BOEING GETS $180 MILLION RADAR CONTRACT INSTALLING OF B-1B TRACKING SYSTEM TO BEGIN IN 2011.Byline: Daily News The Boeing Company announced it has received a $180 million Air Force contract to upgrade the radar system used by B-1B bombers to find and track their targets. Modification kits built principally in Maryland will be installed on 67 bombers at bases in Texas, South Dakota South Dakota (dəkō`tə), state in the N central United States. It is bordered by North Dakota (N), Minnesota and Iowa (E), Nebraska (S), and Wyoming and Montana (W). and Oklahoma, and the upgraded aircraft will be tested at Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base, U.S. military installation, 301,000 acres (121,805 hectares), S Calif., NE of Lancaster; est. 1933. It is one of the largest air force bases in the United States and has the world's longest runway. . Under a nine-year reliability and maintainability improvement program, Boeing will deliver modification kits to replace the bombers' receiver and processor beginning in 2011. The RMIP kit, built principally by subcontractor One who takes a portion of a contract from the principal contractor or from another subcontractor. When an individual or a company is involved in a large-scale project, a contractor is often hired to see that the work is done. Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) is an aerospace and defense conglomerate that is the result of the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company is the third largest defense contractor for the U.S. Electronic Systems in Baltimore, consists of a new radar transmitter/receiver, a radar processor computer and a software package. Installation is scheduled to be completed in 2014. ``The RMIP kit will increase the radar system's reliability and substantially improve the B-1's combat readiness Synonymous with operational readiness, with respect to missions or functions performed in combat. ,'' said Kurt Eberhart, manager of Boeing's B-1 radar program in Long Beach. ``Current and future missions depend heavily on the aircraft's ability to find and track targets, so this modification to the synthetic aperture radar Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) Radar, airborne or satellite-borne, that uses special signal processing to produce high-resolution images of the surface of the Earth (or another object) while traversing a considerable flight path. is critical.'' The modifications will be done to AN/APQ-164 radar that has been used by the Palmdale-manufactured bombers since 1985. The upgrade will resolve the problem of diminishing manufacturing sources, said John C. Johnson, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman's Aerospace Systems division. |
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