US defense firms complete Next Generation Interceptor System Requirements Review

News, US December 21, 2021 , by IRIA No Comments

U.S. defense firms Northrop Grumman Corporation and Raytheon Technologies team complete Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) System Requirements Review, moves to next phase for initial system design, further risk reduction testing, and critical component qualification activities.

The System Requirements Review was approved by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) after the Northrop Grumman and Raytheon Technologies NGI team completed the first major technical review for the homeland defense interceptor program ahead of schedule.

Northrop Grumman Vice President and General Manager for launch and missile defense systems, Scott Lehr said: “We’re leveraging our two decades of performance on the current Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI). 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.”

This achievement comes after Raytheon Missiles & Defense and Northrop Grumman demonstrated its NGI common software factory solution and its associated digital infrastructure on December 6, which enables rapid development, integration, and delivery in a DevSecOps environment.

With this accredited digital ecosystem in place, the program is set to seamlessly integrate, make critical decisions and accelerate the NGI software design and development. The common software factory brings the Northrop Grumman and Raytheon team together with the MDA into a single, agile, secure and efficient development environment, providing the MDA with the ability to review and collaborate on code development and release.

“By leveraging our company’s digital transformation expertise, we successfully developed, tested, demonstrated and received customer approval for our NGI software factory in record time… This technology enables transparent collaboration between our teams and the MDA during NGI software development, which greatly reduces risk to schedule,” Northrop Grumman’s NGI program Vice President Lisa Brown said.

The Northrop Grumman release stated that the “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.”

*^{Northrop Grumman and Raytheon Technologies employees created a Digital Software Factory for the Next Generation Interceptor program on Dec. 6, 2021. (Image Credit: Northrop Grumman)}*

Raytheon Missiles & Defense’s vice president of Strategic Missile Defense Tay Fitzgerald said “Our digital system design approach gives us high confidence in our solution going into the preliminary design review.”

“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,” Fitzgerald added.

Earlier on December 2, Raytheon Missiles & Defense completed a demonstration to reduce risk to the overall technical baseline for the Next Generation Interceptor. According to Raytheon Missiles & Defense news release, “the demonstration was an early engineering test of the thruster valve and nozzle on the liquid propellant divert and attitude control system (DACS) designed by Aerojet Rocketdyne.”

Northrop Grumman’s NGI team and its strategic partners at Raytheon Technologies, aim to bring flight-proven missile defense experience including ground systems, battle management, command and control, interceptor boost vehicles and kill vehicles, as well as innovative technologies, agile processes, and proven facilities. The NGI teams of both firms are working to deliver a highly capable, affordable, low-risk solution that meets the customer’s schedule and ensures mission success.