The Missile Defense Agency has awarded Northrop Grumman $540.9 million in funding to support the company’s development of the Glide Phase Interceptor, a technology to detect and intercept hypersonic weapons. Work on the weapon countermeasure platform will be performed in Chandler, Arizona, until November 2029, the Department of Defense said Wednesday.
The award of five one-year options was made on the research and development prototype agreement the agency awarded to Northrop in 2021. It brings the total value of the agreement from $291.9 million to $832.8 million.
The MDA serves as the contracting activity.
Hypersonic Weapon Countermeasure
The GPI program is a partnership between the governments of the United States and Japan. The system is expected to detect when a hypersonic missile is launched and then track and engage the weapon in the glide phase of its flight.
Northrop is among the companies designing the weapon countermeasures alongside Raytheon Missiles and Defense and Lockheed Martin.
According to the company, its GPI will fire interceptor missiles from Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense systems on U.S. Navy destroyers and Aegis Ashore, the land-based variant of the combat platform.
US-Japan Partnership
The award comes months after the Department of Defense and the Japan Ministry of Defense finalized a formal GPI cooperative development agreement under the U.S.-Japan bilateral Memorandum of Understanding for Research, Development, Test and Evaluation Projects. Under the agreement, Japan will supply rocket motors and propulsion components of GPI.
The nations expect the development of the technology to strengthen deterrence and enhance the defense posture of the U.S. and Japan.
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