A Joint Strike Force (JSF) sensor testing was carried out by the US Pacific Command’s Northern Edge exercise as per Northrop Grumman. The biennial exercise involved over 6,000 airmen, sailors and marines.
The announcement was made at the Paris Air Show. Northrop Grumman also said that it was in talks with the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) regarding a ballistic missile defence (BMD) capability for JSF.
The sector Vice president and General Manager for Northrop Grumman's targeting systems division Chuck Brinkman said that the the AN/APG-81 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and AN/AAQ-37 Distributed Aperture System (DAS) were tested in the Alaska-based exercise on board a BAC1-11 aircraft.
Mr Brinkman said that they had proven the robustness of the radar once again and this was an example in the Joint Strike Force programme of what was going right. The AESA radar was tested with Block 3 development software and DAS was tested with Block 2 delivery software.
Commander Erik Etz, Deputy Mission Systems Integrated Product Team lead for the JSF Program Office said that the rigorous testing of both sensors during this exercise serves as a significant risk reduction step for the JSF program. He added that by putting their systems in this operationally rigorous environment, they had demonstrated key war fighting capabilities well in advance of its scheduled operational testing.