Contract brings additional B-2 work to Northrop, Raytheon. (Media & Technology).Installation of an upgraded radar system will keep L.A. aerospace employees who work on the B-2 stealth bomber busy for another eight years, despite the Pentagon's decision not to make any more of the aircraft. A $34.2 million award to 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. Corp. for the first phase of the Active Electronically Scanned Array An Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA), also known as active phased array radar is a type of radar whose transmitter and receiver functions are composed of numerous small transmit/receive (T/R) modules. radar system earlier this month is the first installment of a $900 million Pentagon commitment for the company's B-2 program. Local workers have only been performing maintenance on the planes since production ceased in July 2000. Raytheon Co.'s El Segundo-based Air Combat Avionics unit, which is Northrop's prime 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. charged with designing and building the radar system by next June, will get $22 million from the initial Pentagon money. AESA AESA Active Electronically Scanned Array AESA ATM End System Address AESA Agence Européenne de la Sécurité Aérienne (French: European Aviation Safety Agency) AESA Association of Educational Service Agencies radars are Global Positioning Satellite-based systems that can detect and track enemy planes and ground targets simultaneously by using a new antenna that sends and receives signals across a wide range of space. The system is also more accurate, with better resolution capabilities in receiving data, than is currently available. The B-2's current system uses a mechanical motor to move the radar side-to-side or up-and-down, limiting the amount of ground on air space it can cover at any given time. "(AESA) is a much more reliable radar," said Jim Hart, a Northrop spokesman. The overall contract is expected to add 250 engineer, manufacturing and technical staff jobs over the next three years to the 50 already in place at Raytheon which built the B-2's existing radar. At Northrop's Palmdale plant where integration of the new radar system will take place the 1,000 existing employees of the B-2 program who have been doing mostly maintenance on the planes will be guaranteed jobs for at least eight more years. "It will be a significant addition to the Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, high-tech business environment that will be here for a long time" said Mike Henchey, business development director for the Raytheon unit. Northrop employees are also assigned to airframe maintenance and weapon bay software upgrades on the jet fighter Jet fighter may refer to:
The employment increases come at a time when the region's aerospace employment hovers at 104,300, down from a 1986 peak of 289,900. The B-2 program represented one of the region's largest sources for aerospace employment, with an early 1990's peak of 13,000 workers who assembled the plane at Palmdale and Pico Rivera Pico Rivera (pē`kō rĭvĕr`ə), city (1990 pop. 59,177), Los Angeles co., SW Calif., SE of Los Angeles on the San Gabriel and Rio Hondo rivers; inc. 1958 with the union of Pico and Rivera into one community. . But the 21-plane program cost reached $45 billion with research and development included and was deemed too expensive. Last spring, a delegation of Anterope Valley business leaders made a futile lobbying effort to California's Congressional delegation in hopes that the B-2 production line would restart. A Pentagon study concluded that 21 additional B-2s would cost $20 billion - $500 million to $700 million in production costs per plane with the remainder earmarked for upgrade-related research and development. These costs are significantly higher than other next-generation fighter lets such as Lockheed Martin For the former company, see . Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is a leading multinational aerospace manufacturer and advanced technology company formed in 1995 by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta. Corp's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter A strike fighter is a fighter aircraft which is also capable of attacking surface targets, including ships. It differs from an attack aircraft in that the aircraft remains a capable fighter. which will cost $30 million to $38 million to produce each plane and Boeing Co's F A-18 Super Hornet hornet: see wasp. which will cost $50 million each. Additionally the B-2 has had its share of defects the most recent of which were small cracks in the airframes of 17 of the 21 planes. The Air Force is spending $18 million to study the problem. |
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