The U.S. Army has awarded Northrop Grumman a $31.4 million contract for the Common Infrared Countermeasure (CIRCM) Technical Demonstration (TD) program to develop 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.

"Northrop Grumman's CIRCM program solution is a fifth-generation system based on our industry-leading laser-based IRCM experience," said Palombo. "Our solution provides the latest technologies, is based on our classic IRCM open architecture, and is more than 50 percent lighter than the currently deployed Army laser-based IRCM systems."

Northrop Grumman is an industry leader in Directional Infrared Countermeasures system design and manufacture. The company's IRCM systems have been installed on over 800 aircraft representing 50 different aircraft types, including large and small fixed-wing, rotary-wing and tilt-wing platforms.