June 2022 that the F-35 would must carry the SiAW inside its internal weapons bay to avoid compromising the jet’s stealth capabilities. This is able to rule out carrying the weapon on an external mount, he said. And he said it’s unlikely that the F-22, which has a smaller internal bay, would have enough room to hold the SiAW.
The SiAW program is heavily focused on digital engineering and design, and is the primary time the Air Force has had a totally digital weapons acquisition and development program.
“With our expert digital engineering capabilities, this next-generation missile represents an adaptable, reasonably priced way for the Department of Defense to purchase and modernize weapons,” Susan Bruce, Northrop’s vice chairman for advanced weapons, said in the corporate’s statement.
Northrop said last yr that it planned to make use of its experience from creating the Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Prolonged Range, or AARGM-ER, for the Navy and integrating it onto the F-35 because it develops the SiAW.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.