The U.S. Army has declared initial operational capability status for Northrop Grumman’s Common Infrared Countermeasures technology that is designed to provide protection from shoulder-fired and vehicle-launched anti-aircraft missile threats.
CIRCM is now available for installation on more than 1,500 Army aircraft and has met the IOC requirements for four helicopter variants: the UH-60M, HH-60M, CH-47F and AH-64E, the company said Thursday.
“CIRCM’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,” said Bob Gough, vice president of navigation, targeting and survivability at Northrop.
In 2021, the service branch cleared the CIRCM system for full-rate production. Northrop has so far delivered over 350 systems to the Army and equipped over 100 aircraft with the technology.