BAE Systems to supply EW pods to protect US Navy P-8As

BAE Systems Inc in Nashua, New Hampshire, has received a US$95 million ($142 million) contract from the US Navy for advanced Electronic Warfare (EW) countermeasure pods to protect the P-8A Poseidon Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft from missiles and other threats. The EW pod detects and counters inbound threats, expanding the aircraft’s operating range in contested environments.

The company’s survivability pod provides early threat detection and effective countermeasures to protect US and international high-value airborne assets. The system’s flexible, open architecture design allows rapid and affordable modernization, is compatible with future threat-detection and decoy countermeasure capabilities and can host third-party EW techniques.

Electronic Warfare is one of six Advanced Capabilities listed as a priority under AUKUS Pillar 2. Six air forces, including the RAAF, already fly the P-8A Poseidon and another three have selected it.

“We’re working closely with the US Navy to deliver innovative solutions to protect this critical, high-value aircraft,” said Don Davidson, director of Advanced Compact Electronic Warfare Solutions at BAE Systems. “We quickly prototyped a very capable system using proven technology to defend against air-to-air and surface-to-air guided threats.”

The engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) contract follows a rapid-response contract from the US Navy to demonstrate the system in 2021, the company says. The BAE Systems team designed, built, and tested a demonstration pod, exhibiting strong military-industry collaboration and rapid prototyping. The EMD contract follows successful airworthiness and effectiveness testing.

The P-8A self-protection pod is part of BAE Systems’ Intrepid Shield layered approach to aircraft and ground platform survivability that uses the full electromagnetic spectrum to detect, exploit, and counter advanced threats. The pod can be rapidly adapted for other high-value airborne assets, enabling them to operate in contested environments.