WASHINGTON - Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. has received a $46.1 million U.S. Navy contract modification to procure Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare (JCREW) Increment One Block One (I1B1) systems, retrofit kits and spares, continuing production and sustainment of a software-defined electronic warfare architecture that also has evolved to address small uncrewed aircraft systems.
The $46,089,540 firm-fixed-price modification to previously awarded contract N00024-24-C-6400 also includes $4.2 million in incremental funding for engineering support services and other direct costs. The award includes $15.9 million in Foreign Military Sales funding for Australia, with additional funding coming from Navy and Air Force procurement, operations and maintenance, and Navy research, development, test and evaluation accounts. Work will be performed in Beaverton, Ore., and San Diego and is expected to be completed by December 2028.
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RF threat mitigation
JCREW I1B1 is a family of electronic warfare systems designed to detect and defeat radio-controlled improvised explosive devices. The system is available in mounted, dismounted, and fixed-site configurations and uses common hardware and software across the variants.
The Navy says JCREW uses open-architecture hardware, upgradable software and firmware, and a government-owned technical data package. JCREW I1B1 achieved full operational capability in July 2023 and is employed by the U.S. Navy and Air Force and by Australia and New Zealand.
JCREW also has evolved to address the growing small-UAS threat. Northrop Grumman describes DRAKE as the counter-small-UAS capability of the JCREW family, providing detection and non-kinetic effects against drones. JCREW/DRAKE systems share common hardware and software across mounted, dismounted, and fixed-site configurations and can operate independently or coordinate with command-and-control systems.
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Northrop said DRAKE became its own Navy program of record under the Program Executive Office Unmanned and Small Combatants, Expeditionary Missions Program Office, in April 2024. The company also announced a JCREW/DRAKE 2.0 follow-on production award in 2024, describing upgrades that included increased signal processing and frequency range, greater instantaneous bandwidth and a more capable user interface.
The latest contract modification specifically identifies the systems being procured as JCREW I1B1 and does not identify them as DRAKE or DRAKE 2.0. The award continues production, retrofit, and engineering-support activity surrounding the JCREW architecture as the Navy and its partners maintain an electronic warfare capability against evolving radio frequency threats.
The Portfolio Acquisition Executive Maritime, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
