The U.S. Army recently awarded Northrop Grumman Corporation a five-year, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract valued at $959.1 million for full-rate production of the Common Infrared Countermeasure (CIRCM) system.

The award follows the U.S. Army’s approval for the Northrop Grumman CIRCM system to enter full-rate production based on design maturity and demonstrated production capability.

CIRCM protects against shoulder-fired and vehicle-launched anti-aircraft missiles that home in on the heat signature of an aircraft. The system’s ability to track and rapidly defeat infrared-guided threats has been validated over thousands of hours of rigorous testing in laboratory, flight, and live-fire test environments.

“CIRCM’s cutting-edge capability has been proven against the most advanced threats and the modular open systems approach brings flexibility for the future,” said Bob Gough, Vice President, Navigation, Targeting and Survivability, Northrop Grumman.

“Northrop Grumman and our partners have proven the mature production capacity to deliver and support the U.S. Army’s mission with this life-saving technology today, and for years to come,” he added.

With a foundation of Lean-Agile software development, the system is built on an open architecture that works with existing hardware, simplifies upgrades, and keeps lifecycle costs low. CIRCM also meets demanding size, weight and power (SWaP) requirements, to offer industry leading capability for a variety of SWaP restrictive platforms for the U.S. and its allies.

Northrop Grumman’s infrared countermeasure systems have been installed on more than 1,500 aircraft, representing more than 80 different aircraft types, including large and small fixed-wing, rotary wing and tilt-rotor platforms.

Northrop Grumman solves the toughest problems in space, aeronautics, defense and cyberspace to meet the ever evolving needs of our customers worldwide. Our 97,000 employees define possible every day using science, technology and engineering to create and deliver advanced systems, products and services.