Nichols Martin
The team of Northrop Grumman and Ball Aerospace passed an early design test of a mission payload technology for potential use with the U.S. Air Force’s future missile warning satellite system.
Northrop said Wednesday it completed the preliminary design review phase under the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Block 0 geosynchronous satellite program.
Lockheed Martin, which won a $2.93B Next Gen OPIR GEO contract in August 2018, selected the Northrop-Ball partnership and Raytheon Technologies to participate in a payload development competition.
The satellites will be built to succeed the military branch’s Space Based Infrared System.
“The subsystem and payload designs meet key mission performance requirements and support the national security imperative of launching the initial Next-Gen GEO mission payload,” said Robert Mehltretter, vice president of Northrop’s military and civil space unit.
Northrop and Ball aim to complete the critical design review phase by May next year.
