Inside Frequency Control

Raytheon's Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) has been under development now since 2013. In 2016 the US Navy awarded the company a 1 billion dollar engineering and manufacturing development contract for the NGJ system slated to replace the ALQ-99 legacy systems used in the EA-18G electronic attack aircraft.

There is an old pearl of wisdom which claims that necessity is the mother of invention and nowhere is that truer than in the history of warfare, and especially electronic warfare. New military technology is always followed by innovative countermeasures developed specifically to defend against the new threat. In the case of electronic warfare, defensive measures quickly evolved into new offensive and intelligence gathering technologies.

The following interview was originally featured on NewSpace People, a website dedicated to covering the leadership and business of the 'New Space' industry. 

In this interview, Bliley's Director of Business Development Darshan Shah discusses some of our most recent (and exciting) projects, as well as what we've got in store for the next few years. 

The introduction of reliable, long-range radar systems during World War II represented a fundamental change in the nature of warfare. For the first time, it was possible for friendly forces to see the enemy from a distance without being detected— an incredible advantage. Naturally, the emergence of a new technological innovation motivated other parties to find ways to counter it, leading to the development of radar jamming and other deception technologies.

In this article, we will discuss jamming and deception in detail, and how innovations like the Next Generation Jammer are shaping the next chapter in the electronic warfare arms race.

When radar was first used in combat, it represented what is known as a “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA), a term used to describe a tactical, doctrinal, strategic, or in this case, technological change in military theory and activity that fundamentally changes the nature of warfare. World War II saw the first widespread use of radar on both sides of a conflict, and led to the emergence of electronic warfare as a method of counteracting the other side’s radar abilities while defending the friendly use of the electromagnetic spectrum. This competition spawned the evolution of many different radar functions for specialized applications. This article will explore various types of radar systems that exist and the functions they serve.

In Part 1 of our series on COTS components for space applications, we discussed why the government is increasingly turning to “commercial off the shelf” parts for spacecraft, satellites and more. COTS parts have already been successfully adopted in many military applications, but when it comes to space, COTS adoption has been much slower.