Northrop Grumman has received a contract from the US Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) to deliver eight Joint Threat Emitter (JTE) units.

The $46m delivery order is part of a $450m indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity JTE Enhanced Delivery Initiative contract to deliver JTE systems to the US Air Force (USAF). The contract was secured from the AFLCMC in December last year.

The JTE Enhanced Delivery Initiative includes deliveries to partner nations through the foreign military sales programme.

JTE is a mobile air defence electronic warfare threat simulation and training system. It can be used by the USAF to replicate surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery threats for aircrew training exercises.

Northrop Grumman C4ISR land and avionics vice-president James Conroy said: “JTE is critical to the success of the US military and our international allies. The system ensures aircrews are better equipped to identify and effectively counter the most advanced enemy missile and artillery threats.”



The company will deliver eight wide-band variants of the threat emitter unit for training ranges across the country and certain overseas sites. The order also includes retrofit kits for some existing systems.

The latest award will mark the second set of JTE systems to be delivered internationally. Northrop will carry out the contracted work in Buffalo, US.

“Using JTE, combat aircrews can train to defeat or avoid Integrated Air Defense Systems (IADS) in training environment similar to the battlefield.”

The USAF has deployed 30 of these systems both within the country and around the world.

JTE is intended to provide a modern, reactive battlespace war environment and can be rapidly reprogrammed with new threat parameters, Northrop noted.

The system will enable the service to train military personnel to identify and counter enemy missile or artillery threats.

Furthermore, the system has the ability to offer multi-threat training and IFF tracking system.

Using JTE, combat aircrews can train to defeat or avoid Integrated Air Defense Systems (IADS) in training environment similar to the battlefield.