By: Nigel Pittaway
MELBOURNE, Australia, and WASHINGTON — A senior Northrop Grumman executive has forecast that the company’s footprint in Australia is set to double over the next three years, as it ramps up a major regional F-35 component repair and overhaul center and seeks further Australian Defence Force contracts.
MELBOURNE, Australia, and WASHINGTON — A senior Northrop Grumman executive has forecast that the company’s footprint in Australia is set to double over the next three years, as it ramps up a major regional F-35 component repair and overhaul center and seeks further Australian Defence Force contracts.
Speaking at the company’s information systems headquarters in McLean, Virginia, Chief Executive of Northrop Grumman Australia Ian Irving said the company sees significant near-term opportunities in a number of major Australian defense acquisition projects, which are expected to progress this year.
“This is going to be a tremendous year for us; it really is the year for Australia. There are five major projects in which we are likely to participate in the first eight months of the year, in addition to assisting the commonwealth with their Triton cooperation program with the US Navy,” Irving said. “We should also be in a position to sign two big, new contracts by the end of the year as well.”
The programs are the Defence Enterprise Resource Plan (ERP); Defence ISR Integration Backbone (DIIP, Joint Project (JP) 2096); Core Simulation Capability (CSimC, JP9711); Ground-Based Air and Missile Defence (Land 19 Phase 7B); Joint Battle Management System (Air 6500); and the already-announced acquisition of at least seven MQ-4C Triton unmanned maritime surveillance platforms (Air 7000 Phase 1B).
The 2016 Australian Defence White Paper forecast the acquisition of Triton around the turn of the decade. Australia is also seeking to partner with the US Navy on the development of the Triton Multi-INT version, which is due to enter service in 2021.
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