Northrop Wins SEWIP Work
Northrop Grumman received a $334.4 million contract modification to supply SEWIP Block 3 electronic-warfare systems that expand shipboard electronic-attack capabilities and deployment on larger naval ships. (militaryaerospace.com) The award underlines continued funding for RF systems that blend front-end hardware, signal processing and systems integration. (militaryaerospace.com)
Warships try to survive missile attacks in two ways: they can shoot the missile down, or they can confuse its sensors so it never finds the ship in the first place. The U.S. Navy just spent $334.4 million on more of the second kind, ordering up to nine additional Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program Block 3 systems from Northrop Grumman. (militaryaerospace.com) Electronic warfare is radio combat. Instead of firing a projectile, a ship sends energy into the air to detect, deceive, or jam the radar signals that guide anti-ship missiles. (northropgrumman.com) The Navy’s Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program is the long-running effort to upgrade the old AN/SLQ-32 defensive suite carried by U.S. surface ships. Block 3 is the version built for electronic attack, which means actively interfering with an enemy sensor rather than just listening for it. (northropgrumman.com) Northrop’s Block 3 system works with the AN/SLQ-32(V)6 surveillance gear already on ships. The pairing lets one part find and analyze a threat signal while the new part pushes back with jamming techniques aimed at breaking the missile’s targeting chain. (janes.com) The hardware doing that job is not a single spinning dish. SEWIP Block 3 uses active electronically scanned array antennas, which are flat panels made of many small transmit-and-receive elements that can steer energy electronically instead of mechanically. (militaryaerospace.com) Those panels use gallium nitride modules, a semiconductor technology prized in military radio systems because it can handle high power and heat better than older materials. In practice, that helps a ship generate stronger and more agile jamming signals in a compact package. (militaryaerospace.com) This latest order is also about where the system is going next. The contract includes the first shipset for installation on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which is a step beyond the destroyer-focused rollout that defined the program’s early fielding. (navalnews.com) The Navy and Northrop have been building toward this for years. SEWIP Block 3 cleared the Milestone C review that allows low-rate initial production, and the Navy put Northrop on a $1 billion production contract in 2020 for the AN/SLQ-32(V)7 variant. (seapowermagazine.org) (govconwire.com) With this modification, Northrop says it is now on contract to deliver up to 24 Block 3 systems for the Navy. The March 30, 2026 award covers Hemisphere and Quadrant electronic attack subsystems, plus ancillary equipment and spares, which is the unglamorous language of a program moving from promise into fleet hardware. (asdnews.com) (militaryaerospace.com)
