The U.S. Army has awarded Northrop Grumman Corporation a $31.4 million contract to
develop for the Common Infrared Countermeasure (CIRCM) Technical Demonstration (TD)
program, the next generation of aircraft survivability equipment to defend helicopters
against man-portable air-defense systems and other heat-seeking munitions. CIRCM is a lightweight, low cost, highly reliable, laser-based countermeasure system
designed to work with missile warning systems for rotary-wing, tilt-rotor and small, fixed-
wing aircraft across the military services. "We are honored to be selected by the U.S. Army for the CIRCM program. We are looking
forward to working with the Army to rapidly demonstrate that Northrop Grumman has a
superior IR countermeasure solution -- a solution that will first and foremost protect our
nation's warfighters," said Jeff Palombo, vice president and general manager of Northrop
Grumman's Land and Self Protection Systems Division. Under the terms of the program, Northrop Grumman and its industry partners, SELEX
Galileo and Daylight Solutions, will deliver eight sets of test hardware in addition to three
full ship sets for the Army's 21-month research, development, test and evaluation program
that will include reliability testing, missile jamming tests and flight tests on an Army
platform.