Raytheon to revive work on "flying blackout"

Raytheon Missile Systems has been awarded a $4.8 million contract to revive work on what has been called a “flying blackout” — an advanced electronic jamming system fitted on the Air Force’s conventionally armed air-launched cruise missile.

The system, known as Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile or CHAMP, is designed to disable enemy electronic systems with a high-powered pulse of electromagnetic energy, targeting specific sites from miles away.

Under the Air Force contract, Raytheon Missile Systems’ Ktech business unit, based in Albuquerque, will refurbish the CHAMP payload and a pair of cruise missiles. Raytheon said the contract is the first major CHAMP activity since a successful 2012 test.

CHAMP was jointly developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and Boeing with critical components produced by Raytheon.

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In 2012, the system was successfully tested aboard an AGM-86 Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile, knocking out all the computers in a target building.

Last year the Air Force said it would look to incorporate the technology on Lockheed Martin’s long-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range.

The CHAMP industry team includes Boeing, which also makes the cruise missile, and Sandia National Laboratories, Raytheon noted.

Raytheon developed and makes the Miniature Air-Launched Decoy, or MALD, an air-launched craft that mimics the radar signature of jet fighters and can include electronic jamming capabilities.