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Northrop (NOC) Wins Deal to Support AESA Radars for F-16 Jets

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Northrop Grumman Corp.’s (NOC - Free Report) business unit, Northrop Grumman Systems, recently clinched a modification contract to procure Active Electronically Scanned Array (“AESA”) radars for F-16 aircraft. The award has been offered by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH.

Valued at $99.4 million, the contract is expected to get completed by Jul 31, 2025. Per the terms of the deal, Northrop will procure 42 production radars, one initial spare kit and two readiness spare kits.

The work related to this deal will be executed in Linthicum Heights, MD.

A Brief Note on AESA

AESA, also known as active phased-array radar, is a type of radar whose transmitter and receiver functions are composed of numerous small solid-state transmit/receive modules. These radars help aircraft pilots gain more detection range, providing "first detect" for air-to-air engagements and enabling the first shoot/first kill by missiles fired through the Beyond Visual Range mode.

Per management, Northrop has been at the forefront of AESA innovations for more than 60 years and currently offers more proven and affordable AESA solutions than anyone else. This has enabled the company to be one of the top leaders in multi-mission radar solutions from the sea to outer space.

Growth Prospects

Per the Fortune Business Insights firm, the global military radar market is expected to reach $22.1 billion by 2028 at a CAGR of 6.3% from 2021. Such growth projections for the aforementioned market should benefit prominent radar manufacturers like Northrop, Raytheon Technologies (RTX - Free Report) , Lockheed Martin (LMT - Free Report) and L3Harris Technologies (LHX - Free Report) .

Raytheon’s product portfolio consists of varied radars like integrated air and missile defense radars, ballistic missile radars, surveillance radars and air dominance radars. Radars like AN-SPY 6, AN-TPY-2, APG-79 and APG-82 are some of its combat-proven products that enjoy solid demand in the global military radar market.

Raytheon boasts a long-term earnings growth rate of 9.5%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for RTX’s 2022 sales implies an improvement of 4.3% from the 2021 reported figure.   

Among Lockheed Martin’s notable radar portfolio, the significant ones include SPY-7, the AN/TPQ-53 radar system and the AN/APY-9 radar.

Lockheed boasts a long-term earnings growth rate of 6.2%. LMT’s stock has rallied 39.4% in the past year.  

Meanwhile, L3Harris is the manufacturing company for the AN/SPS-48G naval radar, Symphony Airfield Radar Systems, Tactical Air Surveillance radars and a few more.

L3 Harris boasts a long-term earnings growth rate of 2.7%. LHX’s stock has risen 1.4% in the past year.

Price Movement

Shares of Northrop have rallied 45.3% in the past year against the industry’s decline of 6.6%.

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Zacks Rank

Northrop currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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