Miles Jamison
General Dynamics Mission Systems announced Tuesday that it had been chosen by the U.S. Air Force to be the single developer for the Next Generation Survival Radio program via an early down-select process.
Prototyping Effort
The company is the recipient of one of two firm-fixed price Other Transaction Authority contracts issued by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center in February for the NGSR program. Following its down-selection, the General Dynamics business unit will continue work on the $22.2 million effort, which calls for the delivery of 50 prototype radios by December 2025.
The prototyping phase will be followed by an 18-month integration, test and certification phase set to begin in January 2026. That, in turn, may be followed by low-rate initial production then full-rate production, with NGSR fielding expected by June 2027.
NGSR Program
The NGSR program is intended to modernize the legacy Combat Survivor Evader Locator architecture. The Air Force intends to develop a new search and rescue radio with enhanced capabilities to support the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency combat search and rescue missions.
The NGSR will feature secure, end-to-end communications necessary to locate, authenticate and communicate with isolated personnel. The program is expected to produce around 48,000 units of the survival radio to be used by all military services.
“We leveraged 40-plus years of experience in combat search and rescue radios as well as significant investments in usability and resiliency features to overcome emerging near-peer threats,” said Rachel Oberc, vice president of network and communication systems at General Dynamics Mission Systems. “We are proud to deliver a software-defined radio that operates effectively in anti-access and area-denied environments to rescue downed personnel.”
