Air Force orders $91.6M worth of EW jammers from Raytheon

The Air Force is ordering 250 electronic warfare jammers from Raytheon under the terms of a $91.6 million contract, the Defense Department has announced.

The contract calls for delivery of Lot 8 of the Miniature Air Launched Decoy Jammer, or MALD-J, missiles, which are lightweight, expendable vehicles that can fool enemy air defenses by duplicating U.S. flight profiles and radar signatures, thus drawing fire away from other aircraft, according to Raytheon.  A MALD-J missile, which is air-launched and programmable, weighs less than 300 pounds and has a range of about 500 nautical miles.

The award is an option exercised under an $80.8 million contract awarded in July 2014 for Lot 7, which consisted of 200 MALD-J missiles. Raytheon has been supplying the Air Force with MALD-Js since 2012.

The Navy also is continuing to boost its electronic warfare, or EW, capabilities, awarding $2 million in follow-on orders to Mercury Defense Systems for advanced Digital RF Memory (DRFM) jammers, the company announced. DRFM jammers are installed on aircraft and can jam and otherwise confuse enemy radars.