Northrop Grumman Corporation has delivered the AN/SLQ-32(V)7 Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block 3 Engineering and Development Model (EDM) to the U.S. Navy for land-based testing.
The official transfer was marked at an event with company and Navy program officials at Northrop Grumman’s systems integration facility in Baltimore, Maryland, Northrop Grumman announced.
“The AN/SLQ-32(V)7 EDM delivery to the U.S. Navy for continued government land-based testing following formal qualification testing is a significant achievement for the SEWIP Block 3 program,” said Captain Jason Hall, the Navy’s Major Program Manager of Above Water Sensors and Lasers. “SEWIP Block 3 provides a critical electronic warfare capability to the Fleet to pace the evolving anti-ship missile threat.”
Northrop Grumman successfully completed SEWIP Block 3 system integration and formal qualification testing as part of the engineering, manufacturing and development contract. This milestone indicates that the system is ready to transition to the U.S. Navy for formal land-based testing at the Naval Sea Systems Command Surface Combat Systems Center in Wallops Island, Virginia.
“This delivery represents the next step in a multi-year effort to take SEWIP from the laboratory to the hands of the warfighter,” said Mike Meaney, vice president, land and maritime sensors, Northrop Grumman. “Providing the comprehensive hardware-defined, software-enabled system to the Navy proves out the final design and signifies the end of the engineering, manufacturing and development phase.”
What’s SEWIP?
The Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block 3 is an upgrade to the legacy AN/SLQ-32 system, and provides game-changing capability for non-kinetic electronic attack options to the U.S. fleet. The advantage of this electronic attack system is that it provides an unlimited, non-kinetic, soft-kill magazine to defeat inbound threats.
The AN/SLQ-32(V)7 SEWIP Block 3 system protects surface ships from anti-ship missiles, providing early detection, signal analysis and threat warning.
Northrop Grumman was awarded the follow-on production contract with the U.S. Navy in September 2020. The program is managed by the U.S. Navy Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS).
Northrop Grumman’s SEWIP Block 3 system is inherently multifunction, creating an expanded mission set to defeat emergent threats and support the US Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) CONOPS. To keep pace with the rapid advances in technology, SEWIP Block 3 has an open, software-defined architecture that can today enable communication enhancements and Information Operations, as well as support future upgrades such as Cognitive EW and AI/Machine Learning.
Check out Naval Library App to find out the specifications of AN-SLQ 32 EW System.
