NASHUA, N.H. Lockheed Martin officials in Bethesda, Maryland, needed a trusted industry partner to help ensure the readiness of critical electronic warfare (EW) systems on the company’s F-35 Lightning II military fighter aircraft. BAE Systems in Nashua, New Hampshire, won a five-year contract to manage the supply chain and establish the infrastructure necessary to keep systems mission-capable and readily available to warfighters.
The EW suite for the F-35, called the AN/ASQ-239 system, provides the pilot with situational awareness and protects the aircraft with advanced technology for critical missions. Advanced avionics and sensors provide a real-time, 360-degree view of the battlespace, helping to maximize detection ranges and provide the pilot with options to evade, engage, counter, or jam threats.
Under the contract, BAE Systems will maintain regional warehouses with on-hand inventories of critical EW components to improve fill rates and reduce wait times, as well as establish various metrics intended to strengthen confidence in the supply chain.
BAE Systems’ AN/ASQ 239 electronic warfare system for the F-35 is an integrated digital solution that provides offensive and defensive EW, radar warning, targeting support, and self-protection.
This F-35 sustainability work is based on performance-based logistics (PBL), a cost-effective, outcome-based support strategy that focuses on system readiness. BAE Systems has more than a decade of PBL experience with the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and multiple public-private partnerships that support U.S. military systems, as well as more than five years of experience with F-35 sustainment and international maintenance support, company officials say.
“As a leader in EW systems for the world’s most advanced aircraft, we understand how critical readiness is for our customers,” says Betsy Warren, director of F-35 Sustainment at BAE Systems Inc. “We’ll ensure that the F-35 EW supply chain is in place for Lockheed Martin and the Department of Defense.”
The AN/ASQ-239 system protects the F-35 with advanced technology for next-generation missions to counter current and emerging threats. Equipped with offensive and defensive electronic warfare (EW) options for the pilot and aircraft, the suite provides integrated radar warning, targeting support, and self-protection, to detect and defeat surface and airborne threats.
The AN/ASQ-239 system collects and processes electromagnetic energy to capture a 360-degree aerial field of view to provide a comprehensive picture of the battlespace. This provides the pilot with maximum situational awareness, helping to identify, monitor, analyze, and rapidly respond to potential threats.
Using advanced avionics and sensors, the systems takes this a step further by detecting and geo-locating electronic emitters to give pilots the option to evade, engage, counter or jam threats.
Always active, AN/ASQ-239 provides all-aspect, broadband protection, allowing the F-35 to reach well-defended targets and suppress enemy radars. The system stands alone in its ability to operate in signal-dense environments, providing the aircraft with radio-frequency and infrared countermeasures, and rapid response capabilities. AN/ASQ-239 is a platform-level solution that provides the F-35 with improved reliability and maintainability, helping reduce long term life cycle costs to keep the aircraft fielded now and into the future.
The AN/ASQ-239 system is an advanced, proven, and cost-effective electronic warfare suite, providing the F-35 with end-to-end capabilities, now and into the future, officials say.
BAE Systems has been providing advanced aviation solutions for aircraft around the world for more than 60 years, and has produced more than 10,000 tactical systems. BAE Systems’ technology is currently flying on more than a dozen platforms.
